*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
[Mumia's Birthday was April 24...bw]
Birthday Message of Thanks to the Movement
By Mumia Abu-Jamal
It may surprise you that for years I did not celebrate a birthday. Now, that's partly because of the everydayness, sameness of prison. It's also because I really didn't remember the day. And I was often surprised by a card from my mother, or from my children, or my wife. They surprised me that they remembered. Of course, that was years ago. But the freedom movement has grown. So has the significance of that movement; for the movement has kept me alive and engaged in struggle. For that, I thank you all. That's because movements can make social change. Some years ago, many years ago, the anthropologist Margaret Meade said, "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." Here's the magic, it's that we were there. I thank you for all you have done and all you intend to do. I love you all. On the Move! Build the movement! From Death Row, this is Mumia Abu-Jamal.
-Prisonradio.org, April 24, 2010
http://www.prisonradio.org/audio/mumia/2010MAJ/04Apr10/April24thMessage2010fromMumia.mp3
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Bay Area United Against War Newsletter
Table of Contents:
A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS
B. SPECIAL APPEALS, VIDEOS AND ONGOING CAMPAIGNS
C. ARTICLES IN FULL
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
SF Workers Memorial Day
Stand Up For Injured Workers
& Commemorate Workers Killed On The Job
Wed April 28, 7:00 PM
ILWU Local 34 2nd St./Embarcadero SF
Speakers:
Shiela Davis, Executive Director Silicon Valley Toxic Coalition
Mike Daly, Ironworkers Local 377* delegate to San Francisco Labor Council
Leuren Moret, Geo-scientist who worked at the Livermore nuclear weapons lab
Carol Criss, SEIU-UHW Kaiser Steward Transcriptionist
Roland Sheppard, Retired BA Painters Local 4
Dina Padilla, Injured Worker Advocate
Becky McClain, Injure Pfizer Molecular Biologist by telephone
Sandy Trend, mother of injured Agraquest injured biotech worker David Bell
Workers in the bay area and nationally continue to get injured and killed on the job. In California, OSHA inspectors have been threatened and retaliated against for speaking out about the decline of the agency and the failure of the agency to do a proper job protecting injured workers and the public. Additionally all the OSHA doctors for California's 17 million workers have also been terminated thereby threatening the safety of workers and the public. There are more CA Fish and Game Inspectors than Ca-OSHA inspectors and this needs to change.
Hundreds of NUMMI injured workers who have been on disability are also now being discriminated against by the company and treated as 2nd class workers in the compensation plan. Is this fair? Many of these workers have given decades of their lives to the company yet they are now being punished for being disabled. This is cost shifting since their healthcare will now be paid for by the State and SSI when they go on permanent disability. This is yet another example of cost shifting by the corporations making the tax payer pay for their liabilities.
Workers Memorial Day is held every year to commemorate those workers killed and injured on the job. The deregulation of workers compensation has also allowed employers and the insurance industry to deny seriously injured workers prompt healthcare and also has cut the permanent disability payments by 50% as well as completely eliminating retraining.
There is a national struggle to strengthen OSHA protection called the Protecting America's Workers Act H.R. 2067 needs to be supported and also to require that all injured workers are entitled to their exposure records on the job. Health and safety must trump privacy/secrecy laws.
We also support H.R. 635 which will create a US Commission on State Workers Compensation Laws and will study the affect of deregulation for injured workers in the U.S. At the same time, OSHA plans to remove some chemical warnings on exposure limits for workers.
We need to educate and reactivate the labor movement to protect our lives and health and safety in the workplace. Please join with workers and their families at this memorial meeting and speak out and demand healthcare and justice for all workers and people in the community.
California Coalition For Workers Memorial Day CCWMD
www.workersmemorialday.org
(415) 867-0628
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
There will be an important meeting at ILWU Local 10 to organize support for the 600 Boron miners, now locked out in the Mojave Desert by global mining giant Rio Tinto for nearly 3 months. This solidarity committee will be similar to ones organized in the Bay Area in the past to support the ILWU in the 2002 employer lockout, the Charleston 5 defense committee, the sacked Liverpool dockers and the anti-apartheid struggle. Members of all ILWU locals and retirees are invited to participate as well as other union members, antiwar activists and May Day organizers. The ILWU miners' struggle is at a critical stage and solidarity actions at this point could turn the tide in favor of the union. The alternative would be a defeat not only for a local of arguably the most militant union in this country, but could become another PATCO, spreading dire consequences for the rest of the ILWU and organized labor. Please make every effort to attend. Victory to the Boron miners!
TIME: 7 PM, WEDNESDAY APRIL 28
PLACE: ILWU LOCAL 10, Henry Schmidt room
400 North Point St.
San Francisco
In solidarity,
Jack Heyman
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Protest on International Workers' Day
Full Rights for Undocumented Workers
Legalization/Amnesty for All!
Money for Jobs and Education, Not War and Occupation
Jobs for All!
No Budget Cuts or Fee Hikes
Tax the Rich and Corporations!
March and Rally
Saturday May 1, 12noon
March Assembles: 24th and Mission Sts., SF
Sponsored by the May Day 2010 Coalition, of which the ANSWER Coalition is a member.
Proteste durante el Día Internacional del Trabajador
¡Derechos Incondicionales para Trabajadores Indocumentados
Legalización/Amnistía para todos!
¡Dinero Para Trabajos y Educación, No para Guerra y Ocupación
Trabajos para todos!
¡No Recortes o Aumentos-Cobren a los Ricos y Corporaciones!
Marcha y Mitin
Sab. 1º de Mayo, 12pm
Uniéndose sobre la calle 24 y Misión, SF
Patrocinado por la Coalición Día de Mayo 2010, la cual la Coalición ANSWER es un participante.
A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
Act Now to Stop War & End Racism
http://www.ANSWERcoalition.org
http://www.answersf.org
answer@answersf.org
2489 Mission St. Rm. 24
San Francisco: 415-821-6545
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Please post and distribute widely -
A message from the Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal -
Accusing Cop Is a No-Show, But...
Holly Works Still Faces A Felony Frame-up!
An Injury To One Is An Injury To All -
DROP ALL CHARGES AGAINST HOLLY WORKS!
Holly's Trial Continued to May 10th.
Demonstrate & Attend Holly's Trial!
Monday, May 10, 2010
8 AM - demonstrate to drop the charges!
9 AM - attend Holly's trial
Alameda County Courthouse
12th and Oak St, Oakland CA
Holly Works is the last remaining defendant of the "Oakland 100," who were the victims of a vicious and arbitrary police crackdown against the protests in Oakland over the police murder of Oscar Grant, on New Years Day, 2009. (More on Oscar Grant, see below)
Holly's trial was to have begun on April 5th, but the officer, Christopher Cox, who accused Holly of assaulting him with a deadly weapon, apparently had more important things to do on April 5th than repeat this blatant lie in court. He was a no-show!
But, instead of tossing out this garbage "case" when the cop failed to appear, the judge promptly "continued" it to May 10th.
A local musician, bakery worker and activist, Holly was walking with a friend in Oakland in January 2009, to the protest against the police murder of Oscar Grant. But... She was arrested before she even arrived at the protest, and at least an hour before the protest had started! She was detained and fraudulently charged with... assault with a deadly weapon on a police officer!
Originally charged with assaulting the cop with a knife, Holly had no knife, and so a convenient change was made. Since she happened to have a screw driver in her purse, Holly was accused of using this to assault the officer.
A total fabrication! The charge against Holly was made up by the police on the spot, right in front of her! Later, while sitting in a police van, Holly overheard cops on the radio discussing what excuses to use to arrest people in the upcoming protest.
The purpose of the Oakland 100 prosecutions was to tie up protesters with time-consuming prosecutions, and intimidate and silence opposition. Holly particularly was victimized partly in order to blame violence on out-of-town white radicals, "anarchists," etc., who it is said came into Oakland to make trouble. But Holly is a local Oakland activist! She was walking from her home, just a few blocks away from where she was arrested. And she didn't do anything!
Holly in auto accident! Meanwhile, Holly was the victim in an auto accident last Saturday, April 10th. The other driver admitted fault at the scene, but Holly suffered severe whiplash, her head hit the windshield, and her car was totaled. Treated and released at Highland Hospital, she's OK, but... let's send her a little love!
Donate to Holly's Defense! Send Holly a little love, and solidarity, by donating to her defense against the felony frame-up she still faces. She has a good lawyer, but little money to pay him. Donations can be made by Pay Pal at Holly's web site:
www.supportholly.org. Donate to the defense of Holly (Works) Noll at this site. Please be as generous as you can!
Oscar Grant was a young black retail grocery worker in Oakland, and the father of a young daughter. He was out with friends for New Years Eve, 2009, when he and some others were detained by BART police. He was shot in the back at point blank range by a BART cop, as he lay face-down on the Fruitvale station platform early in the morning.
Cell-phone videos taken of the incident by witnesses on the station platform were posted on the internet, and protests erupted in Oakland. Over a week later, the officer, Johannes Mehserle, was finally charged with murder. He was one of the very few police officers ever to be charged with murder in one of the huge number of killings of black males by police in California. Mehserle was granted a change of venue, and is now being tried in Los Angeles.
DROP ALL CHARGES AGAINST HOLLY WORKS!
- The Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
PO Box 16222 • Oakland CA 94610 • 510 763-2347
www.laboractionmumia.org. 12 April 2010
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
CIRCLE THESE DATES!!
Announcing...
A National Conference
To Bring the Troops Home Now!
JULY 23, 24, 25, 2010
Crowne Plaza Hotel, Albany, New York
www.nationalpeaceconference.org
AN INVITATION FROM: After Downing Street, Arab American Union Members Council, Black Agenda Report, Campaign for Peace and Democracy, Campus Antiwar Network, Code Pink, Iraq Veterans Against the War, National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations, Peace of the Action, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Progressive Democrats of America, U.S. Labor Against the War, The Fellowship of Reconciliation, Veterans for Peace, Voices for Creative Nonviolence, and Women's International League for Peace and Freedom [list in formation]
We demand the immediate and total withdrawal of U.S. military forces, mercenaries and contractors from Afghanistan and Iraq. Moreover, we recognize that the Middle East cauldron today also encompasses Iran, Pakistan, Yemen, Palestine and Israel, while Haiti, Honduras, Colombia, Venezuela, Cuba and other countries in Latin America are targeted for intervention, subversion, occupation and control as a consequence of a militarized U.S. foreign policy. Our challenge is not only to end wars and occupations, but to fundamentally change the aggressive policies that inevitably lead our country to militarism and war.
Join us in Albany, New York, July 23-25, 2010!
Issued by the United National Antiwar Conference (UNAC) Planning Committee
For more information, write UNAC2010@aol.com, or UNAC at P.O. Box 21675, Cleveland, OH 44121 or call 518-227-6947 or visit our website at www.nationalpeaceconference.org
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
B. SPECIAL APPEALS, VIDEOS AND ONGOING CAMPAIGNS
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Shame on Arizona
Arizona Governor Jan Brewer just signed a law that will authorize officers to pull over, question, and detain anyone they have a "reasonable suspicion" to believe is in this country without proper documentation. It's legalized racial profiling, and it's an affront on all of our civil rights, especially Latinos. It's completely unacceptable.
Join us in letting Arizona's leaders know how we feel, and that there will be consequences. A state that dehumanizes its own people does not deserve our economic support
"As long as racial profiling is legal in Arizona, I will do what I can to not visit the state and to avoid spending dollars there."
Sign Petition Here:
http://presente.org/campaigns/shame?populate=1
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
URGENT: Support the Fight of Florida Students & Teachers Against Privatization of Public Schools and Resegregation and the Assignment of Students and Teachers in Black and Latina/o Areas to Permanent, Legal, Second-Class Status
Over 1500 Miami/Dade Teachers staged a sick-out and rally today (Monday, April 12) to demand that Governor Crist veto Senate Bill 6.
"If passed, this law will hasten the privatization of public education and the proliferation of charters in Florida, penalize teachers who teach the least privileged students and punish students who perform poorly on standardized tests (particularly English language learners) by withholding a high school diploma from even those who have earned the highest grades," said Ceresta Smith, a teacher from Dade County.
The 1500 teachers who called in sick assembled in Tropical Park, where they were joined by an additional 2500 supporters, including parents, students and community members.
"If passed, SB6 would assign both teachers and students in black and Latino areas to a permanent, legal, second-class status. In the south, where many charters are all white, the charter school movement has increased segregation - SB6 would accelerate this trend by widening the doors to publicly funded, privately-operated schools such as those that the segregationists founded in the 1950's to avoid the mandate of integration ordered by Brown v. Board of Education," said Shanta Driver, spokesperson for BAMN (By Any Means Necessary), the civil rights organization that sponsored a March on Washington to Defend Public Education last Saturday, and is supporting the fight of Florida teachers.
The teachers plan to caravan to Tallahassee later this week to protest at the Governor's office.
For more information and to support and build the movement, contact BAMN National Coordinator Donna Stern 313-468-3398 or letters@bamn.com.
Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration, and Immigrant Rights and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary (BAMN) (313) 468-3398 letters@bamn.com
Equal Opportunity Now (NOW) Caucus
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Greetings All:
This letter was written by Yuri Kochiyama who has asked us to spread this letter far and wide. Please do :).
Kiilu
---
March 1, 2010
Dear Friends of Mumia Abu Jamal:
Mumia's birthday is April 24 and we would like to celebrate the whole month of April with a gigantic Freedom Birthday Remembrance for Mumia Abu Jamal.
Please join Pam and Ramona Africa and all who love and admire Mumia by avalanching him through the month of April with Freedom Birthday wishes. And, to those who can afford to, please send a few dollars through postal money orders. This would be helpful when he is released.
Mail cards to:
Mumia Abu Jamal AM 8335
SCI Greene
175 Progress Drive
Waynesburg, PA 15370-8090
Tell your family members, friends, fellow workers, neighbors, classmates, etc. Also, notify progressive radio stations, newspapers and organizations. Please do so immediately as April is almost upon us. Remember what Mumia has endured at the hands of the U.S. government and the Pennsylvania criminal justice system. Mumia has already done 32 years and is still on death row because of prosecutorial misconduct. Yet he is innocent! Act now before it is too late.
Don't let Mumia become another victim of a government's destructive history. Mumia's life is in peril and must be saved. He is needed to teach us how to fight for a better world for all. If ever Mumia was needed, it is now!
Join us in celebrating Mumia's birthday throughout April and let it be a celebration for Mumia's freedom!
Remember we need him more than he needs us. We need him, not only for today, but for all the tomorrows coming. Join us. Write to Mumia now.
From Friends and Family of Mumia Abu Jamal
Birthday Message of Thanks to the Movement
By Mumia Abu-Jamal
It may surprise you that for years I did not celebrate a birthday. Now, that's partly because of the everydayness, sameness of prison. It's also because I really didn't remember the day. And I was often surprised by a card from my mother, or from my children, or my wife. They surprised me that they remembered. Of course, that was years ago. But the freedom movement has grown. So has the significance of that movement; for the movement has kept me alive and engaged in struggle. For that, I thank you all. That's because movements can make social change. Some years ago, many years ago, the anthropologist Margaret Meade said, "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." Here's the magic, it's that we were there. I thank you for all you have done and all you intend to do. I love you all. On the Move! Build the movement! From Death Row, this is Mumia Abu-Jamal.
-Prisonradio.org, April 24, 2010
http://www.prisonradio.org/audio/mumia/2010MAJ/04Apr10/April24thMessage2010fromMumia.mp3
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Please sign the petition to stop the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal and
and forward it to all your lists.
"Mumia Abu-Jamal and The Global Abolition of the Death Penalty"
http://www.petitiononline.com/Mumialaw/petition.html
(A Life In the Balance - The Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal, at 34, Amnesty Int'l, 2000; www. Amnesty.org/en/library/info/AMR51/001/2000.)
[Note: This petition is approved by Mumia Abu-Jamal and his lead attorney, Robert R. Bryan, San Francisco (E-mail: MumiaLegalDefense@gmail.com; Website: www.MumiaLegalDefense.org).]
Committee To Save Mumia Abu-Jamal
P.O. Box 2012
New York, NY 10159-2012
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Donations for Mumia's Legal Defense in the U.S. Our legal effort is the front line of the battle for Mumia's freedom and life. His legal defense needs help. The costs are substantial for our litigation in the U.S. Supreme Court and at the state level. To help, please make your checks payable to the National Lawyers Guild Foundation indicate "Mumia" on the bottom left). All donations are tax deductible under the Internal Revenue Code, section 501c)3), and should be mailed to:
It is outrageous and a violation of human rights that Mumia remains in prison and on death row. His life hangs in the balance. My career has been marked by successfully representing people facing death in murder cases. I will not rest until we win Mumia's case. Justice requires no less.
With best wishes,
Robert R. Bryan
Lead counsel for Mumia Abu-Jamal
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Collateral Murder
[COLD-BLOODED, OUTRIGHT MURDER OF UNARMED CIVILIANS--AND THEY LAUGH ABOUT IT AS THEY SHOOT! THIS IS A BLOOD-CURTLING, VIOLENT AND BRUTAL VIDEO THAT SHOULD BE VIEWED BY EVERYONE! IT EXPOSES, AS MARTIN LUTHER KING SAID, "THE BIGGEST PURVEYORS OF VIOLENCE IN THE WORLD," THE U.S. BI-PARTISAN GOVERNMENT AND THE MILITARY THEY COMMAND. --BW]
Overview
5th April 2010 10:44 EST WikiLeaks has released a classified US military video depicting the indiscriminate slaying of over a dozen people in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad -- including two Reuters news staff.
Reuters has been trying to obtain the video through the Freedom of Information Act, without success since the time of the attack. The video, shot from an Apache helicopter gun-site, clearly shows the unprovoked slaying of a wounded Reuters employee and his rescuers. Two young children involved in the rescue were also seriously wounded.
http://www.collateralmurder.com/
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
San Francisco City and County Tramples on Civil Liberties
A Letter to Antiwar Activists
Dear Activists:
On Saturday, March 20, the San Francisco City and County Recreation and Parks Department's Park Rangers patrolled a large public antiwar demonstration, shutting down the distribution of Socialist Viewpoint magazine. The rally in Civic Center Plaza was held in protest of the illegal and immoral U.S. wars against Iraq and Afghanistan, and to commemorate the 7th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The Park Rangers went table-to-table examining each one. They photographed the Socialist Viewpoint table and the person attending it-me. My sister, Debbie and I, had set up the table. We had a sign on the table that asked for a donation of $1.25 for the magazine. The Park Rangers demanded that I "pack it up" and go, because selling or even asking for donations for newspapers or magazines is no longer permitted without the purchase of a new and expensive "vendors license." Their rationale for this denial of free speech is that the distribution of newspapers, magazines, T-shirts-and even food-would make the political protest a "festival" and not a political protest demonstration!
This City's action is clearly a violation of the First Amendment to the Constitution-the right to free speech and freedom of the press-and can't be tolerated.
While they are firing teachers and other San Francisco workers, closing schools, cutting back healthcare access, cutting services to the disabled and elderly, it is outrageous that the Mayor and City Government chose to spend thousands of dollars to police tables at an antiwar rally-a protest demonstration by the people!
We can't let this become the norm. It is so fundamentally anti-democratic. The costs of the permits for the rally, the march, the amplified sound, is already prohibitive. Protest is not a privilege we should have to pay for. It's a basic right in this country and we should reclaim it!
Personally, I experienced a deep feeling of alienation as the crisply-uniformed Park Ranger told me I had to "pack it up"-especially when I knew that they were being paid by the City to do this at this demonstration!
I hope you will join this protest of the violation of the right to distribute and, therefore, the right to read Socialist Viewpoint, by writing or emailing the City officials who are listed below.1
In solidarity,
Bonnie Weinstein, Editorial Board Member, Socialist Viewpoint
www.socialistviewpoint.org
60 - 29th Street, #429
San Francisco, CA 94110
415-824-8730
1 Mayor Gavin Newsom
City Hall, Room 200
1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place
San Francisco, CA 94102
gavin.newsom@sfgov.org
Board of Supervisors
City Hall
1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place, Room 244
San Francisco, Ca 94102-4689
Board.of.supervisors@sfgov.org
San Francisco Recreation & Parks Department Park Rangers
McLaren Lodge & Annex
501 Stanyan Street
San Francisco, CA 94117
Park.patrol@sfgov.org
San Francisco Recreation and Park Commission
501 Stanyan Street
San Francisco, CA 94117
recpark.commission@sfgov.org
Chief of Police George Gascón
850 Bryant Street, #525
San Francisco, CA 94103
(I could not find an email address for him.).
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
FREE LYNNE STEWART NOW!
Lynne Stewart in Jail!
Mail tax free contributions payable to National Lawyers Guild Foundation. Write in memo box: "Lynne Stewart Defense." Mail to: Lynne Stewart Defense, P.O. Box 10328, Oakland, CA 94610.
SEND RESOLUTIONS AND STATEMENTS OF SUPPORT TO DEFENSE ATTORNEY JOSHUA L. DRATEL, ESQ. FAX: 212) 571 3792 AND EMAIL: jdratel@aol.com
SEND PROTESTS TO ATTORNEY GENERAL ERIC HOLDER:
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530-0001
Department of Justice Main Switchboard - 202-514-2000
AskDOJ@usdoj.gov
Office of the Attorney General Public Comment Line - 202-353-1555
To send Lynne a letter, write:
Lynne Stewart
53504-054
MCC-NY
150 Park Row
New York, NY 10007
Lynne Stewart speaks in support of Mumia Abu-Jamal
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOQ5_VKRf5k&feature=related
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Troy Anthony Davis is an African American man who has spent the last 18 years on death row for a murder he did not commit. There is no physical evidence tying him to the crime and seven out of nine witnesses have recanted. New evidence and new testimony have been presented to the Georgia courts, but the justice system refuses to consider this evidence, which would prove Troy Davis' innocence once and for all.
Sign the petition and join the NAACP, Amnesty International USA, and other partners in demanding justice for Troy Davis!
http://www.iamtroy.com/
For Now, High Court Punts on Troy Davis, on Death Row for 18 Years
By Ashby Jones
Wall Street Journal Law Blog
June 30, 2009
http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2009/06/30/for-now-high-court-punts-on-troy-davis-on-death-row-for-18-years/
Take action now:
http://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/siteapps/advocacy/ActionItem.aspx?c=jhKPIXPCIoE&b=2590179&aid=12361&ICID=A0906A01&tr=y&auid=5030305
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Short Video About Al-Awda's Work
The following link is to a short video which provides an overview of Al-Awda's work since the founding of our organization in 2000. This video was first shown on Saturday May 23, 2009 at the fundraising banquet of the 7th Annual Int'l Al-Awda Convention in Anaheim California. It was produced from footage collected over the past nine years.
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTiAkbB5uC0&eurl
Support Al-Awda, a Great Organization and Cause!
Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition, depends on your financial support to carry out its work.
To submit your tax-deductible donation to support our work, go to
http://www.al-awda.org/donate.html and follow the simple instructions.
Thank you for your generosity!
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
KEVIN COOPER IS INNOCENT!
FLASHPOINTS Interview with Innocent San Quentin Death Row Inmate
Kevin Cooper -- Aired Monday, May 18,2009
http://www.flashpoints.net/#GOOGLE_SEARCH_ENGINE
To learn more about Kevin Cooper go to:
savekevincooper.org
LINKS
San Francisco Chronicle article on the recent ruling:
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/05/13/BAM517J8T3.DTL
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling and dissent:
http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2009/05/11/05-99004o.pdf
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
COURAGE TO RESIST!
Support the troops who refuse to fight!
http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/
Donate:
http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/content/view/21/57/
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
C. ARTICLES IN FULL
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
1) The Good, the Bad, and the "Misguided"
By Jayne Lyn Stahl
Created Apr 23 2010 - 9:01pm
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/jayne_lyn_stahl/28226/the_good_the_bad_and_the_misguided
2) Goldman Sachs Messages Show It Thrived as Economy Fell
By LOUISE STORY, SEWELL CHAN and GRETCHEN MORGENSON
April 24, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/25/business/25goldman.html?hp
3) Rating Agency Data Aided Wall Street in Mortgage Deals
By GRETCHEN MORGENSON and LOUISE STORY
April 23, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/24/business/24rating.html?hp
4) Don't Call It 'Pot' in This Circle; It's a Profession
By JESSE McKINLEY
April 23, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/24/us/24pot.html?ref=us
5) Legal Victory Raises Profile of an Atheist Group
By DIRK JOHNSON
April 23, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/24/us/24atheist.html?ref=us
6) Health Care Cost Increase Is Projected for New Law
By ROBERT PEAR
April 23, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/24/health/policy/24health.html?ref=us
7) For School Company, Issues of Money and Control
By STEPHANIE STROM
April 23, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/24/education/24imagine.html?ref=education
8) Schools in New Jersey Plan Heavy Cuts After Voters Reject Most Budgets
By WINNIE HU
April 21, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/22/education/22schools.html?ref=education
9) In Army's Trauma Care Units, Feeling Warehoused
By JAMES DAO and DAN FROSCH
April 24, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/25/health/25warrior.html?hp
10) Last Teacher In, First Out? City Has Another Idea
"...high-stakes battle with the teachers' union to overturn seniority rules..."
By JENNIFER MEDINA
April 24, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/25/education/25seniority.html?ref=education
11) Berating the Raters
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Op-Ed Columnist
April 26, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/26/opinion/26krugman.html?hp
13) Robert Hicks, Leader in Armed Rights Group, Dies at 81
By DOUGLAS MARTIN
April 24, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/25/us/25hicks.html?scp=1&sq=Robert%20Hicks,%20Leader%20in%20Armed%20Rights%20Group,%20Dies%20at%2081&st=cse
14) Greek Debt Rating Cut to 'Junk' Status
By JACK EWING and JACK HEALY
April 27, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/28/business/global/28drachma.html?hp
15) Strict Abortion Measures Enacted in Oklahoma
By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.
April 27, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/28/us/28abortion.html?hp
16) West Bank: Israeli Forces Kill a Hamas Militant
By ISABEL KERSHNER
April 26, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/27/world/middleeast/27briefs-Westbank.html?ref=world
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
1) The Good, the Bad, and the "Misguided"
By Jayne Lyn Stahl
Created Apr 23 2010 - 9:01pm
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/jayne_lyn_stahl/28226/the_good_the_bad_and_the_misguided
In what may be easily called the understatement of the decade so far, President Obama has characterized an Arizona measure that criminalizes undocumented immigration, just signed into law by Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, as "misguided." Frankly, higher octane words come to mind. How about unconstitutional?
In these days of gosh, darn, and heck how better euphemize than with a word like "misguided?" Too bad we don't fire off more "misguided" missiles. And, if language is any indication of purpose, the benign appellation can only spell defeat at the polls for Democrats in November, and beyond
After more than eight years of listening to the likes of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld using terms like "bad guys," it's reassuring to know that the commander-in-chief can master polysyllables, but words with higher testasterone levels are needed to describe a law that just passed in a state that nearly produced our 44th president.
Lest there be some surprise about this latest move by Arizona's Republican governor, keep in mind that Brewer also signed legislation that allows people to carry guns into bars, and a measure that lets Arizona citizens possess concealed weapons without a permit.
Okay, but forget Brewer. What do we know about Russell Pearce, the Arizona state senator who sponsored the bill? Apart from being a conservative Republican who served in the National Guard during the Vietnam War, Pearce's Web site boasts of being a fifth generation Arizonan. But, where did the previous generations of Pearces come from, and could they provide legal documentation that meets citizenship requirements now if called upon to do so?
More importantly, could John Adams provide proof of citizenship that might satisfy the new Arizona state law? If Mahatma Gandhi were to find himself in Tucson on a dark street, would he find himself the target of the kind of reasonable suspicion clause of this new law?
A quick visit to Mr. Pearce's Web site will also show how much he values the Declaration of Independence, and entitlement of all to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." What his Web site neglects to mention is that evidently Pearce also believes the pursuit of happiness must come only with a green card.
What about "maverick" John McCain? Even the incumbent Arizona senator has been outspoken in his support for this law that now enables law enforcement to target anyone suspected of being in the country illegally; whatever "reasonable suspicion" may be.
But, is there a difference between being undocumented, and being illegal? Let's be clear here. You are now a criminal in the state of Arizona if you are stopped by police, and you are unable to produce documents establishing an acceptable citizenship status.
The irony is inescapable considering all the fuss about illegality when it comes to immigrants given that there isn't a peep when it comes to thousands of illegal wiretaps, or substantial evidence that a practice, waterboarding, which has long been considered torture was variously used by interrogators at Guantanamo Bay, in Iraq, and elsewhere.
For a country that was founded with what can only now be called the misguided belief in egalitarianism, it is abundantly clear that it isn't breaking the law that is at stake here, but who's breaking it.
True, this isn't the first draconian immigration legislation passed by a state that is also moving to demand future presidential candidates provide documentation that they were born in the U.S., but it is certainly the most hateful in that, if passed, it will put police officers in the position of immigration officials, a concept that has legal precedent thanks to the USA Patriot Act.
For the better part of two and half centuries, immigration policies have been regulated by the federal government, and not by the states. Surely, the president can find more potent language with which to denounce legalizing profiling by skin color, and under the guise of "questioning," one that enables authorities to harass with the objective of deporting those who lack requisite documentation.
Consider that from 1769 through 1882 according to a Smithsonian Institution exhibit, the U.S. excluded only convicts, prostitutes, idiots, and lunatics. From 1882-1943, Chinese were not allowed to immigrate. In 1885, U.S. immigration mandated that there be "no gangs of cheap laborers," according to a Smithsonian Institution exhibit.
Moreover, from the vantage point of Native Americans, those who came here on the Mayflower were illegals who did more than shoot one Arizona rancher. But, this isn't about crime. This is about jobs, and the Democrats better stand up and stand up fast to show that the furthest thing from the minds of people like John McCain, and Arizona's Republican governor, Jan Brewer, is helping working people. All they care about is saving their own jobs.
For the president, and Democratic leadership, not to speak out now in the strongest possible terms, but instead to pussyfoot around, will be not only a missed opportunity, but professional misconduct.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
2) Goldman Sachs Messages Show It Thrived as Economy Fell
By LOUISE STORY, SEWELL CHAN and GRETCHEN MORGENSON
April 24, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/25/business/25goldman.html?hp
In late 2007 as the mortgage crisis gained momentum and many banks were suffering losses, Goldman Sachs executives traded e-mail messages saying that they were making "some serious money" betting against the housing markets.
The e-mails, released Saturday morning by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, appear to contradict some of Goldman's previous statements that left the impression that the firm lost money on mortgage-related investments.
In the e-mails, Lloyd C. Blankfein, the bank's chief executive, acknowledged in November of 2007 that the firm indeed had lost money initially. But it later recovered from those losses by making negative bets, known as short positions, enabling it to profit as housing prices fell and homeowners defaulted on their mortgages. "Of course we didn't dodge the mortgage mess," he wrote. "We lost money, then made more than we lost because of shorts."
In another message, dated July 25, 2007, David A. Viniar, Goldman's chief financial officer, remarked on figures that showed the company had made a $51 million profit in a single day from bets that the value of mortgage-related securities would drop. "Tells you what might be happening to people who don't have the big short," he wrote to Gary D. Cohn, now Goldman's president.
The messages were released Saturday ahead of a Congressional hearing on Tuesday in which seven current and former Goldman employees, including Mr. Blankfein, are expected to testify. The hearing follows a recent securities fraud complaint that the Securities and Exchange Commission filed against Goldman and one of its employees, Fabrice Tourre, who will also testify on Tuesday.
Actions taken by Wall Street firms during the housing meltdown have become a major factor in the contentious debate over financial reform. The first test of the administration's overhaul effort will come Monday when the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, is to call a procedural vote to try to stop a Republican filibuster.
Republicans have contended that the renewed focus on Goldman stems from Democrats' desire to use anger at Wall Street to push through a financial reform bill.
Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan and head of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, said that the e-mail messages contrast with Goldman's public statements about its trading results. "The 2009 Goldman Sachs annual report stated that the firm 'did not generate enormous net revenues by betting against residential related products,' " Mr. Levin said in a statement Saturday when his office released the documents. "These e-mails show that, in fact, Goldman made a lot of money by betting against the mortgage market."
A Goldman spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Goldman messages connect some of the dots at a crucial moment of Goldman history. They show that in 2007, as most other banks hemorrhaged losses from plummeting mortgage holdings, Goldman prospered.
At first, Goldman openly discussed its prescience in calling the housing downfall. In the third quarter of 2007, the investment bank reported publicly that it had made big profits on its negative bet on mortgages.
But by the end of that year, the firm curtailed disclosures about its mortgage trading results. Its chief financial officer told analysts at the end of 2007 that they should not expect Goldman to reveal whether it was long or short on the housing market. By late 2008, Goldman was emphasizing its losses, rather than its profits, pointing regularly to write-downs of $1.7 billion on mortgage assets and leaving out the amount it made on its negative bets.
Goldman and other firms often take positions on both sides of an investment. Some are long, which are bets that the investment will do well, and some are shorts, which are bets the investment will do poorly. If an investor's positions are balanced - or hedged, in industry parlance - then the combination of the longs and shorts comes out to zero.
Goldman has said that it added shorts to balance its mortgage book, not to make a directional bet that the market would collapse. But the messages released Saturday appear to show that in 2007, at least, Goldman's short bets were eclipsing the losses on its long positions. In May 2007, for instance, Goldman workers e-mailed one another about losses on a bundle of mortgages issued by Long Beach Mortgage Securities. Though the firm lost money on those, a worker wrote, there was "good news": "we own 10 mm in protection." That meant Goldman had enough of a bet against the bond that, over all, it profited by $5 million.
Documents released by the Senate committee appear to indicate that in July 2007, Goldman's daily accounting showed losses of $322 million on positive mortgage positions, but its negative bet - what Mr. Viniar called "the big short" - came in $51 million higher.
As recently as a week ago, a Goldman spokesman emphasized that the firm had tried only to hedge its mortgage holdings in 2007 and said the firm had not been net short in that market.
The firm said in its annual report this month that it did not know back then where housing was headed, a sentiment expressed by Mr. Blankfein the last time he appeared before Congress.
"We did not know at any minute what would happen next, even though there was a lot of writing," he told the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission in January.
It is not known how much money in total Goldman made on its negative housing bets. Only a handful of e-mail messages were released Saturday, and they do not reflect the complete record.
The Senate subcommittee began its investigation in November 2008, but its work attracted little attention until a series of hearings in the last month. The first focused on lending practices at Washington Mutual, which collapsed in 2008, the largest bank failure in American history; another scrutinized deficiencies at several regulatory agencies, including the Office of Thrift Supervision and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.
A third hearing, on Friday, centered on the role that the credit rating agencies - Moody's, Standard & Poor's and Fitch - played in the financial crisis. At the end of the hearing, Mr. Levin offered a preview of the Goldman hearing scheduled for Tuesday.
"Our investigation has found that investment banks such as Goldman Sachs were not market makers helping clients," Mr. Levin said, referring to testimony given by Mr. Blankfein in January. "They were self-interested promoters of risky and complicated financial schemes that were a major part of the 2008 crisis. They bundled toxic and dubious mortgages into complex financial instruments, got the credit-rating agencies to label them as AAA safe securities, sold them to investors, magnifying and spreading risk throughout the financial system, and all too often betting against the financial instruments that they sold, and profiting at the expense of their clients."
The transaction at the center of the S.E.C.'s case against Goldman also came up at the hearings on Friday, when Mr. Levin discussed it with Eric Kolchinsky, a former managing director at Moody's. The mortgage-related security was known as Abacus 2007-AC1, and while it was created by Goldman, the S.E.C. contends that the firm misled investors by not disclosing that it had allowed a hedge fund manager, John A. Paulson, to select mortgage bonds for the portfolio that would be most likely to fail. That charge is at the core of the civil suit it filed against Goldman.
Moody's was hired by Goldman to rate the Abacus security. Mr. Levin asked Mr. Kolchinsky, who for most of 2007 oversaw the ratings of collateralized debt obligations backed by subprime mortgages, if he had known of Mr. Paulson's involvement in the Abacus deal.
"I did not know, and I suspect - I'm fairly sure that my staff did not know either," Mr. Kolchinsky said.
Mr. Levin asked whether details of Mr. Paulson's involvement were "facts that you or your staff would have wanted to know before rating Abacus." Mr. Kolchinsky replied: "Yes, that's something that I would have personally wanted to know."
Mr. Kolchinsky added: "It just changes the whole dynamic of the structure, where the person who's putting it together, choosing it, wants it to blow up."
The Senate announced that it would convene a hearing on Goldman Sachs within a week of the S.E.C.'s fraud suit. Some members of Congress questioned whether the two investigations had been coordinated or linked.
Mr. Levin's staff said there was no connection between the two investigations. They pointed out that the subcommittee requested the appearance of the Goldman executives and employees well before the S.E.C. filed its case.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
3) Rating Agency Data Aided Wall Street in Mortgage Deals
By GRETCHEN MORGENSON and LOUISE STORY
April 23, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/24/business/24rating.html?hp
One of the mysteries of the financial crisis is how mortgage investments that turned out to be so bad earned credit ratings that made them look so good.
One answer is that Wall Street was given access to the formulas behind those magic ratings - and hired away some of the very people who had devised them.
In essence, banks started with the answers and worked backward, reverse-engineering top-flight ratings for investments that were, in some cases, riskier than ratings suggested, according to former agency employees.
The major credit rating agencies, Moody's, Standard & Poor's and Fitch, drew renewed criticism on Friday on Capitol Hill for failing to warn of the dangers posed by complex investments like the one that has drawn Goldman Sachs into a legal whirlwind.
But while the agencies have come under fire before, the extent to which they collaborated with Wall Street banks has drawn less notice.
The rating agencies made public computer models that were used to devise ratings to make the process less secretive. That way, banks and others issuing bonds - companies and states, for instance - wouldn't be surprised by a weak rating that could make it harder to sell the bonds or that would require them to offer a higher interest rate.
But by routinely sharing their models, the agencies in effect gave bankers the tools to tinker with their complicated mortgage deals until the models produced the desired ratings.
"There's a bit of a Catch-22 here, to be fair to the ratings agencies," said Dan Rosen, a member of Fitch's academic advisory board and the chief of R2 Financial Technologies in Toronto. "They have to explain how they do things, but that sometimes allowed people to game it."
There were other ways that the models used to rate mortgage investments like the controversial Goldman deal, Abacus 2007-AC1, were flawed. Like many in the financial community, the agencies had assumed that home prices were unlikely to decline. They also assumed that complex investments linked to home loans drawn from around the nation were diversified, and thus safer.
Both of those assumptions were wrong, and investors the world over lost many billions of dollars. In that Abacus investment, for instance, 84 percent of the underlying bonds were downgraded within six months.
But for Goldman and other banks, a road map to the right ratings wasn't enough. Analysts from the agencies were hired to help construct the deals.
In 2005, for instance, Goldman hired Shin Yukawa, a ratings expert at Fitch, who later worked with the bank's mortgage unit to devise the Abacus investments.
Mr. Yukawa was prominent in the field. In February 2005, as Goldman was putting together some of the first of what would be 25 Abacus investments, he was on a panel moderated by Jonathan M. Egol, a Goldman worker, at a conference in Phoenix.
The next month, Mr. Yukawa joined Goldman, where Mr. Egol was masterminding the Abacus deals. Neither was named in the Securities and Exchange Commission's lawsuit, nor have the rating agencies been accused of wrongdoing related to Abacus.
At Goldman, Mr. Yukawa helped create Abacus 2007-AC1, according to Goldman documents. The safest part of that earned an AAA rating. He worked on other Abacus deals.
Mr. Yukawa, who now works at PartnerRe Asset Management, a money management firm in Greenwich, Conn., did not return requests for comment.
Goldman has said it will fight the accusations from the S.E.C., which claims Goldman built the Abacus investment to fall apart so a hedge fund manager, John A. Paulson, could bet against it. And in response to this article, Goldman said it did not improperly influence the ratings process.
Chris Atkins, a spokesman for Standard & Poor's, noted that the agency was not named in the S.E.C.'s complaint. "S.& P. has a long tradition of analytical excellence and integrity," Mr. Atkins said. "We have also learned some important lessons from the recent crisis and have made a number of significant enhancements to increase the transparency, governance and quality of our ratings."
David Weinfurter, a spokesman for Fitch, said via e-mail that rating agencies had once been criticized as opaque, and that Fitch responded by making its models public. He stressed that ratings were ultimately assigned by a committee, not the models.
Officials at Moody's did not respond to requests for comment.
The role of the rating agencies in the crisis came under sharp scrutiny Friday from the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Members grilled representatives from Moody's and Standard & Poor's about how they rated risky securities. The changes to financial regulation being debated in Washington would put the agencies under increased supervision by the S.E.C.
Carl M. Levin, the Michigan Democrat who heads the Senate panel, said in a statement: "A conveyor belt of high-risk securities, backed by toxic mortgages, got AAA ratings that turned out not to be worth the paper they were printed on."
As part of its inquiry, the panel made public 581 pages of e-mail messages and other documents suggesting that executives and analysts at rating agencies embraced new business from Wall Street, even though they recognized they couldn't properly analyze all of the banks' products.
The documents also showed that in late 2006, some workers at the agencies were growing worried that their assessments and the models were flawed. They were particularly concerned about models rating collateralized debt obligations like Abacus.
According to former employees, the agencies received information about loans from banks and then fed that data into their models. That opened the door for Wall Street to massage some ratings.
For example, a top concern of investors was that mortgage deals be underpinned by a variety of loans. Few wanted investments backed by loans from only one part of the country or handled by one mortgage servicer.
But some bankers would simply list a different servicer, even though the bonds were serviced by the same institution, and thus produce a better rating, former agency employees said. Others relabeled parts of collateralized debt obligations in two ways so they would not be recognized by the computer models as being the same, these people said.
Banks were also able to get more favorable ratings by adding a small amount of commercial real estate loans to a mix of home loans, thus making the entire pool appear safer.
Sometimes agency employees caught and corrected such entries. Checking them all was difficult, however.
"If you dug into it, if you had the time, you would see errors that magically favored the banker," said one former ratings executive, who like other former employees, asked not to be identified, given the controversy surrounding the industry. "If they had the time, they would fix it, but we were so overwhelmed."
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
4) Don't Call It 'Pot' in This Circle; It's a Profession
By JESSE McKINLEY
April 23, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/24/us/24pot.html?ref=us
OAKLAND, Calif. - Like hip-hop, health food and snowboarding, marijuana is going corporate.
As more and more states allow medical use of the drug, and California considers outright legalization, marijuana's supporters are pushing hard to burnish the image of pot by franchising dispensaries and building brands; establishing consulting, lobbying and law firms; setting up trade shows and a seminar circuit; and constructing a range of other marijuana-related businesses.
Boosters say it is all part of a concerted effort to trade the drug's trippy, hippie counterculture past for what they believe will inevitably be a more buttoned-up future.
"I don't possess a Nehru jacket, I've never grown a goatee, I've never grown my hair past the nape of my neck," Allen St. Pierre, the executive director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws said. "And I don't like patchouli."
Steve DeAngelo, the president of CannBe - a marketing, lobbying and consulting firm here - will not even use the word "marijuana." Calling it pejorative, he prefers the scientific term "cannabis."
"We want to make it safe, seemly and responsible," Mr. DeAngelo said of marijuana.
That extends to his main dispensary and headquarters, the Harborside Health Center in Oakland, with its bright fluorescent lights, a clean, spare design, and a raft of other services including chiropractic care and yoga classes. On a recent Friday, the center was packed, with a line of about 50 people waiting as the workers behind the counter walked other customers through the various buds, brownies and baked goods that were for sale.
"If we can't demonstrate professionalism and legitimacy, we're never going to gain the trust of our citizens," Mr. DeAngelo said. "And without that trust, we're never going to get where we need to go."
The ultimate destination, for many supporters, is legalization. Californians will decide in November if that is where they want to go, when they vote on a ballot measure that would legalize, tax and regulate marijuana.
Regardless of the outcome, CannBe says it expects to expand its business model nationwide to become what admirers say will be "the McDonald's of marijuana."
The for-profit company is made up of four proprietors of nonprofit dispensaries and their lawyer. Mr. DeAngelo calls them an "A-team of cannabis professionals."
In late March, it helped lobby the City Council in San Jose, the nation's 10th-largest city, to pass ordinances regulating dispensaries, a crucial step toward a legitimate industry. And last week at a cannabis conference in Rhode Island, Mr. DeAngelo was diversifying his product line, introducing a kind of "pot lite" with less psychoactive agents than regular marijuana and thus popular with what he calls "cannabis-naïve patients."
John Lovell, a California lobbyist who represents two major police groups that oppose legalization, scoffed at the notion that marijuana proponents were cleaning up their act or gaining traction with the public, citing a recent decision by the Los Angeles City Council to sharply curtail the number of medical marijuana dispensaries there.
"They are a neighborhood blight," he said. "Here you have dispensaries that have cash and dope. So, duh? Is it any surprise that they've been magnets for crime?"
But advocates call that characterization unfair and outdated.
"This is an emerging business opportunity, as it would be in any other area," said Ethan Nadelmann, the founder and executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, which favors legalization.
In California, dispensaries already employ all manner of business gimmicks to survive in an increasingly competitive market. West Coast Cannabis, a trade magazine, has dozens of advertisements for daily specials, free samples, home delivery, gift certificates, scientific testimonials, yoga classes, hypnotherapy, Reiki sessions, coupons, recipes and, of course - being California - free parking.
There are also new schools and seminars that can be used as credit for required continuing education classes for doctors and lawyers.
That includes the Cannabis Law Institute, which was certified last month by the California state bar. It was co-founded by Omar Figueroa, a graduate of Yale University and Stanford law school, who is hosting a seminar in Sonoma County in June that promises to teach attendees about "this fascinating area of the law."
Mr. Figueroa, who said he was voted "most likely to fail a Senate confirmation hearing" at Stanford, said he was earning a good living in marijuana law, but was in it for the experience. "My passion has always been cannabis," he said. "It's the world's most interesting law job."
But it is not just California. Business is also booming in Colorado, which has seen an explosion in the number of dispensaries in the last year. That rapid expansion has alarmed some authorities and sent legislators scrambling to pass new regulations, but has been a boon for law firms like Kumin Sommers L.L.P. in San Francisco, which has merged with Warren C. Edson, a lawyer in Denver representing about 300 Colorado dispensaries. Mr. Edson said many of his clients were curious about decidedly staid fields like workers' compensation, tax withholding and occupational safety.
"There's this real Al Capone fear that they're going to get our guys, not on marijuana, but on something else," Mr. Edson said, referring to how Capone was eventually charged with tax evasion rather than criminal activity.
The federal government continues to oppose any decriminalization of the drug. And while the Obama administration has signaled some leeway when it comes to medical marijuana, raids on dispensaries and growers by law enforcement agencies are still common - even in California, where the industry effectively began in 1996, with the passage of the landmark Proposition 215, which legalized medical marijuana.
Today, rules vary widely in the 14 states that allow medical marijuana, and a final vote on legalization is pending in the District of Columbia. Some states require sellers to prove nonprofit status - often as a collective or cooperative - and all states require that patients have a recommendation from a physician. But even those in favor of medical marijuana believe that the system is ripe for abuse or even unintentional lawbreaking.
"Almost all the dispensaries in California are illegal," said William Panzer, an Oakland lawyer who helped draft Proposition 215. "They're sole proprietorships, not collectives."
Mr. Nadelmann's organization, the Drug Policy Alliance, says it does not take a position on whether those who sell the drug should be nonprofit or not. But he added, "The key people involved are not becoming personally wealthy."
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
5) Legal Victory Raises Profile of an Atheist Group
By DIRK JOHNSON
April 23, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/24/us/24atheist.html?ref=us
MADISON, Wis. - Annie Laurie Gaylor clicked through a flurry of e-mail messages warning her to repent or she would burn in hell.
"Herod," one messenger called her.
Ms. Gaylor leaned back and sipped from a cup of tea, unfazed and even a bit surprised at the relative tameness of the attacks. Fresh from her latest godless triumph, she had expected more vitriol.
"It used to be a lot worse," said Ms. Gaylor, 54, an atheist whose organization, the Freedom From Religion Foundation, recently won a suit in federal court here that declared the National Day of Prayer to be a violation of the First Amendment. "Things are changing. Society is becoming more secularized. It's becoming acceptable to be atheist and agnostic. And there are more of us."
The nation's population continues to show signs of becoming less religious, according to the American Religious Identification Survey. The number of people in 2008 calling themselves atheist or agnostic, or stating no religious preference, is an estimated 15 percent, nearly double the percentage in the early 1990s. Around the country, nonbeliever clubs are springing up on college campuses.
Headquartered in a former Episcopal rectory in the shadow of the State Capitol, Freedom From Religion was founded in 1976 by Ms. Gaylor - then a student at the University of Wisconsin - and her mother, Anne Nicol Gaylor, who remains a fierce advocate for "free thought" at age 83. The co-president of the group is Annie Laurie Gaylor's husband, Dan Barker, a former evangelical minister.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation claims a membership of more than 14,000, the largest group in the country advocating for atheists and agnostics. It has doubled its staff to eight in the last year, publishes a newspaper 10 times a year, Freethought Today, and has a weekly radio show. The group counts among its members and vocal supporters Janeane Garofalo, Christopher Hitchens and Ron Reagan.
Over the years, the group has won a suit to stop Bible instruction in a Tennessee school district, overturned a Madison law ordering businesses to close for hours on Good Friday and stopped a Colorado public school from requiring students to do volunteer work at churches.
The group's biggest victory to date came last week when Judge Barbara B. Crabb of Federal District Court ruled that the federal government could not enact a law in support of prayer any more than it could "encourage citizens to fast during the month of Ramadan, attend a synagogue, purify themselves in a sweat lodge or practice rune magic." The law, signed by President Harry S. Truman in 1952, calls on the president to sign a proclamation annually in observance of a National Day of Prayer.
The judge said the ruling would be stayed for 60 days to give the Obama administration, whose lawyers defended the prayer day in court, the chance to file an appeal. On Thursday, the White House said it would appeal and that, in the meantime, the president would sign this year's prayer proclamation, as scheduled, on May 6.
The court ruling drew fire from the private National Day of Prayer Task Force. Michael Calhoun, a spokesman, described it as "an attack upon the religious heritage" of the nation. He criticized the Madison organization.
"It is a sad day in America when an atheist in Wisconsin," he said, "can undermine this tradition for millions of others."
It is still not easy being an atheist in public. No corporate group gives money to the foundation. Ms. Gaylor said she typically avoids making her views on political candidates public, calling it "the kiss of death" to be endorsed by an organization of nonbelievers.
She acknowledged voting for Mr. Obama, and expressed disappointment that his administration has defended the prayer day law. "I don't give him a pass," she said. "He's a constitutional scholar. He knows we're right."
As a middle school student, young Annie Laurie would travel around the state with her mother, who barnstormed for feminist causes like legal abortion and access to contraceptives.
Children at school would sometimes look askance when they learned that she and her siblings were growing up without religion. "But there was a little envy, too," she said. "It was like, 'You mean you don't have to get up in the morning and go to church?' "
The elder Ms. Gaylor, who wrote a book titled, "Abortion is a Blessing," regarded religion as the enemy of equal rights for women. "I never liked fairy tales," she said. "And I didn't like people passing them off as truths."
For his part, Mr. Barker, 60, grew up in Southern California and began evangelizing as a teenager. He left the ministry in his early 30s after coming to realize that he did not believe the Bible.
"I just had to fess up and say, 'This is nonsense,' " Mr. Barker said.
He travels the country spreading the word of another sort - doing what his wife calls "reverse penance" - engaging in debates, delivering talks and offering musical performances in the name of godlessness. He plays the piano and sings atheist songs. One of his favorite numbers: "You Can't Win Original Sin."
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
6) Health Care Cost Increase Is Projected for New Law
By ROBERT PEAR
April 23, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/24/health/policy/24health.html?ref=us
WASHINGTON - A government analysis of the new health care law says it will not slow the overall growth of health spending because the expansion of insurance and services to 34 million people will offset cost reductions in Medicare and other programs.
The study, by the chief Medicare actuary, Richard S. Foster, provides a detailed, rigorous analysis of the law.
In signing the measure last month, President Obama said it would "bring down health care costs for families and businesses and governments."
But Mr. Foster said, "Overall national health expenditures under the health reform act would increase by a total of $311 billion," or nine-tenths of 1 percent, compared with the amounts that would otherwise be spent from 2010 to 2019.
In his report, sent to Congress Thursday night, Mr. Foster said that some provisions of the law, including cutbacks in Medicare payments to health care providers and a tax on high-cost employer-sponsored coverage, would slow the growth of health costs. But he said the savings "would be more than offset through 2019 by the higher health expenditures resulting from the coverage expansions."
The report says that 34 million uninsured people will gain coverage under the law, but that 23 million people, including 5 million illegal immigrants, will still be uninsured in 2019.
Republicans said the report vindicated their concerns about the law, which was approved without a single Republican vote. The White House pointed to bright spots in the report and insisted that the law would help bring down costs. In 2004, when Mr. Foster raised questions about cost estimates by the Bush administration, Democrats lionized him as a paragon of integrity.
Mr. Foster says the law will save Medicare more than $500 billion in the coming decade and will postpone exhaustion of the Medicare trust fund by 12 years, so it would run out of money in 2029, rather than 2017. In addition, he said, the reduction in the growth of Medicare will lead to lower premiums and co-payments for Medicare beneficiaries.
But, Mr. Foster said, these savings assume that the law will be carried out as written, and that may be an unrealistic assumption. The cuts, he said, "could become unsustainable" because they may drive some hospitals and nursing homes into the red, "possibly jeopardizing access to care for beneficiaries."
Nancy-Ann DeParle, director of the White House Office of Health Reform, said that fear was unfounded.
Mr. Foster's report, which analyzes the effect of the law on national health spending of all types, has a different focus from studies by the Congressional Budget Office, which concentrated on federal spending and revenues and concluded that the law would reduce budget deficits by a total of $143 billion over 10 years.
In his report, Mr. Foster made these points:
¶The government will spend $828 billion to expand insurance coverage over the next 10 years. Expansion of Medicaid accounts for about half of the cost. The number of Medicaid recipients will increase by 20 million, to a total of 84 million in 2019.
¶People who go without insurance and employers who do not provide coverage meeting federal standards will pay $120 billion in penalties from 2014 to 2019. Individuals will pay $33 billion of that amount, while employers pay $87 billion.
¶The law will reduce consumers' out-of-pocket spending on health care by $237 billion over 10 years, to a total of $3.3 trillion.
Cuts in federal payments to private Medicare Advantage plans will "result in less generous benefit packages," the report said. By 2017, it said, "enrollment in Medicare Advantage plans will be lower by about 50 percent, from its projected level of 14.8 million under the prior law to 7.4 million under the new law."
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
7) For School Company, Issues of Money and Control
By STEPHANIE STROM
April 23, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/24/education/24imagine.html?ref=education
When the energy executive Dennis Bakke retired with a fortune from the AES Corporation, the company he co-founded, he and his wife, Eileen, decided to direct their attention and money to education.
Mrs. Bakke, a former teacher, said she had been interested in education since the summer she was a 12-year-old and, together with a friend, opened the Humpty Dumpty Day School, charging $2 a week in "tuition" to parents of the children attending. Mr. Bakke was eager to experiment with applying business strategies and discipline to public schools.
The Bakkes became part of the nation's new crop of education entrepreneurs, founding a commercial charter school company called Imagine Schools. Beginning with one failed charter school company they acquired in 2004, they have built an organization that has contracts with 71 schools in 11 states and the District of Columbia. Imagine is now the largest commercial manager of charter schools in the country.
But as Imagine continues to expand, it is coming under growing scrutiny from school boards and state regulators questioning how public money is spent and whether the company exerts too much control over the schools.
The concerns are being raised as charters, designed by education reformers to create alternatives to hidebound and failing public schools, are becoming an indelible part of the nation's education landscape. Such schools are among the biggest beneficiaries of the billions of dollars the Obama administration plans to spend to improve public education.
Because public money is used, most states grant charters to run such schools only to nonprofit groups with the expectation that they will exercise the same independent oversight that public school boards do. Some are run locally. Some bring in nonprofit management chains. And a number use commercial management companies like Imagine.
But regulators in some states have found that Imagine has elbowed the charter holders out of virtually all school decision making - hiring and firing principals and staff members, controlling and profiting from school real estate, and retaining fees under contracts that often guarantee Imagine's management in perpetuity.
The arrangements, they say, allow Imagine to use public money with little oversight. "Under either charter law or traditional nonprofit law, there really is no way an entity should end up on both sides of business transactions," said Marc Dean Millot, publisher of the report K-12 Leads and a former president of the National Charter Schools Alliance, a trade association, now defunct, for the charter school movement.
"Imagine works to dominate the board of the charter holder, and then it does a deal with the board it dominates - and that cannot be an arm's length transaction," he said.
Such concerns have thwarted efforts by Imagine to open a school in Florida, threaten to stall its push into Texas, and have ended its business with a school in Georgia and another in New York, as well as other states.
Imagine is not shy about the way it wields its power, which it calls essential to its governing philosophy. "Imagine Schools operates the entire school, and is not a consultant or management company," its Web site says. "All principals, teachers, and staff are Imagine Schools people. The Imagine Schools culture is meant to permeate every aspect of the school's life."
Mrs. Bakke, who is paid $100,000 as vice president of education at Imagine, says it works in "close partnership" with the boards of the schools it manages. "The governing boards are definitely in charge, but they look to us, frankly, because as you know, nonprofit boards are well meaning but don't always have the experience and expertise running the schools," she said in an interview.
She said that she and her husband, who is paid $200,000 as the company's chief executive, sank $155 million into Imagine and that they were able to run schools efficiently. "We offer a great deal for communities and for taxpayers," Mrs. Bakke said, "because we're providing education at less than what a traditional school is spending."
She says the company should be judged by its educational results, not its business and financial arrangements.
As measured by testing mandated under the No Child Left Behind law, the academic achievements of schools managed by Imagine are mixed, like those of most charter schools. But Imagine says that many students in the schools it manages enter with academic abilities below their grade level and that a better measurement of its success is the rate at which they are catching up.
Its analysis of test data taken at the beginning and end of the 2008-9 school year shows that 89 percent of its schools had learning gains better than public schools serving similar populations of students.
"We have high expectations," Mrs. Bakke said. "Academic performance matters."
Nonprofit or Commercial?
Mrs. Bakke said her company "is operated as a not-for-profit." But Imagine is not a nonprofit group, and it has so far failed to gain status as a charity from the I.R.S.
Imagine applied for federal tax exemption in 2005 and has repeatedly said approval is imminent. It typically takes four to six months for such approvals. "We're not sure why it's taking so long," said Mrs. Bakke, who is 56. "We suspect it's because we're trailblazers in a sense, and they haven't had an application quite like this."
The I.R.S., as is its policy, declined to comment.
The lack of status as a federally approved nonprofit group is proving to be one of Imagine's biggest challenges. So it often gets involved with schools at their inception, recruiting board members or hitching its wagon to nonprofit groups that can obtain a charter, as it did in Las Vegas, where it teamed with 100 Black Men of Las Vegas to open an elementary school, the 100 Academy of Excellence. The school opened in 2006, and the county school board soon began documenting problems. It found the school's bookkeeping under Imagine to be lax, and it said that the school lacked enough licensed teachers.
The school has had three principals in four years, two of whom were pressured to resign after complaining that there was not enough money for essentials like textbooks and a school nurse. The state said that by paying Imagine for necessities like furniture and computers, the school had violated regulations requiring competitive bidding. It further violated state law by running a deficit, which left it in debt to Imagine.
Mrs. Bakke declined to comment on issues raised at specific schools. "In all cases we strive to operate with high ethical standards, set high standards for performance, hire the best possible people, and correct mistakes as quickly as possible," she wrote in an e-mail message.
Some schools say they are happy with Imagine's management. At Hope Community Charter School in the District of Columbia, which opened in 2005 and where Imagine helped identify board members, the board agreed to pay Imagine virtually all of the school's revenue, to allow Imagine to set the school's budget subject only to approval that "shall not be unreasonably withheld or delayed," and to seek Imagine's approval for how it spends charitable gifts.
James Kemp, the board chairman, said that District of Columbia charter school regulators had repeatedly expressed concerns about the arrangements. He also said that even the school's own auditors chided the board for allowing Imagine to pay several large bills without its approval, as required under contract.
"The charter board has alerted us and me specifically that this is not the normal way charter schools run, having their management company as involved as Imagine is with our school," Mr. Kemp said. "But that's the way we've set this up, and we're happy with it."
Josephine Baker, executive director of the District of Columbia Public Charter School Board, which grants and oversees charters in Washington, said the board had concerns about who was running the show at Hope Community.
"It's not just Imagine, though Imagine is the one that probably has given us the most concern," she said. "We find it is very hard for schools that hire management companies to maintain their independence, and charter schools are supposed to be independent."
Mrs. Baker said she did not think the contract between Imagine and Hope Community would be approved today, in part because the entire model of using management companies is flawed. "There are not a whole lot of charter schools that are just marvelous, and those that are do not have management companies," she said.
In Texas, parents trying to open a charter school for elementary school students thought that Imagine was going too far.
"Imagine did a few things that indicated they thought the charter belonged to them, which was not our understanding at all," said Karelei Munn, who is part of a group working to establish a charter school in Georgetown, Tex., near Austin. "We were looking to control our board, and they were looking to control our board."
Ms. Munn and other members of the group holding the charter broke their ties with Imagine and are trying to form a school on their own.
Regulators in Texas have been slow to approve a second Imagine school, citing concerns that include an e-mail message from Mr. Bakke to the company's senior staff members that was reported on by The St. Louis Post-Dispatch last fall. In the message, dated Sept. 4, 2008, Mr. Bakke cautioned his executives against giving boards of schools the "misconception" that they "are responsible for making big decisions about budget matters, school policies, hiring of the principal and dozens of other matters."
Instead, he wrote, "It is our school, our money and our risk, not theirs."
Mr. Bakke, who is 64, suggested requiring board members to sign undated letters of resignation or limiting board terms to a single year.
In a statement after the e-mail message was disclosed, Mr. Bakke apologized to board members "who felt offended or maligned," saying he had "overstated my personal frustration in ensuring that the dedicated, caring people who hold the seats of charter governing boards at Imagine Schools understand and support our mission and operating philosophy."
As Texas continues its consideration, the e-mail message helped upend Imagine's plans to open a school in the Hillsborough County School District in Florida, which encompasses Tampa.
"That e-mail was very, very bad for them," said Jenna Hodgens, the local supervisor of charter schools. "All the things we had been questioning, things about control of the school, he answered in his own words."
The Hillsborough school board rejected the application in December. "Charter schools are not private schools, they are public schools and are governed as such," said Susan Valdes, who heads the board. "Some, though, are starting to forget that - and they're getting away with it. But not here."
Fees, Rent and Bank Accounts
Some schools that have contracted with Imagine have feuded with the company over fees. Imagine typically charges 12 percent of a school's revenue for basic services. It then may tack on fees, for example, for guaranteeing a school access to credit if needed or to cover the costs of flying Imagine personnel in to address problems.
The Kennesaw Charter School in Kennesaw, Ga., ended its contract with Imagine in February over such issues.
Under its original contract with Imagine, the Kennesaw school board forwarded all revenue it received from the state and district to a bank account in Florida controlled by Imagine to pay salaries and other expenses. Kennesaw's board had full discretion over just $20,000, said Lori Hardegree, a board member.
If the school had money left over at the end of the year, the surplus was paid as a fee to Imagine.
Minutes of board meetings and reporting by the local school district show that the board had trouble getting information from Imagine about how it was using the money. And the school owed Imagine $1.2 million, in part for what the company spent to cover damage from a hurricane but also partly for expenses the company described as "off the books" and never fully accounted for to the school board's or the district's satisfaction.
It took Kennesaw more than a year of negotiations to break up with Imagine, and it still owes the company roughly $480,000. But board members say they are finding that they are saving money by running the school themselves.
"For one thing, we're saving $30,000 that went out each month to pay Imagine's fees," Ms. Hardegree said. "We're finding we're saving money on every contract that we're negotiating on our own."
In New York, the Bronx Academy of Promise Charter School agreed to pay Imagine 12 percent of its revenue as a fee, and an additional 2.5 percent was charged to ensure Imagine would extend a loan to the school should it need one. The doors had hardly opened when the school's board and principal began having problems with Imagine.
"It was rather baffling, but as a management company, they weren't providing any management services," said one person who has worked with the school and spoke anonymously for fear of retaliation. "With the exception of payroll processing and some accounting support, it wasn't really clear what they were doing for the school."
At the end of its first school year last May, Bronx Academy broke its contract with Imagine. Mrs. Bakke said that Imagine provided a full battery of educational, financial and administrative services to the Kennesaw school and the Bronx Academy. "Both boards were fully aware of start-up and other costs incurred by Imagine, and the obligation to repay those costs in the event of a termination of contract," she wrote in an e-mail message.
The Ties That Bind
One of the most difficult tasks for a charter school is getting a building. Only a few cities like New York or Washington help such schools with real estate. And charter schools cannot use tax-exempt bonds to raise money the way public school systems can.
Mrs. Bakke said that Imagine's real estate activities ease that burden for charter schools and are one of the biggest assets it brings to the table. "Our organization brings new investment into public education and avoids the need for the local community to float school bonds," she wrote in an e-mail message.
But some regulators and school officials say that Imagine uses debt and real estate to bind schools to it.
Imagine typically buys or leases buildings through a real estate arm, SchoolhouseFinance, and uses those properties to attract groups wanting to open charter schools that then pay to rent them.
Last year, Imagine sold 27 of its school buildings to Entertainment Properties Trust, a real estate investment trust that is the country's largest owner of movie theaters, as part of a deal that won the company $206 million. The buildings that were sold were leased back by Imagine, which then subleased them to the schools that occupy them.
In February, the company sold seven more schools to Inland American Real Estate Trust for $61 million in a similar arrangement.
Mrs. Bakke said a portion of the proceeds from the sale of those buildings was used to pay off bank debt and construction costs, with the remainder going to buy or construct new buildings and into the operations of existing schools. But board members of eight schools said they were never consulted about the sales or the decision by Imagine to commit them to leases. In at least some cases, Imagine makes money on the subleases. Bronx Academy, for example, paid Imagine $10,000 a month more in rent than the company paid the owner of its building.
The rents the company charges schools it manages now are one of the things threatening to scuttle its agreements with the two schools it manages in Nevada, the 100 Academy of Excellence and Imagine School in the Valle.
Last year, almost 40 percent of the $3.6 million that Nevada paid 100 Academy was spent on rent. Less than half of its total revenue, about 41 percent, was used to cover salaries and benefits for teachers and administrators, who are employees of Imagine.
In contrast, a charter school in Las Vegas of about the same size that operates without a commercial management company, Innovations International Charter School of Nevada, spent 74 percent of its total revenue on salaries and benefits, according to figures provided by Gary A. Horton, an administrator at the Nevada Department of Education.
"After paying for real estate and management, 100 Academy has very little left over for education," Mr. Horton said.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
8) Schools in New Jersey Plan Heavy Cuts After Voters Reject Most Budgets
By WINNIE HU
April 21, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/22/education/22schools.html?ref=education
School officials across New Jersey said on Wednesday that they would most likely have to lay off hundreds of teachers, increase class sizes, eliminate sports teams and Advanced Placement classes, cut kindergarten hours and take other radical steps to reduce spending after 58 percent of districts' budgets were rejected by voters on Tuesday, the most in at least 35 years.
Residents went to the polls in record numbers for the normally low-profile school-budget elections, and rejected 316 of the 541 budgets on the ballot. They were angered by higher property taxes that were sought to make up for unusually large state aid reductions proposed by Gov. Christopher J. Christie, along with resentment toward teachers' unions for not agreeing to wage freezes or concessions.
The message of "enough is enough" resounded across the state, from urban to rural districts, and even in well-to-do suburban communities like Ridgewood, where residents are particularly proud of their schools. It was a drastic change from a year ago, when voters approved nearly three-quarters of the school budgets during the height of the economic downturn.
The election results sent school officials hurrying to prepare contingency plans to present to their town councils, or local municipal boards, which now must review the budgets and decide by May 19 whether to demand more cuts. (School officials can appeal those decisions to the state.) Many students and parents were anxious and unsure about what else they could lose.
At Teaneck High School, hundreds of students walked out of their classrooms Wednesday morning for an hourlong march around the school's football field to protest the budget's defeat in a vote of 4,790 to 3,618. The $94.9 million budget had called for a record 10.2 percent increase in school taxes.
Teaneck officials said they would now have to consider cuts that they had hoped to avoid, like increasing some classes to more than 30 students; reducing AP courses; cutting athletic teams; and eliminating several dozen positions more than the 21 that had been planned. "At this point, all bets are off," said Dave Bicofsky, a spokesman for the district.
Tuesday's elections capped weeks of political drama between Governor Christie and the state's largest teachers' union, the New Jersey Education Association, over his efforts to pressure teachers to renegotiate their contracts. Mr. Christie, who is trying to close an $11 billion deficit, has proposed to cut direct state aid to districts by up to 5 percent of their operating budgets.
Mr. Christie exhorted New Jerseyans to use the budget votes to take a stand against school spending, particularly in districts where unions refused to freeze wages. The results suggest that people listened: Statewide, voter turnout rose to 26.7 percent from 15 percent last year.
"You have schools saying they were efficient but they could not accept a 5 percent cut," said Jerry Cantrell, president of the New Jersey Taxpayers Association and a former school board president in Randolph. "That just did not ring true to a lot of people. I think the bottom line was economics."
Stephen K. Wollmer, communications director for the New Jersey Education Association, said that Mr. Christie had made a difficult situation worse. "He whipped the public into a frenzy, and convinced some of them that if they would vote down their budgets and extract a pay freeze from teachers, they could solve all their problems," Mr. Wollmer said. "It's just not true."
Budgets also failed in 6 of the 19 districts where there had been wage freezes or concessions by teachers.
In Ridgewood, where a 4 percent tax increase was narrowly rejected on Tuesday, residents have expressed frustration at recent school board meetings over what they saw as teachers unwilling to make sacrifices like everyone else in a tough economy. The district had proposed an $84.9 million budget. (Voters last rejected the budget in 2003.)
Many school officials said students were the losers in Tuesday's elections.
"We've made our budget as lean as possible, and even beyond that, so any further cuts will have an impact on our students," said John Crowe, the Woodbridge superintendent.
In West Orange, the district's budget - $118 million, including a 7.3 percent tax revenue increase - was rejected for the first time in a decade.
Anthony Cavanna, the superintendent, said he had already planned to lay off 84 employees, including 39 teachers, reduce bus service, cut back on music and art instruction, offer fewer vocational education courses, and trim extracurricular activities. Now he is considering heavier steps, like cutting kindergarten to a half day, ending Spanish classes and guidance counselors in the elementary schools, reducing library and nursing staffs, and dropping middle school and freshman sports teams.
"These would be devastating cuts," Mr. Cavanna said.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
9) In Army's Trauma Care Units, Feeling Warehoused
By JAMES DAO and DAN FROSCH
April 24, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/25/health/25warrior.html?hp
COLORADO SPRINGS - A year ago, Specialist Michael Crawford wanted nothing more than to get into Fort Carson's Warrior Transition Battalion, a special unit created to provide closely managed care for soldiers with physical wounds and severe psychological trauma.
A strapping Army sniper who once brimmed with confidence, he had returned emotionally broken from Iraq, where he suffered two concussions from roadside bombs and watched several platoon mates burn to death. The transition unit at Fort Carson, outside Colorado Springs, seemed the surest way to keep suicidal thoughts at bay, his mother thought.
It did not work. He was prescribed a laundry list of medications for anxiety, nightmares, depression and headaches that made him feel listless and disoriented. His once-a-week session with a nurse case manager seemed grossly inadequate to him. And noncommissioned officers - soldiers supervising the unit - harangued or disciplined him when he arrived late to formation or violated rules.
Last August, Specialist Crawford attempted suicide with a bottle of whiskey and an overdose of painkillers. By the end of last year, he was begging to get out of the unit.
"It is just a dark place," said the soldier, who is waiting to be medically discharged from the Army. "Being in the W.T.U. is worse than being in Iraq."
Created in the wake of the scandal in 2007 over serious shortcomings at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Warrior Transition Units were intended to be sheltering way stations where injured soldiers could recuperate and return to duty or gently process out of the Army. There are currently about 7,200 soldiers at 32 transition units across the Army, with about 465 soldiers at Fort Carson's unit.
But interviews with more than a dozen soldiers and health care professionals from Fort Carson's transition unit, along with reports from other posts, suggest that the units are far from being restful sanctuaries. For many soldiers, they have become warehouses of despair, where damaged men and women are kept out of sight, fed a diet of powerful prescription pills and treated harshly by noncommissioned officers. Because of their wounds, soldiers in Warrior Transition Units are particularly vulnerable to depression and addiction, but many soldiers from Fort Carson's unit say their treatment there has made their suffering worse.
Some soldiers in the unit, and their families, described long hours alone in their rooms, or in homes off the base, aimlessly drinking or playing video games.
"In combat, you rely on people and you come out of it feeling good about everything," said a specialist in the unit. "Here, you're just floating. You're not doing much. You feel worthless."
At Fort Carson, many soldiers complained that doctors prescribed drugs too readily. As a result, some soldiers have become addicted to their medications or have turned to heroin. Medications are so abundant that some soldiers in the unit openly deal, buy or swap prescription pills.
Heavy use of psychotropic drugs and narcotics makes it difficult to exercise, wake for morning formation and attend classes, soldiers and health care professionals said. Yet noncommissioned officers discipline soldiers who fail to complete those tasks, sometimes over the objections of nurse case managers and doctors.
At least four soldiers in the Fort Carson unit have committed suicide since 2007, the most of any transition unit as of February, according to the Army.
Senior officers in the Army's Warrior Transition Command declined to discuss specific soldiers. But they said Army surveys showed that most soldiers treated in transition units since 2007, more than 50,000 people, had liked the care.
Those senior officers acknowledged that addiction to medications was a problem, but denied that Army doctors relied too heavily on drugs. And they strongly defended disciplining wounded soldiers when they violated rules. Punishment is meted out judiciously, they said, mainly to ensure that soldiers stick to treatment plans and stay safe.
"These guys are still soldiers, and we want to treat them like soldiers," said Lt. Col. Andrew L. Grantham, commander of the Warrior Transition Battalion at Fort Carson.
The colonel offered another explanation for complaints about the unit. Many soldiers, he said, struggle in transition units because they would rather be with regular, deployable units. In some cases, he said, they feel ashamed of needing treatment.
"Some come to us with an identity crisis," he said. "They don't want to be seen as part of the W.T.U. But we want them to identify with a purpose and give them a mission."
Drugs and Addiction
Sgt. John Conant, a 15-year veteran of the Army, returned from his second tour of Iraq in 2007 a changed man, according to his wife, Delphina. Angry and sullen, he reported to the transition unit at Fort Carson, where he was prescribed at least six medications a day for sleeping disorders, pain and anxiety, keeping a detailed checklist in his pocket to remind him of his dosages.
The medications disoriented him, Mrs. Conant said, and he would often wander the house late at night before curling up on the floor and falling asleep. Then in April 2008, after taking morphine and Ambien, the sleeping pill, he died in his sleep. A coroner ruled that his death was from natural causes. He was 36.
Mrs. Conant said she felt her husband never received meaningful therapy at the transition unit, where he had become increasingly frustrated and was knocked down a rank, to specialist, because of discipline problems.
"They didn't want to do anything but give him medication," she said.
Other soldiers and health care workers at Fort Carson offered similar complaints. They said that most transition unit soldiers were given complex cocktails of medications that raised concerns about accidental overdoses, addiction and side effects from interactions.
"These kids change their medication like they change their underwear," said a psychotherapist who works with Fort Carson soldiers and asked that his name not be used because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the transition unit. "They can't even remember which pills they're taking."
Some turned to heroin, which is readily available in the barracks, after becoming addicted to their pain pills, according to interviews with soldiers and health care professionals at Fort Carson.
"We're all on sleep meds, anxiety meds, pain meds," said Pfc. Jeffery Meier, who is in the transition unit and said he knew a dozen soldiers in the unit, including a recent roommate, who had used heroin. "The heroin is all that, wrapped into one."
Fort Carson officials said that addiction to prescription drugs was no more prevalent in the Army than in the civilian world, and that medication was just one element of a balanced treatment that includes therapy.
But they acknowledged that they had found heroin abuse in the transition unit and said they were trying to reduce the use of opiates and synthetic opiates to prevent addiction, not always with success.
"There is active resistance, because they are addicted," said Lt. Col. Joel Tanaka, the Warrior Transition Battalion surgeon at Fort Carson. "We've learned if we don't assist them and wrap our arms around them, then they go off post and get these drugs illegally."
Jess Seiwert offers a cautionary tale. A staff sergeant and sniper who was knocked unconscious by roadside bombs in Iraq, he returned to Fort Carson in late 2006 with post-traumatic stress disorder, burns and a variety of aches. Prone to bouts of rage, he often drank himself to sleep and began abusing the painkiller Percocet.
Medical records show that Sergeant Seiwert's captain thought he was a danger to his wife and needed inpatient psychiatric care. Instead, the sergeant was transferred into Fort Carson's transition unit in 2008.
In a recent interview, Mr. Seiwert, now discharged from the Army, said he received minimal therapy in the unit but was given ample medication, including the painkillers he abused. "I should have been in inpatient rehab to get me off the drugs," he said.
Last summer, just months after being medically discharged, he badly beat his wife while bingeing on alcohol and Percocet. He pleaded guilty to a second-degree assault charge and is likely to face five years in prison.
'Making Things Worse'
Like private outpatient clinics, Warrior Transition Units aim to provide highly individualized care and ready access to case managers, therapists and doctors. But the care is organized in a distinctly Army way: noncommissioned officers, known as the cadre, maintain discipline and enforce rules, often using traditional drill-sergeant toughness with junior enlisted soldiers.
At the top of the command are traditional Army officers, not health care professionals: Brig. Gen. Gary Cheek, head of the Warrior Transition Command, was an artillery officer, and Colonel Grantham an intelligence officer.
Beneath them is what the Army calls its triad of care. Members of the cadre keep a close eye on individual soldiers, much like squad leaders in regular line units. Nurse case managers schedule appointments and assist with medications and therapy. And primary care managers - doctors, physicians' assistants or nurse practitioners - oversee care and prescribe medicines.
The structure is intended to ensure that every soldier gets careful supervision and that Army values and discipline are maintained. But many soldiers at Fort Carson complained that discipline and insensitive treatment by cadre members made wounded soldiers feel as if they were viewed as fakers or weaklings.
James Agee, a former staff sergeant who transferred into the transition unit after returning from his second tour of Iraq in 2008, said he frequently heard cadre members verbally abuse medicated soldiers who were struggling to get out of bed for morning formation or stay awake for all-night duty.
"They would say, 'These guys can't do this because they are crazy,' " said Mr. Agee, who received a medical discharge from the Army. "It would make you feel like you were inferior."
One Army specialist in the unit, who received diagnoses of post-traumatic stress syndrome and traumatic brain injury, said he was ordered to perform 24-hour guard duty repeatedly against the orders of his doctor. The specialist, who asked to remain anonymous because he feared repercussions, said he experienced flashbacks to Iraq during the long hours by himself.
In many cases, the noncommissioned officers have made it clear that they do not believe the psychological symptoms reported by the unit's soldiers are real or particularly serious. At Fort Hood, Tex., a study conducted just before the shooting rampage there last November - which found that many soldiers in the Warrior Transition Unit thought their treatment relied too heavily on medication - also concluded that a majority of the cadre believed that soldiers were faking post-traumatic stress or exaggerating their symptoms.
Christina Perez, the wife of a transition unit soldier from Fort Carson, said she got into an ugly fight with a member of the cadre who was furious that she had gone over his head to request additional therapy for her husband, a sergeant first class who had sustained a brain injury during one of two tours in Iraq as a tank gunner.
In a meeting, the noncommissioned officer shouted that Ms. Perez's husband did not deserve his uniform and that he should give it to her instead, Ms. Perez said in a police complaint. No charges were brought.
Eventually her husband, who has headaches and memory loss, was transferred to an inpatient psychiatric clinic in Denver while he awaits a medical discharge. "All they do is make things worse," Ms. Perez said of the transition unit.
Last year, The Associated Press reported that the transition unit at Fort Bragg in North Carolina had a discipline rate three times as high as the 82nd Airborne Division, the base's primary occupant.
General Cheek said the Army's own survey of other major posts showed that discipline rates in transition units were about the same as in regular units.
He asserted that most cadre members, who receive extra pay and training for the job, do their jobs well, working long hours and spending weekends checking on soldiers. Discipline, he said, is a form of tough love.
"If we are going to maintain safe discipline, all rules must apply," the general said. "We do have an expectation that our soldiers want to get better."
Bureaucratic Delays
Sgt. Keith Nowicki was an intelligence analyst who was sent back early from his second deployment to Iraq in April 2008 because of severe post-traumatic stress disorder, said his wife, Ashley. Assigned to the Fort Carson transition unit, he spent nearly a year waiting for his medical discharge.
Instead of getting the help he hoped for, he spent much of the time in the unit alone, growing increasingly angry, drinking heavily and abusing Percocet. In early 2009, he separated from his wife. While on the phone with her in March 2009 he shot himself to death. He was due to be discharged at the end of the month.
Though Ms. Nowicki does not attribute her husband's suicide to the long wait for his discharge, she said the slowness of the process and the lack of support from the transition unit added to his sense of hopelessness.
"It was just a bunch of red tape," Ms. Nowicki said. "He would spend days trying to track down his own medical records."
Army officials acknowledged that wait times for medical discharges at Fort Carson had grown. A major reason is that Fort Carson is part of a pilot program with the Department of Veterans Affairs in which the Army and the V.A. collaborate in evaluating soldiers' injuries. The collaboration between the two bureaucracies is expected to speed up veterans benefits once a soldier leaves the Army, but it can lengthen the initial evaluation period, officials said.
Michael Crawford has been waiting more than a year for his medical discharge. As his anxiety and depression have worsened, so have his problems in the unit. His rank was recently reduced to private in punishment for overstaying leave and using marijuana.
But things are looking up, his mother believes: he will be able to stay with her in Michigan while awaiting his discharge. His mother, Sally Darrow, has already seen one son commit suicide. She believes that Michael would become the second if he had to return to Fort Carson and the transition unit.
"At home, with family and schoolmates, he's dealing with things better," Ms. Darrow said. "He's not safe there."
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
10) Last Teacher In, First Out? City Has Another Idea
"...high-stakes battle with the teachers' union to overturn seniority rules..."
By JENNIFER MEDINA
April 24, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/25/education/25seniority.html?ref=education
Peter Borock, 23, is in his second year teaching history at Health Opportunities High School in the South Bronx. It could be his last.
With New York City schools planning for up to 8,500 layoffs, new teachers like Mr. Borock, and half a dozen others at his school, could be some of the ones most likely to be let go. That has led the schools chancellor, Joel I. Klein, into a high-stakes battle with the teachers' union to overturn seniority rules that have been in place for decades.
Facing the likelihood of the largest number of layoffs in more than a generation, Mr. Klein and his counterparts around the country say that the rules, which require that the most recently hired teachers be the first to lose their jobs, are anachronistic. In an era of accountability, they say, the rules will upend their efforts of the last few years to recruit new teachers, improve teacher performance and reward those who do best.
"Nobody I've talked to thinks seniority is a rational way to go," Mr. Klein said. "Obviously there are some senior teachers who are extraordinary. You recruit young talent you think is good for the future, and to just get rid of that by the numbers seems to me to be a nonsensical approach."
This month city officials persuaded lawmakers in Albany to introduce a bill that would allow the city to decide which teachers to let go, although its chances of passing are slim. Similar legislation in California, where thousands of young teachers have received letters saying they could be out of work, moved forward last week, backed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Arizona abolished seniority rules last year, and this month its Legislature banned the use of seniority if teachers are rehired.
Unions argue that administrators want to do away with seniority protections so they can get rid of older teachers, who are more expensive.
They say that without seniority safeguards, principals could act on personal grudges, and that while keeping the best teachers is a laudable goal, no one has figured out an accurate way to determine who those teachers are.
"There is no good way to lay people off," said Randi Weingarten, the former leader of the city's teachers' union, who is now the president of the American Federation of Teachers. "But to be opportunistic and try to rush something through without knowing if there's some degree of objectivity and a comprehensive and valid evaluation system is appalling."
Indeed, even if school districts switched to performance-based layoffs, younger teachers could still face big losses.
Several studies have shown that teachers just beginning their careers are more likely to struggle than more experienced instructors. And a New York Times analysis of the city's own reports on teacher effectiveness suggest that teachers do best after being in the classroom for at least 5 years, though they tend to level off after 10 years.
"You want to keep a rookie who looks good relative to other rookies, even if it's not that great relative to all other teachers, because they are going to turn into a really good teacher," said Douglas O. Staiger, an economics professor at Dartmouth who has worked with the city on teacher quality studies. "The question is: Are our current methods good enough at figuring out who those teachers are? I'm not sure where you draw the line on that."
Mr. Klein frequently cites the teachers' contract in Washington, D.C., as a model. Last year, when the Washington schools chancellor, Michelle A. Rhee, laid off nearly 300 teachers, she was not bound by seniority.
The fight to end seniority rules could be Mr. Klein's most uphill battle yet. He is fresh off a deal with the union to speed the process of firing teachers accused of wrongdoing or incompetence, including the ending of warehousing such teachers in what are known as rubber rooms.
But he continues to struggle with the union over his desire to lay off so-called absent-teacher reserves, teachers whose positions have been eliminated because of school closings or classroom shifts, but who are entitled to full salaries because they have not done anything wrong.
But the reserves account for only 1,050 teachers, a small percentage of the number that could lose their jobs if proposed state budget cuts are enacted.
So the chancellor has tried to increase parent support for ending seniority by releasing projections showing that layoffs would be disproportionately concentrated in the South Bronx, where many young teachers begin their careers, and the East Side of Manhattan, where a boom in the student population has led to a large number of new teachers.
Some of their positions would be eliminated, and those that remained could be filled by more senior teachers from other schools.
Mr. Borock, the Bronx teacher, said that the layoffs would discourage newer graduates from entering the profession. "If you have a number of job opportunities, as many of us did, and you have a nagging feeling in the back of your mind that you could lose this job really quickly," he asked, "why would anyone want to go into that?"
He joined a group created recently by other young teachers, Educators for Excellence, to lobby against seniority rules, taking on their own union.
At River East Elementary School in Harlem, half of the teaching staff has fewer than three years of experience. Alison McKenzie, the principal, said she was worried but believed that some of the young teachers would be protected because many were certified in bilingual and special education, two areas with a shortage of teachers.
Ms. McKenzie said she could not imagine losing in "these tender situations" a teacher whom she has supported.
Seniority is an article of faith for trade unions, which say that it protects against the whims of employers and provides stability for employees. Ms. Weingarten said that more experienced teachers were also better equipped to deal with other effects of budget cuts, like larger classes and fewer supplies.
Arthur Goldstein, the chapter chairman of the teachers' union at Francis Lewis High School in Queens, said that Mr. Klein and his supporters were trying to pit teachers against one another.
"I understand how they feel - I lost my job four times and nobody ever helped me," Mr. Goldstein said of the younger teachers. "I don't have a principal who is crazy now, but I've had other principals who would have fired me in a New York minute. It had nothing to do with teaching - things he would take as a personal insult."
Ending seniority was easier in Arizona, where Republicans control the Legislature, than it will probably be in New York, where Democrats are in power and the teachers' union still has influence.
In California, where unions are also fighting the bill to end seniority-based layoffs, State Senator Gloria Romero, a Democrat from East Los Angeles, said that it was crucial not to "waste a time of crisis."
"There has to be the willingness and the conviction to fight for the most vulnerable," Ms. Romero said, "even if it means going against some of the most powerful allies that have funded the Democratic Party."
In New York, Eric T. Schneiderman, a Democratic state senator who represents Upper Manhattan and is running for attorney general, said that veteran teachers had little reason to worry.
"It wasn't just dead on arrival, it was dead before it was put in the mail," Mr. Schneiderman said of the legislation. "It does open the conversation about how to ensure there are quality teachers, but the idea of giving the administration total discretion to pick and choose who is fired with no standards is not going to fly."
Limited data on teacher effectiveness in New York City suggests that a purely performance-based system would not favor younger teachers.
In 2008, New York City began evaluating about 11,500 teachers based on how much their students had improved on standardized state exams.
A Times analysis of the first year of results showed that teachers with 6 to 10 years of experience were more likely to perform well, while teachers with 1 or 2 years' experience were the least likely.
The analysis could not account for differences in the makeup of the 11,500 classrooms, like how many of them had large numbers of students with learning disabilities.
Mr. Klein has said that if he has his way, principals will be able to use a mix of factors, including student test score data and classroom observations by administrators and other teachers, as well as their own "vision for long-term planning." He compares the decisions to what private business managers are able to do when making staffing decisions.
Robert Gebeloff contributed reporting.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
11) Berating the Raters
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Op-Ed Columnist
April 26, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/26/opinion/26krugman.html?hp
Let's hear it for the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Its work on the financial crisis is increasingly looking like the 21st-century version of the Pecora hearings, which helped usher in New Deal-era financial regulation. In the past few days scandalous Wall Street e-mail messages released by the subcommittee have made headlines.
That's the good news. The bad news is that most of the headlines were about the wrong e-mails. When Goldman Sachs employees bragged about the money they had made by shorting the housing market, it was ugly, but that didn't amount to wrongdoing.
No, the e-mail messages you should be focusing on are the ones from employees at the credit rating agencies, which bestowed AAA ratings on hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of dubious assets, nearly all of which have since turned out to be toxic waste. And no, that's not hyperbole: of AAA-rated subprime-mortgage-backed securities issued in 2006, 93 percent - 93 percent! - have now been downgraded to junk status.
What those e-mails reveal is a deeply corrupt system. And it's a system that financial reform, as currently proposed, wouldn't fix.
The rating agencies began as market researchers, selling assessments of corporate debt to people considering whether to buy that debt. Eventually, however, they morphed into something quite different: companies that were hired by the people selling debt to give that debt a seal of approval.
Those seals of approval came to play a central role in our whole financial system, especially for institutional investors like pension funds, which would buy your bonds if and only if they received that coveted AAA rating.
It was a system that looked dignified and respectable on the surface. Yet it produced huge conflicts of interest. Issuers of debt - which increasingly meant Wall Street firms selling securities they created by slicing and dicing claims on things like subprime mortgages - could choose among several rating agencies. So they could direct their business to whichever agency was most likely to give a favorable verdict, and threaten to pull business from an agency that tried too hard to do its job. It's all too obvious, in retrospect, how this could have corrupted the process.
And it did. The Senate subcommittee has focused its investigations on the two biggest credit rating agencies, Moody's and Standard & Poor's; what it has found confirms our worst suspicions. In one e-mail message, an S.& P. employee explains that a meeting is necessary to "discuss adjusting criteria" for assessing housing-backed securities "because of the ongoing threat of losing deals." Another message complains of having to use resources "to massage the sub-prime and alt-A numbers to preserve market share." Clearly, the rating agencies skewed their assessments to please their clients.
These skewed assessments, in turn, helped the financial system take on far more risk than it could safely handle. Paul McCulley of Pimco, the bond investor (who coined the term "shadow banks" for the unregulated institutions at the heart of the crisis), recently described it this way: "explosive growth of shadow banking was about the invisible hand having a party, a non-regulated drinking party, with rating agencies handing out fake IDs."
So what can be done to keep it from happening again?
The bill now before the Senate tries to do something about the rating agencies, but all in all it's pretty weak on the subject. The only provision that might have teeth is one that would make it easier to sue rating agencies if they engaged in "knowing or reckless failure" to do the right thing. But that surely isn't enough, given the money at stake - and the fact that Wall Street can afford to hire very, very good lawyers.
What we really need is a fundamental change in the raters' incentives. We can't go back to the days when rating agencies made their money by selling big books of statistics; information flows too freely in the Internet age, so nobody would buy the books. Yet something must be done to end the fundamentally corrupt nature of the the issuer-pays system.
An example of what might work is a proposal by Matthew Richardson and Lawrence White of New York University. They suggest a system in which firms issuing bonds continue paying rating agencies to assess those bonds - but in which the Securities and Exchange Commission, not the issuing firm, determines which rating agency gets the business.
I'm not wedded to that particular proposal. But doing nothing isn't an option. It's comforting to pretend that the financial crisis was caused by nothing more than honest errors. But it wasn't; it was, in large part, the result of a corrupt system. And the rating agencies were a big part of that corruption.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
12) Elite U.S. Units Step Up Effort in Afghan City Before Attack
By THOM SHANKER, HELENE COOPER and RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.
April 25, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/26/world/asia/26kandahar.html?hp
This article is by Thom Shanker, Helene Cooper and Richard A. Oppel Jr.
Small bands of elite American Special Operations forces have been operating with increased intensity for several weeks in Kandahar, southern Afghanistan's largest city, picking up or picking off insurgent leaders to weaken the Taliban in advance of major operations, senior administration and military officials say.
The looming battle for the spiritual home of the Taliban is shaping up as the pivotal test of President Obama's Afghanistan strategy, including how much the United States can count on the country's leaders and military for support, and whether a possible increase in civilian casualties from heavy fighting will compromise a strategy that depends on winning over the Afghan people.
It will follow a first offensive, into the hamlet of Marja, that is showing mixed results. And it will require the United States and its Afghan partners to navigate a battleground that is not only much bigger than Marja but also militarily, politically and culturally more complex.
Two months after the Marja offensive, Afghan officials acknowledge that the Taliban have in some ways retaken the momentum there, including killing or beating locals allied with the central government and its American backers. "We are still waiting to see the outcome in Marja," said Shaida Abdali, the deputy Afghan national security adviser. "If you are planning for operations in Kandahar, you must show success in Marja. You have to be able to point to something. Now you don't have a good example to point to there."
The battle for Kandahar has become the make-or-break offensive of the eight-and-half-year war. The question is whether military force, softened with appeals to the local populace, can overcome a culture built on distrust of outsiders, including foreign forces and even neighboring tribes.
More than a dozen senior military and civilian officials directly involved in the Kandahar operation agreed to discuss the outlines of the offensive on the condition that they not be identified discussing a pending operation. But in general, the military under Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the senior American and allied commander, has been willing to talk about operations in advance to try to scare off insurgents and convince the local population that their government and its allies are moving to increase security.
Instead of the quick punch that opened the Marja offensive, the operation in Kandahar, a sprawling urban area, is designed to be a slowly rising tide of military action. That is why the opening salvos of the offensive are being carried out in the shadows by Special Operations forces.
"Large numbers of insurgent leadership based in and around Kandahar have been captured or killed," said one senior American military officer directly involved in planning the Kandahar offensive. But, he acknowledged, "it's still a contested battle space."
Senior American and allied commanders say the goal is to have very little visible American presence inside Kandahar city itself, with that effort carried by Afghan Army and police units.
Stepped up bombings and attacks against foreign contractors, moderate religious leaders and public officials are viewed as proof that Taliban insurgents are trying to send a message to Afghan tribal leaders not to cooperate with the American offensive. Last Monday night, gunmen killed Azizullah Yarmal, the deputy mayor of Kandahar, as he prayed in a mosque in the city.
American and NATO officials are not eager to speak publicly about one of their biggest challenges: the effect of the continued presence of Ahmed Wali Karzai, the Afghan president's brother and head of the Kandahar provincial council, whose suspected links with drug dealers and insurgents have prompted some Western officials to say that corruption and governance problems have led locals to be more accepting of the Taliban.
And while allied officials say they will be relying heavily on Afghan forces to take the lead in securing the city, that same tactic has so far produced mixed success in Marja, where Marine Corps officers said they ended up doing much of the hard fighting.
To shape the arrangement of allied forces ahead of the fight, conventional troops have begun operations outside of Kandahar, in a series of provincial districts that ring the city. American and allied officers predict heavy pockets of fighting in those belts. Kandahar, according to a senior military officer, is "infested" with insurgents, but not overrun as was Marja.
The plan has echoes of the troop "surge" in Iraq, when additional American forces were sent to attack the insurgents who were operating in the belts outside the Iraqi capital, planning attacks, constructing roadside bombs and launching assaults.
Other similarities to Iraq include the plans to woo local tribal leaders in and around Kandahar, similar to the way soldiers and Marines in Anbar Province courted the tribal Sunni sheiks in Iraq to fight insurgents. The United States and its allies in the Afghan government will try to unite local tribal leaders in and around Kandahar to turn in Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters. As in Iraq, officials said, the strategy will include monetary incentives in the form of economic development money for local leaders and tribal officials who support the government's security efforts.
As the military pace increases, the centerpiece of the offensive's political effort will be a series of "shuras" - Afghan-style town hall meetings between tribal leaders and government officials to try to convince locals that they will get a better deal from the government than from Taliban administration. The aim of the shuras, said Mark Sedwill, the senior NATO civilian in Afghanistan, will be "firstly to get their support for security operations to go ahead, and secondly, to identify their needs for security, governance and development."
The next step after the security operations and the shuras will be to roll out squads of Afghan civil administrators with Western advisers, who, in theory, will try to bring government services and resources to districts. This may be the most difficult hurdle, since there are doubts among Western officials about the ability of the Afghan government to supply an ample number of effective and qualified civil administrators.
Rather than civil assistance, many residents fear only military action. Already in Kandahar, many locals view Afghan and NATO checkpoints and convoys as great a danger on the roads as Taliban bombs and checkpoints.
"Instead of bringing people close to the government," cautioned Haji Mukhtar, a Kandahar Provincial Council member, more combat "will cause people to stay further from the government and hate the foreigners more."
While the overt parts of the Kandahar offensive will begin in coming weeks - several dozen platoon and company-size outposts for American and allied forces have already been constructed in recent weeks along the approaches to Kandahar - military officials warn that securing the city could take months. Military commanders say their goal is to show concrete results by late summer or early fall, in advance of Ramadan and national parliamentary elections.
While the officials stressed that they will limit civilian casualties, an increase in operations will put more residents in the cross-fire. The fighting already under way in the province is putting at risk the sharp drop in civilian casualties that followed General McChrystal's orders to strenuously avoid them. Recent episodes of civilian casualties, including an attack on a bus, have undermined trust for NATO operations.
Officers already are also preparing for a spike in attacks with improvised explosives. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has traveled to NATO capitals to offer allies access to American-made armored transport vehicles and a host of technology and surveillance measures to find and defuse roadside bombs.
Alissa J. Rubin contributed reporting from Kabul.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
13) Robert Hicks, Leader in Armed Rights Group, Dies at 81
By DOUGLAS MARTIN
April 24, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/25/us/25hicks.html?scp=1&sq=Robert%20Hicks,%20Leader%20in%20Armed%20Rights%20Group,%20Dies%20at%2081&st=cse
Someone had called to say the Ku Klux Klan was coming to bomb Robert Hicks's house. The police said there was nothing they could do. It was the night of Feb. 1, 1965, in Bogalusa, La.
The Klan was furious that Mr. Hicks, a black paper mill worker, was putting up two white civil rights workers in his home. It was just six months after three young civil rights workers had been murdered in Philadelphia, Miss.
Mr. Hicks and his wife, Valeria, made some phone calls. They found neighbors to take in their children, and they reached out to friends for protection. Soon, armed black men materialized. Nothing happened.
Less than three weeks later, the leaders of a secretive, paramilitary organization of blacks called the Deacons for Defense and Justice visited Bogalusa. It had been formed in Jonesboro, La., in 1964 mainly to protect unarmed civil rights demonstrators from the Klan. After listening to the Deacons, Mr. Hicks took the lead in forming a Bogalusa chapter, recruiting many of the men who had gone to his house to protect his family and guests.
Mr. Hicks died of cancer at his home in Bogalusa on April 13 at the age of 81, his wife said. He was one of the last surviving Deacon leaders.
But his role in the civil rights movement went beyond armed defense in a corner of the Jim Crow South. He led daily protests month after month in Bogalusa - then a town of 23,000, of whom 9,000 were black - to demand rights guaranteed by the 1964 Civil Rights Act. And he filed suits that integrated schools and businesses, reformed hiring practices at the mill and put the local police under a federal judge's control.
It was his leadership role with the Deacons that drew widest note, however. The Deacons, who grew to have chapters in more than two dozen Southern communities, veered sharply from the nonviolence preached by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. They carried guns, with the mission to protect against white aggression, citing the Second Amendment.
And they used them. A Bogalusa Deacon pulled a pistol in broad daylight during a protest march in 1965 and put two bullets into a white man who had attacked him with his fists. The man survived. A month earlier, the first black deputy sheriff in the county had been assassinated by whites.
When James Farmer, national director of the human rights group the Congress of Racial Equality, joined protests in Bogalusa, one of the most virulent Klan redoubts, armed Deacons provided security.
Dr. King publicly denounced the Deacons' "aggressive violence." And Mr. Farmer, in an interview with Ebony magazine in 1965, said that some people likened the Deacons to the K.K.K. But Mr. Farmer also pointed out that the Deacons did not lynch people or burn down houses. In a 1965 interview with The New York Times Magazine, he spoke of CORE and the Deacons as "a partnership of brothers."
The Deacons' turf was hardscrabble Southern towns where Klansmen and law officers aligned against civil rights campaigners. "The Klan did not like being shot at," said Lance Hill, author of "The Deacons for Defense: Armed Resistance and the Civil Rights Movement"(2004).
In July 1965, escalating hostilities between the Deacons and the Klan in Bogalusa provoked the federal government to use Reconstruction-era laws to order local police departments to protect civil rights workers. It was the first time the laws were used in the modern civil rights era, Mr. Hill said.
Adam Fairclough, in his book "Race and Democracy: The Civil Rights Struggle in Louisiana, 1915-1972" (1995), wrote that Bogalusa became "a major test of the federal government's determination to put muscle into the Civil Rights Act in the teeth of violent resistance from recalcitrant whites."
Mr. Hicks was repeatedly jailed for protesting. He watched as his 15-year-old son was bitten by a police dog. The Klan displayed a coffin with his name on it beside a burning cross. He persisted, his wife said, for one reason: "It was something that needed to be done."
Robert Hicks was born in Mississippi on Feb. 20, 1929. His father, Quitman, drove oxen to harvest trees for the paper mill. He played football on a state championship high school team and later for the semi-professional Bogalusa Bushmen.
He was known for his generosity: at the Baptist congregation where he was a deacon, he bought new suits for poor members. As the first black supervisor at the mill, he helped a young man amass enough overtime to buy the big car he dreamed of. Children all over town called him Dad, his son Charles said.
A leader in the local N.A.A.C.P. and his segregated union, Mr. Hicks was the logical choice to head the Bogalusa Civic and Voters League when it was formed to lead the local civil rights effort. He was first president, then vice president of the Deacons in Bogalusa.
Besides Valeria Hicks, his wife of 62 years, and his son Charles, Mr. Hicks is survived by three other sons, Gregory, Robert Lawrence and Darryl; his daughter, Barbara Hicks Collins; and many grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
By 1968, the Deacons had pretty much vanished. In time they were "hardly a footnote in most books on the civil rights movement," Mr. Hill said. He attributed this to a "mythology" that the rights movement was always nonviolent.
Mrs. Hicks said she was glad it was not.
"I became very proud of black men," she said. "They didn't bow down and scratch their heads. They stood up like men."
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
14) Greek Debt Rating Cut to 'Junk' Status
By JACK EWING and JACK HEALY
April 27, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/28/business/global/28drachma.html?hp
FRANKFURT - Greece's credit rating was lowered to junk status Tuesday by a leading credit agency, a decision that rocked financial markets and deepened fears that a debt crisis in Europe could spiral out of control.
The ratings agency, Standard & Poor's, downgraded Greece's long-term and short-term debt to non-investment status and cautioned that investors who bought Greek bonds faced dwindling odds of getting their money back if Greece defaulted or went through a debt restructuring. The move came shortly after S.&P. reduced Portugal's credit rating and warned that more downgrades were possible.
The downgrades, announced near the end of trading in Europe, came amid rising political tensions across the Continent that had already punished Greek bonds and sent stock prices down sharply from London to Paris to New York. The Dow Jones industrial average slumped by 213.04 points to close at 10,991.99, a fall of 1.9 percent for the day; major indexes in Western Europe fell by 2.5 percent or more. Investors, worried about shock waves in the broader European economy, also migrated away from the euro and pushed the dollar and Treasury bonds higher. The euro slid to $1.3316 in afternoon trading in New York from $1.3382 late Tuesday.
"This is a signal to the markets that the situation is deteriorating rapidly, and it's not clear who's in a position to stop the Greeks from going into a default situation," said Edward Yardeni, president of Yardeni Research. "That creates a spillover effect into Portugal and Spain and raises the whole sovereign debt issue."
As transportation workers in Portugal and Greece went on strike against austerity measures Tuesday, the risk premium on Greece's bonds set records even before S.&P. announced the downgrades.
Investors were unsettled by perceptions that European leaders have not yet shown they can contain the fallout from Greece's problems, as well as the political resistance in Germany to using taxpayer money for a rescue.
"This thing is getting more and more urgent and tense," said Robert Barrie, head of European economics at Credit Suisse in London. He said the markets could settle down once Greece manages to refinance €8.5 billion, or $11.2 billion, in bonds that mature in May. "But it's anything but calm at the moment," he added.
In an effort to show unity, European Union governments may hold a summit meeting May 10 to discuss releasing aid to Greece, according to an E.U. official who was knowledgeable about the ongoing talks on the matter, but who declined to be identified because the date was not yet confirmed.
The meeting could also provide a forum for Germany, where a large majority of voters oppose aid to Greece, to deliver a stern warning to other over-indebted countries that such aid is exceptional and should be avoided in the future.
Amid the turmoil, a European Central Bank official warned all euro-zone countries to cut their soaring budget deficits and suggested that Greece may need to impose even harsher austerity measures to bring its debt under control.
The central bank vice president, Lucas D. Papademos, who was governor of the Bank of Greece from 1994 to 2002, told members of the European Parliament in Brussels that the Maastricht Treaty, which sets out borrowing limits for euro-zone countries, "is facing its biggest challenge since its adoption in 1997."
The economic program that European officials and the International Monetary Fund are negotiating with Athens in return for €45 billion in loans at interest rates well below what the market is demanding must "address the root causes of Greece's fiscal imbalances and structural weaknesses, so as to ensure the sustainability of its public finances and improve the country's international competitiveness," he said.
On the streets of Greece and Portugal, labor unions stepped up resistance to the austerity measures that will be crucial to any turnaround.
Portuguese public transportation workers went on strike against a government austerity plan intended to cut the budget deficit to 2.8 percent of gross domestic product in 2013 from 9.4 percent last year, Reuters reported. Public employees would face a salary freeze.
"It cannot only be the workers who pay," said Manuel Leal, spokesman for the Fedtrans transport union, according to Reuters.
Greek transportation workers also walked off the job Tuesday to protest austerity measures, while the country's labor unions called a national strike for next week.
Among investors there was growing pessimism that Greece would be able to repay its debt, equal to 115 percent of G.D.P., without a restructuring plan that would spread out the payments. Such a plan would effectively cut the value of Greek bond holdings.
S.&P. reinforced fear of a restructuring Tuesday. If there is a default, S.&P. estimated that investors might recover only 30 percent to 50 percent of their money.
German politicians, like Frank-Walter Steinmeier, leader of the opposition Social Democrats in Parliament, have fed speculation about a restructuring plan by calling for banks to share the costs of a Greek rescue. Greek and European Union leaders say restructuring is not on the table.
S.&P. forecast that Greece's debt problems would only get worse, rising to 131 percent of GDP in 2011, the agency said. At the same time, growth would be nearly flat until 2016, meaning that the government could not count on expansion to lift tax receipts.
The agency also noted that the debt crisis was putting increasing pressure on Greek companies and banks. Greek businesses typically must pay interest rates tied to the rate on government bonds, and Greek banks are vulnerable because of their extensive holdings of their government's debt.
Stock markets in Europe tumbled after the announcements.
In London, the FTSE 100 closed down 2.7 percent, the CAC-40 in Paris shed 3.8 percent and the IBEX 35 in Spain lost 4.2 percent. The PSI 20 index in Lisbon was off 5.4 percent and the Athens stock exchange general index slid by 6 percent, taking its year-to-date losses to 22.8 percent.
Banks were hit hard. The financial sub-sector of the Euro Stoxx 600 index lost 3.9 percent. UBS, the Swiss bank, lost 4 percent and Société Générale of France fell by 6 percent. Shares in National Bank of Greece tumbled 10 percent and Agricultural Bank of Greece, majority owned by the state, closed down 13.8 percent.
The yield of the 10-year benchmark Greek government bond surged to 9.7 percent, yet another record since the inception of the euro. German and French yields fell, suggesting that investors were rushing out of riskier fixed-income assets into safer harbors.
The yield spread, or difference, between Greek and German 10-year bonds surged to 680 basis points, the highest since 1998. Yields on Portuguese and Irish bonds also surged, although those of Spanish bonds fell slightly.
Mr. Papademos's unusually stern comments to the European Parliament are the latest expression of concern by the E.C.B. about the risks still embedded in the region's economy even though most countries have emerged from recession.
Jack Healy reported from New York. James Kanter contributed reporting from Brussels.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
15) Strict Abortion Measures Enacted in Oklahoma
By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.
April 27, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/28/us/28abortion.html?hp
The Oklahoma Legislature voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to override vetoes of two highly restrictive abortion measures, one making it a law that women undergo an ultrasound and listen to a detailed description of the fetus before having an abortion.
Though other states have passed similar measures forcing women to have ultrasounds, Oklahoma's law goes further, requiring a doctor or technician to set up the monitor where the woman can see it and describe the heart, limbs and organs of the fetus. No exceptions are made for rape and incest victims.
The second measure passed into law Tuesday protects doctors from malpractice suits if they decide not to inform the parents of a unborn baby that the fetus has birth defects. The intent of the bill is to prevent parents from later suing doctors who withhold information to try to influence them against having an abortion.
Gov. Brad Henry, a Democrat, vetoed both bills last week. The ultrasound law, he said, was flawed because it did not exempt rape and incest victims and was an unconstitutional intrusion into a woman's privacy. He painted the other measure as immoral.
"It is unconscionable to grant a physician legal protection to mislead or misinform pregnant women in an effort to impose his or her personal beliefs on a patient," Mr. Henry said.
The Republican majorities in both houses, however, saw things differently. On Monday, the House voted overwhelmingly to override the vetoes, and the Senate followed suit at 10:42 a.m. Tuesday, making the two measures law.
The ultrasound law was part of a bill that was struck down by the state courts last August because it violated a clause in the Oklahoma Constitution that requires bills to deal with only one subject. Republican lawmakers vowed at the time to pass it again.
This year, Republican leaders passed five separate antiabortion bills to satisfy the courts' concerns. Mr. Henry signed one into law: it required that clinics post signs stating a woman cannot be forced to have an abortion, that an abortion cannot be performed until a woman gives her voluntary consent, and that abortions based on a child's gender are illegal.
Two other antiabortion bills are still working their way through the legislature. One would force women to fill out a lengthy questionnaire about their reasons for seeking an abortion and then post statistics online based on the answers. The other restricts insurance coverage for the procedure.
Though many states have passed similar laws aimed at curbing abortion, with Tuesday's action, Oklahoma appears to have become the most hostile to women seeking to end a pregnancy, said Dionne Scott, a spokeswoman for the Center for Reproductive Rights, an advocacy group for abortion rights based in New York.
"It's the most extreme ultrasound requirement in the country," she said.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
16) West Bank: Israeli Forces Kill a Hamas Militant
By ISABEL KERSHNER
April 26, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/27/world/middleeast/27briefs-Westbank.html?ref=world
A Hamas militant long wanted by Israel was killed Monday by Israeli forces in Beit Awwa, in the West Bank, according to the Israeli military and Hamas. The military said that forces surrounded a house where the militant, Ali Suweiti, was hiding, that he refused to surrender, and that he was killed in an exchange of fire. Israel said that Mr. Suweiti was responsible for several shootings, including one in which a border police officer was killed. Hamas issued a statement hailing its fighter as a martyr who had refused to surrender.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
No comments:
Post a Comment