*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
A Judge's Victims
Voices of those who went through the courtroom of Judge Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. in Luzerne County, Pa. Judge Ciavarella has pleaded guilty in connection to a scheme that involved sending thousands of juveniles to two private detention centers for kickbacks.
March 28, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/03/28/us/20090328_JUDGES.html?ref=us
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Abolish the Federal Death Penalty: Support S.650
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/1265/t/5820/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=11504
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Celebrate the release of the new book by Mumia Abu-Jamal:
"Jailhouse Lawyers: Prisoners Defending Prisoners vs. the USA"
Friday, April 24th (Mumia's birthday!), 6:30 P.M.
Humanist Hall
411 - 28th Street, Oakland
$25.00 donation or what you can afford.
Featuring:
Angely Y. Davis
Mistah F.A.B.
Lynne Stewart
Tory Serra
Avotcja
Kiilu Nyasha
JR Minister of Information POCC
Ed Mead
Tiny aka Lisa Gray-Garcia
Molotov Mouths
Prison Radio, 415-648-4505
www.prisonradio.org
www.mumia.org
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
ARTICLES IN FULL:
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
1) Albany Reaches Deal to Repeal '70s Drug Laws
By JEREMY W. PETERS
March 26, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/26/nyregion/26rockefeller.html?ref=nyregion
2) Study Reports More Deaths of Children Linked to Child-Welfare System
By JULIE BOSMAN
March 26, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/26/nyregion/26acs.html?ref=nyregion
3) I.R.S. to Offer Deal to Tax Evaders
By LYNNLEY BROWNING
March 27, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/27/business/27tax.html?ref=business
4) There's Safety in Military Contracts
By KATE MURPHY
March 26, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/26/business/smallbusiness/26sbiz.html?ref=business
5) Parents of autistic boy who was Tasered question police actions
The child's mother and father say Hawthorne officers removed the disabled boy from school days after the incident last year and questioned him without a lawyer present.
By Richard Winton and Jack Leonard
March 3, 2009
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-taser3-2009mar03,0,2061401.story
6) Anonymous Video Saves Man In Brutal NYPD Beating
Michael Cephus Claimed He Didn't Do Anything To Warrant The Attack ... And It Turns Out He Was Right
Victim Doesn't Know Who Made Video, But Wants To Say Thanks
Officer Faces Investigation, Put On Modified Duty
Feb 25, 2009 9:36 am US/Eastern
http://wcbstv.com/local/anonymous.video.nypd.2.942981.html
7) Police Brutality in San Francisco Takes Over Anti-War Rally: March 21, 2009
By Feature Writer, Umayyah Cable
[There are extensive and clear and powerful photos of the Police assault on antiwar demonstrators at this site...BW]
March 22, 2009 - 1:32 pm
http://globalcomment.com/2009/police-brutality-in-san-francisco-takes-over-anti-war-rally-march-21-2009/
8) America the Tarnished
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Op-Ed Columnist
March 30, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/30/opinion/30krugman.html?_r=1
9) Reviewing Criminal Justice
Editorial
March 30, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/30/opinion/30mon1.html
10) U.S. Soldier Guilty in Killing of 4 Iraqis in 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 11:22 a.m. ET
March 30, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/03/30/world/AP-EU-Germany-US-Iraq-Deaths.html?ref=world
11) Banks Starting to Walk Away on Foreclosures
By SUSAN SAULNY
March 30, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/30/us/30walkaway.html?ref=us
12) Well-Regarded New Jersey High School to Use Drug-Sniffing Dogs
By TINA KELLEY
March 28, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/28/education/28sniff.html?ref=education
13) Obama Issues Ultimatum to Carmakers
"Mr. Obama said his administration has been working closely with the Canadian government, which was to announce its own "specific commitments" later Monday. Both G.M. and Chrysler have extensive operations north of the border."
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG and BILL VLASIC
March 31, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/31/business/31auto.html?ref=business
14) Setbacks in Bay Area Add to Pain for The Chronicle
By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA
March 30, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/30/business/media/30chronicle.html?ref=business
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
1) Albany Reaches Deal to Repeal '70s Drug Laws
By JEREMY W. PETERS
March 26, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/26/nyregion/26rockefeller.html?ref=nyregion
ALBANY - Gov. David A. Paterson and New York legislative leaders have reached an agreement to dismantle much of what remains of the state's strict 1970s-era drug laws, once among the toughest in the nation.
The deal would repeal many of the mandatory minimum prison sentences now in place for lower-level drug felons, giving judges the authority to send first-time nonviolent offenders to treatment instead of prison.
The plan would also expand drug treatment programs and widen the reach of drug courts at a cost of at least $50 million.
New York's drug sentencing laws, imposed during a heroin epidemic that was devastating urban areas nearly four decades ago, helped spur a nationwide trend toward mandatory sentences in drug crimes. But as many other states moved to roll back the mandatory minimum sentences in recent years, New York kept its laws on the books, leaving prosecutors with the sole discretion of whether offenders could be sent to treatment.
"We're putting judges in the position to determine sentences based on the facts of a case, and not on mandatory minimum sentences," said Jeffrion L. Aubry, an assemblyman from Queens who has led the effort for repeal.
"To me, that is the restoration of justice."
The agreement, which requires approval in the Assembly and the Senate, would allow some drug offenders who are currently in prison to apply to have their sentences commuted. It was not clear on Wednesday how many current prisoners would be eligible to apply. Mr. Paterson has pushed to have fewer prisoners than legislative leaders would prefer.
While a few points, like a resentencing provision and the amount the state is willing to spend on the plan, were still being negotiated late Wednesday, lawmakers said they were on track to wipe out the central elements of laws that have been criticized for decades as overly punitive and disproportionately harmful to minorities.
The laws, passed in 1973, are commonly known as the Rockefeller drug laws because they were championed by Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller in what was considered a bold response to the sharp rise in heroin use and property crimes among young people.
A spokeswoman for Mr. Paterson, Marissa Shorenstein, said reaching the deal, which she stressed was still being forged, was a personal victory for the governor, who has made drug law reform a priority of his administration. When he was a state senator, Mr. Paterson was arrested in 2002 at a demonstration outside Gov. George E. Pataki's Midtown Manhattan office protesting the drug laws.
The reforms, Ms. Shorenstein said, "reflect the governor's core principle to focus on treatment rather than punishment to end the cycle of addiction."
Under the plan, judges would have the authority to send first-time nonviolent offenders in all but the most serious drug offenses - known as A-level drug felonies - to treatment. As a condition of being sent to treatment, offenders would have to plead guilty. If they did not successfully complete treatment, their case would go back before a judge, who would again have the option of imposing a prison sentence.
Currently, judges are bound by a sentencing structure that requires minimum sentences of one year for possessing small amounts of cocaine or heroin, for example. Under the agreement reached by the governor and lawmakers, a judge could order treatment for those offenders.
Judges would also have the option of sending some repeat drug offenders to treatment. Repeat offenders accused of more serious drug crimes, however, could only go to treatment if they were found to be drug-dependent in an evaluation.
District attorneys have resisted an overhaul of the state's drug sentencing laws, arguing that the system in place has led to lower drug crime rates and allowed more drug criminals to enter treatment.
"The prison population is going down and public safety has improved, and I'd hate to do anything that would upset either of those trends," said Michael C. Green, the district attorney of Monroe County, which includes Rochester. "No one knows for sure, but logic seems to dictate that is certainly one of the possibilities."
In 2004, the state eliminated the life sentences some drug crimes carried as a maximum punishment and reduced the length of other drug sentences. But advocates said those changes did not go nearly far enough because they left judges bound to mandatory sentencing.
Since then, the Assembly, which is dominated by Democrats, has routinely passed legislation that repealed mandatory minimum sentences for many drug crimes. But the bills always failed to get past the Senate, which was controlled by Republicans until January.
Passing drug law revisions would give Senate Democrats a significant legislative victory at a time when Republicans are hammering them, saying they are disorganized and ineffective.
Senator Eric T. Schneiderman, a Manhattan Democrat who has led the effort in the Senate to overhaul the drug statutes, said he was confident he had support in the Senate to pass the plan.
"It's no secret the Senate's old majority was the primary barrier to reforming our drug laws," he said. "But this is one of the reasons we fought so hard to take the majority. This is what our supporters have expected us to do."
The deal comes as the state is facing a $16 billion budget deficit for the coming fiscal year. And finding the money needed to pay for drug addiction programs, which could reach near $80 million, will prove difficult, those involved in the negotiations said.
But in the long run, the changes are expected to save money because sending offenders to treatment is less expensive than spending $45,000 a year to keep them confined.
New York already has one of the most extensive drug-treatment networks in the country. Drug policy experts said that with the proposed changes in the law, the state could have the sentencing policy it needs to fully utilize those treatment programs.
"New York could actually become a national leader," said Gabriel Sayegh of the Drug Policy Alliance, a national group that urges relaxation of certain drug sentencing laws. "We're going in a public health direction here. We're making that turn, and that's what's significant."
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
2) Study Reports More Deaths of Children Linked to Child-Welfare System
By JULIE BOSMAN
March 26, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/26/nyregion/26acs.html?ref=nyregion
A new report shows that more children in families said to be known to the New York City child-welfare system died in 2008 than in any of the previous 20 years. There were 49 fatalities, according to Child Welfare Watch, a policy journal, including 14 homicides; the other children died in accidents or of natural causes, and, in some cases, the cause was not determined.
A family is considered known to the system if any member is under the care of the Administration for Children's Services - for example, children in foster care - or has been the subject of an abuse or neglect report to a state hot line in the previous decade.
Andrew White, director of the Center for New York City Affairs at the New School, which publishes Child Welfare Watch, said the increase goes hand in hand with the rise in reports placed to the state hot line. In 2005, the year before the death of Nixzmary Brown, the Brooklyn girl who was starved and beaten in a case that prompted an overhaul of the city's child-welfare system, there were 47,640 reports of abuse or neglect, according to the Administration for Children's Services. In 2008, there were 60,170. "It's a transformation of our culture," Mr. White said. "In the wake of Nixzmary Brown, we now report many more families for suspicion of abuse and neglect than we did in the past."
In a statement responding to the report, John B. Mattingly, the commissioner of the Administration for Children's Services, said, "While every single death is a tragedy we work to prevent whenever possible, the indicator we watch most closely is the number of confirmed homicides of children by their caregivers, and this number has remained in the same range - between 10 and 14 homicides for each of the past four years."
Sharman Stein, an agency spokeswoman, added that 14 of the 49 deaths were attributed to "co-sleeping," the practice of babies or children sleeping in the same bed as their parents, a significant increase over the past few years. She said such fatalities were being reported in higher numbers due to increasing public awareness of baby safety and recommendations against co-sleeping.
Child Welfare Watch also reported that the number of children admitted to foster care rose slightly, to 7,451 in 2008 from 7,132 in 2007.
That continues a trend, also attributed by many to the news reports about Nixzmary's death.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
3) I.R.S. to Offer Deal to Tax Evaders
By LYNNLEY BROWNING
March 27, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/27/business/27tax.html?ref=business
The Internal Revenue Service, under pressure to bring in money to the faltering economy, plans to give offshore tax evaders a big break.
The agency has drafted a plan that significantly lowers a penalty that applies to wealthy Americans who hide money overseas in secret accounts, a person briefed on the matter said Thursday. The plan is intended to lure out of hiding scores of wealthy people who must come forward and declare their accounts in order to take advantage of the lower penalty.
The plan was developed amid a widening investigation into wealthy American clients of UBS but will apply to clients of other banks as well.
Under the plan, according to the person briefed on the issue, the I.R.S. will reduce an onerous penalty for not filing a Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Account, known as an Fbar - something offshore tax evaders have not done.
The current penalty is 50 percent of the high balance of each account over the last three years - an amount that can wipe out an investor's accounts in just two years - but the I.R.S. will reduce that penalty to 5 to 20 percent, depending in part on whether the wealth was inherited.
The I.R.S. will also require taxpayers to pay any taxes and interest owed over the last six years, as well as assess a standard, accuracy-related penalty of 20 percent. Taxpayers must also file amended returns for the last six years.
The proposal, which the I.R.S. is communicating to its field agents who audit returns, does not allow taxpayers to escape potential prosecution, but it makes that outcome less likely, in particular for those covered under the 5 percent Fbar penalty, this person said.
"They need to get money back into the system, so they needed to sweeten the deal," the person said.
An I.R.S. spokesman declined to comment.
Last November, the I.R.S. scrapped at the last minute a proposal to create a global settlement for taxpayers with offshore accounts. Such settlements in the past have come under criticism for not attracting enough tax evaders.
The new plan may be more likely to draw in tax evaders because the I.R.S. and the Justice Department are exerting significant legal pressure on UBS, the world's largest private bank, to disclose 52,000 client names. Unless those clients come forward before their names are potentially turned over, they may face a heightened risk of being prosecuted, as well as the steeper Fbar penalties.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
4) There's Safety in Military Contracts
By KATE MURPHY
March 26, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/26/business/smallbusiness/26sbiz.html?ref=business
Like so many small businesses in this weak economy, Kaos Worldwide, a sports apparel company just outside Houston, has been struggling. But it has managed to survive while its competitors have folded because it won a five-year, $1.5 million contract last year to supply sports bras to the United States military.
"Without the military contract, we might not still be here," said Bert Emanuel, who founded the business with his wife, Terri, after a knee injury in 2001 forced him to retire from an 11-year career as a professional football player. Their company sells temperature-regulating and moisture-wicking base layers like T-shirts, shorts, leggings and bras.
While it may seem that only large corporations like Halliburton and Lockheed Martin would have a shot at lucrative military contracts, the Defense Department actually awards more than half, or $55 billion, to small businesses. And the Obama administration's $787 billion stimulus plan promises to make even more money available.
"Small businesses play an important role in the economy and the military," said Joseph E. Misanin, deputy director of small-business programs at the Defense Department. "They have an agility and flexibility that gives them an advantage over bigger companies."
Although the regulatory hurdles to becoming a military vendor can be daunting and frustrating, small-business owners who persevere say it is tremendously profitable and even essential to their survival. With the United States currently in the midst of two wars and tending to a multitude of other security concerns, they say the military is a recession-proof customer that has insulated them from the current economic downturn.
Beth Harshfield, the owner of Exhibit Arts, an advertising and marketing company in Wichita, Kan., said she started bidding on military contracts six years ago because "I got tired of the local economy kicking the legs out from under us." Now 80 percent of her business is with the military. Her company creates trade-show booths for Army recruiters and acts as a staffing agency for military bases.
"Once you're established and you perform well, there is unlimited potential," Ms. Harshfield said. "But getting set up to work for the government is a confusing and lengthy process."
First, small businesses have to be certified to work for the government, which can be cumbersome. It means getting listed on the Central Contractor Registration database. This is required of all current and potential military contractors. Applications can be made online and require a company's tax identification number.
Once in the database, small businesses get a Commercial and Government Entity code; a Marketing Partner Identification Number and Trading Partner Identification Number. These are all essential for finding, bidding on and getting paid for military contracts.
Helping small businesses make sense of the credentialing process are regional procurement technical assistance centers. There are 93 of these federally financed offices nationwide, run by former military procurement officers.
"The first meeting takes a few hours when we learn about the business to see if it even has a product that's possible to sell to the military," said Debbie Smith, procurement specialist at the assistance center in New London, Conn.
If the answer is yes, then the center guides the small-business owner through the registration process and enters him or her into a central database that patrols the federal system for bid solicitations that fit their profile. Small businesses can also look through the listings on www.fedbizopps.gov for opportunities.
But getting that first contract is difficult, said Ms. Harshfield of Exhibit Arts. "They want you to have experience working with the military," she said. "They aren't as interested in your commercial experience. So it's really hard to break in." It took two years, she said, for her company to get the military to accept a bid.
Mr. Emanuel said he was lucky that, through personal connections, a general in Iraq had learned of his product. The general ordered 10,000 bras for his female soldiers by credit card in 2005. So when Mr. Emanuel bid on the five-year contract that he eventually won last year, he was able to point to that experience.
Rather than bidding on contracts, some small businesses try to get their products listed on the General Services Administration schedule, which is essentially a giant e-mall where military procurement officers can buy items online with a standard credit card. If the company's product is consumer-oriented, it is eligible for listing on the Army and Air Force Exchange Service, an online, tax-free store for active-duty military and their families.
Kathline Springer, director of business development at Rust Bullet in Reno, Nev., said it took two years of paperwork and lobbying various officials to get her company's rust-retardant coating listed in 2005 on the General Services Administration schedule. Still, she said, "it was worth it" because the military is now Rust Bullet's biggest customer. "I don't have to worry if they are going to pay their bills."
Another option is to get a so-called National Stock Number, which gets a product in the Defense Department's database of items approved for military use. Mark Ewald, owner of Groove Tech in Waterbury, Vt., got a stock number in 2000 for his company's industrial-strength bungee cord.
"I get most of my orders through word of mouth," he said. "One military unit will get my product and tell another unit who wants to get it." The unit's procurement officer then uses the stock number to place an order. The military now accounts for more than half of Groove Tech's business, he said.
To expand his sales, Mr. Ewald said he had begun making marketing calls to military bases and National Guard units. "Most of the work is finding out who the supply sergeant is and how to reach him," he said. Adding to his frustration, he said, is that military personnel are mobile, so contacts change frequently.
Rick Horn, who is with the assistance center in Las Vegas, said: "It's certainly more complicated than dealing with a commercial entity. But the way the economy is these days, the government still has money and the private sector doesn't."
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
5) Parents of autistic boy who was Tasered question police actions
The child's mother and father say Hawthorne officers removed the disabled boy from school days after the incident last year and questioned him without a lawyer present.
By Richard Winton and Jack Leonard
March 3, 2009
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-taser3-2009mar03,0,2061401.story
The family of a 12-year-old autistic boy who was shot last year with a police stun gun at a Hawthorne middle school accused police officials on Monday of removing their son from school in handcuffs days after the incident and subjecting him to an interrogation in retaliation for a misconduct complaint the family had filed.
The family's attorneys contacted The Times after reading the Hawthorne Police Department's version of the Sept. 23 incident in the newspaper this week. The department had declined to name the boy.
Despite knowing the youngster was developmentally disabled, investigators had him agree to waive his Miranda rights to remain silent or have an attorney present at the interview, which occurred at department headquarters, the boy's parents said. They said police also threatened to take the boy to Juvenile Hall.
"I really believed that someone was going to call and explain why a 12-year-old was shot in the back with a Taser," said Larry Mathews, the boy's father, who filed a complaint the day after the incident. "And I still haven't heard."
The boy's mother, Almarietha Mathews, said the police overreacted and failed to take into account their son's disorder.
"They arrested him for acting out his mental disability," she said.
The Times is withholding the boy's name because he is a minor.
Hawthorne Police Lt. Michael Ishii said the boy assaulted a security guard and kicked a police officer in the groin before he was shot with the 50,000-volt Taser as he ran toward a campus exit. Police have launched an internal investigation into the use of force.
He said investigators followed procedures in reading the child his Miranda rights before interviewing him to determine whether he knew the difference between right and wrong -- a critical element in deciding whether criminal charges should be filed. Detectives spoke to him for no more than 20 minutes, Ishii said.
"After we spoke to the minor, our investigator had a lengthy discussion with the parents so that they would understand the policies and procedures we were going through," Ishii said.
The issue of using Tasers on children has become controversial in recent years. Several cases in Florida and other parts of the country have prompted calls for a ban on the shocking of minors.
Some police departments discourage the use of electroshock weapons on juveniles, and a National Institute of Justice report last year found that more research is needed to determine the health effects of shocking small children.
Ishii said Officer Vincent Arias made the decision to use the weapon after the boy's adult sister had been called to the school and had been unable to calm him down.
But the boy's family disputed the police account.
They said he began feeling agitated when he was asked to line up for his photograph during a "photo day" at the school and started running around the campus.
They said the school's security guard tried to rush the boy and detain him, making their son feel more agitated. The school called the family for help, the couple said, but when the boy's sister, Lauren Mathews, arrived she was held back and prevented from intervening.
Lauren Mathews, a senior at Stanford University, said she arrived before the police officer, and had calmed her brother down. She said Arias ran at full speed toward her brother, agitating him once again. She said she never saw her brother kick Arias and accused the officer of escalating the problem.
The boy was shot with the Taser in the back. Arias deployed the electric charge twice.
"To watch my brother shaking on the ground, it was very traumatic," the sister said. "He wasn't the same for days afterward."
The family said the boy urinated on himself and was taken to Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Torrance to have the stun gun's two electrode darts removed from his back.
The family filed a legal claim against the city late last week alleging a variety of civil rights violations, including discrimination because of the boy's disability and race. The child is African American. Arias is Latino.
A spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County district attorney's office said prosecutors allowed the boy to enroll in a counseling program.
If he successfully completes the program, she said, a criminal case will not be filed against him.
richard.winton@latimes.com
jack.leonard@latimes.com
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
6) Anonymous Video Saves Man In Brutal NYPD Beating
Michael Cephus Claimed He Didn't Do Anything To Warrant The Attack ... And It Turns Out He Was Right
Victim Doesn't Know Who Made Video, But Wants To Say Thanks
Officer Faces Investigation, Put On Modified Duty
Feb 25, 2009 9:36 am US/Eastern
http://wcbstv.com/local/anonymous.video.nypd.2.942981.html
New York (CBS)-- It can be a difficult scene to watch. A man is brutally beaten by cops and then accused of assaulting police.
All the charges have been dropped against a now disabled truck driver whose severe
beating on the lower east side was caught on tape!
But to this day, no one knows by whom.
Michael Cephus has just had a weight lifted off him. He was looking at more than a dozen years behind bars on a charge of assaulting a police officer, but the case was dismissed because of a videotape.
It was the 4th of July, in the park by the river on the Lower East Side. Cephus said he and NYPD officer Maurice Harrington exchanged words when Cephus tried to go back into the park. Cephus claims officer Harrington hit him with a collapsible baton for no reason. But once Cephus fell to the ground, what happened next was caught on videotape.
"They say one thing, you say another," Cephus said of his confrontation with the cop. "Right away, it's their word. You don't have nothing. That's it. But with the videotape, it shows I had done nothing, man."
Cephus' lawyer, Steve Orlow, said without the tape his client would be in a world of trouble.
"If not for this video, he'd be facing 15 years right now," Orlow said.
The people who made the video were arrested, and police looked for the video, Orlow said. But they slipped it to a friend of the man who was beaten. Officer Harrington is now on what police call "modified duty," that is, he's been taken off the street and the officer is now looking at an investigation that could lead to charges.
Cephus and his lawyer do not know who made the video, but they would like to find out and say thanks.
And, yes, they will be suing the city.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
7) Police Brutality in San Francisco Takes Over Anti-War Rally: March 21, 2009
By Feature Writer, Umayyah Cable
[There are extensive and clear and powerful photos of the Police assault on antiwar demonstrators at this site...BW]
March 22, 2009 - 1:32 pm
http://globalcomment.com/2009/police-brutality-in-san-francisco-takes-over-anti-war-rally-march-21-2009/
Holding an unarmed protester. Photo _ Umayyah Cable.
There are no words to describe the feeling of adrenaline spiking through my system right now. There are no words to describe the feeling of being pushed by a police officer, someone who is paid with your tax dollars to serve and protect you.
Yesterday, in San Francisco, on the 6th anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq, what started out as a peaceful demonstration against war and oppression rapidly escalated into a violent clash between aggressive riot police and the substantially outnumbered and unarmed civilian demonstrators. The demonstration, sponsored by ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism), was peaceful and calm. It was not unlike many other anti-war demonstrations that have taken place there on many occasions. Sadly, yesterday was different.
Child being detained. Photo _ Umayyah Cable
The chaos broke out after a boy who was probably between 8 and 10 years old was detained under suspicion of carrying rocks in his backpack. I never saw a rock in anyone's hand, for that matter. We are in San Francisco after all, not Palestine.
I didn't actually see what happened that caused the police to single the boy out, but I watched as he stood crying between two police officers and several ANSWER organizers who were arguing about whether or not he was going to be arrested. Then, suddenly and without cause, the police began charging the crowd with their batons.
The police were yelling "Get back! Get on the sidewalk! NOW!"- All while pushing people with their batons. Because there was an old subway entrance on the edge of the sidewalk, there was no place for people to go, even if they could have stepped back. The police proceeded to knock people over and violently shove them with their batons up against the metal fence of the old subway entrance.
There were several demonstrators and ANSWER organizers on the ground, the police were pushing against the demonstrators, and the demonstrators were desperately trying to retreat but had nowhere to retreat to. People were screaming, cops were swinging their batons, and all the while a line of baton toting officers was forming around this small area, thus sealing us off from the rest of the rally. It was then that I noticed that the majority of people quarantined in this police pit were Arab American youth.
The police in action. Photo _ Umayyah Cable
Anyone watching the chaos unfold at yesterday's march could see that the group of Arab American youth who were being corralled were no match for the throngs of well trained, baton-wielding cops. Furthermore, I believe the tactic of trapping us with a flanking line was a method of provocation and thus the cause of further altercations.
Anyone with any common sense would know that physically barricading a group of frightened and angered young people will only serve to escalate a situation. I myself was inside this police barricade and when I politely attempted to exit, I was yelled at and told to find a different exit. This was impossible given the fact that this small area was completely surrounded.
Coincidentally, this place was directly across the street from the Zionist counter-protest. Given the outrageously large number of police officers stationed in front of the counter-protest, I cannot help but wonder if this violent attack by the police was instigated by a local Zionist lobby.
What's more is that earlier during the event, when several Arab American youths made their way over to the counter protest, the police pushed and shoved them back to the other side of the street. But when a counter-protester made his way into the ANSWER rally and began taunting people, the police stood by and did nothing. The blatantly hypocritical stance of the police was despicable. This, coupled with the outright police brutality against Arab American youths, is evidence of systematic bigotry within the San Francisco Police Department.
I have been attending protests for my entire life. Until yesterday, I had never been pushed, shoved, charged, or otherwise aggressively touched by a police officer. It saddens me that on the 6th anniversary of the Iraq war, instead of successfully raising awareness about ending the war and freeing the Middle East, we must struggle to survive something as simple as our right to freedom of assembly.
How are we supposed to feel safe when the people who are responsible for our safety are intimidating and hurting us? How are we supposed to exercise our constitutional rights to freedom of speech and freedom of assembly when there is a government police force standing by to punish us for it? Who are these people who make up the San Francisco Police Department, and every police department for that matter, who see demonstrators as a menace that need to be physically squashed for the good of society? Where is the justice?
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
8) America the Tarnished
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Op-Ed Columnist
March 30, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/30/opinion/30krugman.html?_r=1
Ten years ago the cover of Time magazine featured Robert Rubin, then Treasury secretary, Alan Greenspan, then chairman of the Federal Reserve, and Lawrence Summers, then deputy Treasury secretary. Time dubbed the three "the committee to save the world," crediting them with leading the global financial system through a crisis that seemed terrifying at the time, although it was a small blip compared with what we're going through now.
All the men on that cover were Americans, but nobody considered that odd. After all, in 1999 the United States was the unquestioned leader of the global crisis response. That leadership role was only partly based on American wealth; it also, to an important degree, reflected America's stature as a role model. The United States, everyone thought, was the country that knew how to do finance right.
How times have changed.
Never mind the fact that two members of the committee have since succumbed to the magazine cover curse, the plunge in reputation that so often follows lionization in the media. (Mr. Summers, now the head of the National Economic Council, is still going strong.) Far more important is the extent to which our claims of financial soundness - claims often invoked as we lectured other countries on the need to change their ways - have proved hollow.
Indeed, these days America is looking like the Bernie Madoff of economies: for many years it was held in respect, even awe, but it turns out to have been a fraud all along.
It's painful now to read a lecture that Mr. Summers gave in early 2000, as the economic crisis of the 1990s was winding down. Discussing the causes of that crisis, Mr. Summers pointed to things that the crisis countries lacked - and that, by implication, the United States had. These things included "well-capitalized and supervised banks" and reliable, transparent corporate accounting. Oh well.
One of the analysts Mr. Summers cited in that lecture, by the way, was the economist Simon Johnson. In an article in the current issue of The Atlantic, Mr. Johnson, who served as the chief economist at the I.M.F. and is now a professor at M.I.T., declares that America's current difficulties are "shockingly reminiscent" of crises in places like Russia and Argentina - including the key role played by crony capitalists.
In America as in the third world, he writes, "elite business interests - financiers, in the case of the U.S. - played a central role in creating the crisis, making ever-larger gambles, with the implicit backing of the government, until the inevitable collapse. More alarming, they are now using their influence to prevent precisely the sorts of reforms that are needed, and fast, to pull the economy out of its nosedive."
It's no wonder, then, that an article in yesterday's Times about the response President Obama will receive in Europe was titled "English-Speaking Capitalism on Trial."
Now, in fairness we have to say that the United States was far from being the only nation in which banks ran wild. Many European leaders are still in denial about the continent's economic and financial troubles, which arguably run as deep as our own - although their nations' much stronger social safety nets mean that we're likely to experience far more human suffering. Still, it's a fact that the crisis has cost America much of its credibility, and with it much of its ability to lead.
And that's a very bad thing.
Like many other economists, I've been revisiting the Great Depression, looking for lessons that might help us avoid a repeat performance. And one thing that stands out from the history of the early 1930s is the extent to which the world's response to crisis was crippled by the inability of the world's major economies to cooperate.
The details of our current crisis are very different, but the need for cooperation is no less. President Obama got it exactly right last week when he declared: "All of us are going to have to take steps in order to lift the economy. We don't want a situation in which some countries are making extraordinary efforts and other countries aren't."
Yet that is exactly the situation we're in. I don't believe that even America's economic efforts are adequate, but they're far more than most other wealthy countries have been willing to undertake. And by rights this week's G-20 summit ought to be an occasion for Mr. Obama to chide and chivy European leaders, in particular, into pulling their weight.
But these days foreign leaders are in no mood to be lectured by American officials, even when - as in this case - the Americans are right.
The financial crisis has had many costs. And one of those costs is the damage to America's reputation, an asset we've lost just when we, and the world, need it most.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
9) Reviewing Criminal Justice
Editorial
March 30, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/30/opinion/30mon1.html
America's criminal justice system needs repair. Prisons are overcrowded, sentencing policies are uneven and often unfair, ex-convicts are poorly integrated into society, and the growing problem of gang violence has not received the attention it deserves. For these and other reasons, a bill introduced last week by Senator Jim Webb, Democrat of Virginia, should be given high priority on the Congressional calendar.
The bill, which has strong bipartisan support, would establish a national commission to review the system from top to bottom. It is long overdue, and should be up and running as soon as possible.
The United States has the highest reported incarceration rate in the world. More than 1 in 100 adults are now behind bars, for the first time in history. The incarceration rate has been rising faster than the crime rate, driven by harsh sentencing policies like "three strikes and you're out," which impose long sentences that are often out of proportion to the seriousness of the offense.
Keeping people in prison who do not need to be there is not only unjust but also enormously expensive, which makes the problem a priority right now. Hard-pressed states and localities that reduce prison costs will have more money to help the unemployed, avert layoffs of teachers and police officers, and keep hospitals operating. In the last two decades, according to a Pew Charitable Trusts report, state corrections spending soared 127 percent, while spending on higher education increased only 21 percent.
Meanwhile, as governments waste money putting the wrong people behind bars, gang activity has been escalating, accounting for as much as 80 percent of the crime in some parts of the country.
The commission would be made up of recognized criminal justice experts, and charged with examining a range of policies that have emerged haphazardly across the country and recommending reforms. In addition to obvious problems like sentencing, the commission would bring much-needed scrutiny to issues like the special obstacles faced by the mentally ill in the system, as well as the shameful problem of prison violence.
Prison management and inmate treatment need special attention now that the Prison Litigation Reform Act has drastically scaled back prisoners' ability to vindicate their rights in court. Indeed, the commission should consider recommending that the law be modified or repealed.
Mr. Webb has enlisted the support of not only the Senate's top-ranking Democrats, including the majority leader, Harry Reid, but also influential Republicans like Arlen Specter, the ranking minority member on the Judiciary Committee, and Lindsey Graham, the ranking member of the crime and drugs subcommittee.
There is no companion bill in the House, and one needs to be written. Judging by the bipartisan support in the Senate, a national consensus has emerged that the criminal justice system is broken.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
10) U.S. Soldier Guilty in Killing of 4 Iraqis in 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 11:22 a.m. ET
March 30, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/03/30/world/AP-EU-Germany-US-Iraq-Deaths.html?ref=world
VILSECK, Germany (AP) -- A second U.S. soldier was convicted Monday of murder in the execution-style slayings of four bound and blindfolded Iraqi detainees in 2007 and sentenced to 35 years in prison after he pleaded guilty at his court-martial.
Wearing his dress uniform and speaking crispy and confidently, Sgt. 1st Class Joseph Mayo of Fort Bragg, North Carolina, pleaded guilty to charges of premeditated murder and conspiracy to commit premeditated murder at the proceeding at the U.S. Army's Rose Barracks in southern Germany.
He pleaded not guilty to a charge of obstruction of justice in the incident, which occurred while he was deployed to Iraq. Military prosecutors dropped that charge.
The 27-year-old was sentenced to 35 years in prison and will be incarcerated at the military prison in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He will also be dishonorably discharged. His lawyer, Michael Waddington, said Mayo would be eligible for parole in about 10 years.
Col. Jeffrey Nance, the judge overseeing the proceedings, told Mayo that he ''entered into an agreement to commit premeditated murder'' that saw the four Iraqi men shot in the head by the side of a canal in Baghdad between March and April 2007.
In February a military court convicted Sgt. Michael Leahy, 28, of Lockport, Ill., to life in prison with the possibility of parole after he admitted to the execution-style killing of one of the detainees and shooting another. He was acquitted of murder over a separate incident in Baghdad in January 2007.
According to testimony at previous courts-martial, at least four Iraqis were taken into custody in spring 2007 after a shootout with a patrol.
The Iraqis were taken to the U.S. unit's operating base in Baghdad for questioning and processing, although there was not enough evidence to hold them for attacking the unit. Later that night patrol members took the Iraqis to a remote area and shot them in retribution for the attacks on the unit, according to testimony.
Mayo, Leahy and Master Sgt. John Hatley, 40, are accused of pulling the trigger.
''Hatley stated that if we took (the) individuals to detention they'd be released in a matter of days,'' Mayo told the court. ''He said we should take care of them. I agreed.''
Mayo has been in the Army for nearly a decade.
All were with the 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 1st Infantry Division. The unit is now part of the Germany-based 172nd Infantry Brigade.
Hatley's court-martial on charges of premeditated murder, conspiracy to commit premeditated murder and obstruction of justice is scheduled for April.
Waddington said that under a deal reached with prosecutors, Mayo will testify at Hatley's court-martial next month.
The Army has also not released a hometown for Hatley. Hatley also faces murder charges from the separate incident in Baghdad.
Two soldiers -- Spc. Steven Ribordy, 26, of Salina, Kansas, and Spc. Belmor Ramos, 24, of Clearfield, Utah -- pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit premeditated murder and were sentenced to prison last year.
Staff Sgt. Jess Cunningham, 29, of Bakersfield, California, and Sgt. Charles Quigley, 28, of Providence, Rhode Island, had charges of conspiracy to commit premeditated murder dropped this year. It is unclear whether they will testify in the upcoming courts-martial.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
11) Banks Starting to Walk Away on Foreclosures
By SUSAN SAULNY
March 30, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/30/us/30walkaway.html?ref=us
SOUTH BEND, Ind. - Mercy James thought she had lost her rental property here to foreclosure. A date for a sheriff's sale had been set, and notices about the foreclosure process were piling up in her mailbox.
Ms. James had the tenants move out, and soon her white house at the corner of Thomas and Maple Streets fell into the hands of looters and vandals, and then, into disrepair. Dejected and broke, Ms. James said she salvaged but a lesson from her loss.
So imagine her surprise when the City of South Bend contacted her recently, demanding that she resume maintenance on the property. The sheriff's sale had been canceled at the last minute, leaving the property title - and a world of trouble - in her name.
"I thought, 'What kind of game is this?' " Ms. James, 41, said while picking at trash at the house, now so worthless the city plans to demolish it - another bill for which she will be liable.
City officials and housing advocates here and in cities as varied as Buffalo, Kansas City, Mo., and Jacksonville, Fla., say they are seeing an unsettling development: Banks are quietly declining to take possession of properties at the end of the foreclosure process, most often because the cost of the ordeal - from legal fees to maintenance - exceeds the diminishing value of the real estate.
The so-called bank walkaways rarely mean relief for the property owners, caught unaware months after the fact, and often mean additional financial burdens and bureaucratic headaches. Technically, they still owe on the mortgage, but as a practicality, rarely would a mortgage holder receive any more payments on the loan. The way mortgages are bundled and resold, it can be enormously time-consuming just trying to determine what company holds the loan on a property thought to be in foreclosure.
In Ms. James's case, the company that was most recently servicing her loan is now defunct. Its parent company filed for bankruptcy and dissolved. And the original bank that sold her the loan said it could not find a record of it.
"It is what some of us think is the next wave of the crisis," said Kermit Lind, a clinical professor at the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law and an expert on foreclosure law.
For older industrial cities like South Bend, hard times in the mortgage market began before the recent national downturn, as did the problem of bank walkaways. In the case of Ms. James, a home health care administrator, the foreclosure proceedings began in the summer of 2007, when she could not keep up with the adjustable rate on her mortgage.
In Buffalo, where officials said the problem had reached "epidemic" proportions in recent months, the city sued 37 banks last year, claiming they were responsible for the deterioration of at least 57 abandoned homes; the city chose a sampling of houses to include in the lawsuit, even though the banks had walked away from many more foreclosures. So far, five banks have settled.
In Kansas City, Rachel Foley, a lawyer who handles housing cases, said bank walkaways were "a rare occurrence two to three years ago."
"We're seeing them dumped more and more at the moment," she said.
Experts suggest the bank walkaways are most visible in states where foreclosures are processed through the courts and therefore tend to be more transparent. Other states, like Indiana and New York, have court-mandated foreclosures, but roughly half of the states allow foreclosures to proceed without court intervention, making it difficult to accurately count the number of bank walkaways in recent months.
The soft housing market and the vandalism that often occurs when a house sits empty are the two main factors influencing the mortgage holders' decisions to walk away, said Larry Rothenberg, a lawyer for Weltman, Weinberg & Reis, one of the larger creditors' rights firms in the country.
"Oftentimes when the foreclosure starts out, it's a viable property," Mr. Rothenberg said, "but by the time it gets to a sheriff's sale, it might not have enough value to justify further expense. We've always had cases where property was vandalized or lost value, but they were rare compared to these times."
The problem seems most acute at the bottom of the market - houses that were inexpensive to begin with - and with investment properties, where investors and banks want speedy closure by writing off bad loans as losses. Banks and investors typically lose 40 percent to 50 percent of their investment on every foreclosure.
Guy Cecala, publisher of Inside Mortgage Finance, an industry newsletter, said some properties had become such liabilities for investors that it was not even worth holding on to them to strip valuable fixtures, like kitchen appliances, toilets and hardware.
"The whole purpose of foreclosure is to take title of the property, sell it and recoup what money you can," Mr. Cecala said. "It's just a sign of the times that things are so bad no one wants to take possession of the property."
In South Bend, boarded-up houses for whom no one has stepped forward are dotting the landscape, adding a fresh layer of blight to communities that were already scarred from the area's industrial decline.
The city is hoping to create a new type of legal mediation process that would bring together the homeowners and the mortgage holders to settle their disputes while allowing the owners to remain in the home - considered crucial to any stabilization effort.
"I'd say in the last three or four months, we've seen dozens of these cases," said Chuck Leone, the South Bend city attorney. "We see it one of two ways. One is that the bank will simply dismiss the foreclosure complaint. The other is that the mortgage holder will follow through and take a judgment of foreclosure, but then not schedule the property for sheriff's sale."
In Ms. James's case, it has been impossible to determine who canceled the sheriff's sale, since her last mortgage holder went out of business. Even the city clerk's records did not provide an answer.
"Nobody has any idea who owns what or who's responsible," said Judy Fox, Ms. James's lawyer at the Notre Dame Legal Aid Clinic. "It's a very common story."
Mayor Stephen J. Luecke of South Bend added: "It's just a crime the way it puts people in limbo. They first off have gone through the grief of losing their house, then they move out and find out that they still own it and have responsibility for it."
In Jacksonville, Fla., Sylvester Kimbrough Jr. found himself caught in the limbo between foreclosure and ownership last year, 10 years into his 30-year mortgage on a $42,000 two-bedroom house.
Mr. Kimbrough, 56, a former driver for a car dealership who is now unemployed, had already moved out when he learned that the foreclosure had been stopped.
"That move really almost destroyed us," Mr. Kimbrough said. "It was all for nothing."
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
12) Well-Regarded New Jersey High School to Use Drug-Sniffing Dogs
By TINA KELLEY
March 28, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/28/education/28sniff.html?ref=education
MILLBURN, N.J. - The high school here, which was named the state's best by a respected magazine last year, plans to begin using dogs to search for drugs on campus this spring.
"We seek to discourage illegal substances from being brought into school and to show unequivocal support for those students who do 'just say no,' " the principal of Millburn High, William S. Miron, and the district superintendent, Richard Brodow, wrote in an e-mail message to parents and students Friday afternoon. "I willingly risk student trust if it saves a single life."
In stepping up searches for drugs, Millburn will join scores of schools across New Jersey and the country. About 1,000 districts have introduced random tests for marijuana, cocaine, amphetamines and an assortment of other narcotics since the United States Supreme Court ruled in 2002 that schools could test students participating in extracurricular activities. A growing number also test for alcohol. Locally, West Essex Regional High School in North Caldwell, N.J., about 10 miles from Millburn, had two visits by canine patrols this year, neither netting any drugs.
The New York Civil Liberties Union has called police dog searches "incompatible with nurturing environments that are supposed to be conducive to adolescent education," and argued that school districts must create a careful balance between school safety and student rights.
And next month, the United States Supreme Court is scheduled to hear the case of an Arizona honors student who was strip-searched after administrators suspected her of bringing prescription-strength ibuprofen to school.
At Millburn High, where this week students reported an increased police presence, administrators have previously shied away from using dogs to address any problems with alcohol or drug use, and on Friday they would not say what changed their minds.
"We have a very relaxed atmosphere here," the principal, Mr. Miron, said in an interview. "But we feel like this is the final step that we can do to say that we're doing our part."
Calls to two Millburn police captains were not returned on Friday.
A sampling of the police blotter from this month showed two 15-year-olds charged with drinking at a party on March 14, and on March 7, three Millburn students, ages 13 to 15, were charged with possessing alcohol.
On Jan. 9 a local minister, the Rev. Darryl L. George, 58, of Short Hills, was arrested at the school along with two of his sons, accused of attacking a Millburn High student in a school parking lot. Some witnesses said the victim, an 18-year-old senior who received minor injuries, was hit with a baseball bat. That encounter resulted in assault charges against the minister and his older son, and the suspension of his 15-year-old son, a student at the school.
Such events are uncommon at the high school, which was ranked first in the state by New Jersey Monthly magazine last year and in 2007 was 97th in U.S. News and World Report's survey of the nation's 100 best high schools.
"The whole community in general is motivated academically," Mr. Miron said. "But when you have 1,400 students in a school, to think that teenagers aren't going to make mistakes, or that we're somehow immune from problems every suburban and urban school is faced with, is just unrealistic."
Mr. Miron said either the Essex County Sheriff's Office or a private security group would provide the dogs, who would start searching the school "certainly within the next couple months."
The plan received mixed reviews Friday afternoon at the train station, where Rosemarie Dawes, whose children recently graduated from Millburn High, was picking up two commuters. "I don't think it's the right idea," she said. "I just think it's too much for high school kids to deal with that." Still, she said "there should be something more being done," noting that when her students were in school, the campus had problems with marijuana.
Anne Pollock, the mother of a recent graduate of the school as well as of a Millburn Middle School student, welcomed the dogs, without concerns about invading student privacy.
"When I was in school, they got to go through your purse," she noted. "You don't want any of it in the town, you want to try to keep it out."
Two 16-year-old girls who declined to give their names said they felt the new procedure was "a little unnecessary" because most of the incidents involving drug or alcohol happened outside of school.
"There were cops strolling around all week," one said. "It was kind of distracting, sitting in class with cops walking by."
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
13) Obama Issues Ultimatum to Carmakers
"Mr. Obama said his administration has been working closely with the Canadian government, which was to announce its own "specific commitments" later Monday. Both G.M. and Chrysler have extensive operations north of the border."
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG and BILL VLASIC
March 31, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/31/business/31auto.html?ref=business
WASHINGTON - President Obama announced what amounts to a do-or-die ultimatum for the struggling automobile industry on Monday, laying out strict standards that the carmakers must meet to get more government aid and declaring that the industry must survive because it is "like no other, an emblem of the American spirit."
A failure of leadership "from Washington to Detroit" over the years has led the industry to the brink of collapse, the president said, and in more recent days both General Motors and Chrysler have failed to come up with plans adequate to justify the billions more in government help that they are requesting.
"And so today, I am announcing that my administration will offer G.M. and Chrysler a limited period of time to work with creditors, unions and other stakeholders to fundamentally restructure in a way that would justify an investment of additional tax dollars; a period during which they must produce plans that would give the American people confidence in their long-term prospects for success," the president said at the White House.
Speaking a day after the White House pushed out the chairman of G.M., Mr. Obama said Chrysler has been instructed to form a partnership with the Italian automaker Fiat within 30 days as conditions for receiving another much-needed round of government aid.
The president said he was designating Edward Montgomery, a former deputy labor secretary, to oversee the auto-recovery effort. His mission will be far-reaching, to cut through government red tape and identify initiatives to support those communities hit hard by the industry's troubles.
Other salient features of the latest plan to pull Detroit out of its decadeslong skid include a tax break, being started by the Internal Revenue Service at once, for auto purchases made between Feb. 16 and the end of 2009; incentives for people to turn in older, less fuel-efficient vehicles and buy more energy-efficient cars and government-backed warrants to assure customers that they have nothing to fear by buying a car from G.M. or Chrysler.
While the president's announcement embodies firm government control of the car industry, at least for the time being, he said, "These companies - and this industry - must ultimately stand on their own, not as wards of the state."
Mr. Obama said his administration has been working closely with the Canadian government, which was to announce its own "specific commitments" later Monday. Both G.M. and Chrysler have extensive operations north of the border.
The concept of encouraging people to buy more fuel-efficient cars, which has been tried with considerable success in Europe, will require the cooperation of Congress. Mr. Obama said he would work with lawmakers to identify portions of the recently enacted multibillion-dollar stimulus package that could be trimmed to finance the purchase-incentive idea - and make it effective at once.
General Motors, in a statement released after the president's comments, said that over the next 60 days, the company would try to "address the tough issues to improve the long-term viability of the company, including the restructuring of the financial obligations to the bond holders, unions and other stakeholders."
"Our strong preference is to complete this restructuring out of court," G.M. said. "However, G.M. will take whatever steps are necessary to successfully restructure the company, which could include a court-supervised process."
The president tried to project optimism as he summoned images of Detroit's mighty past, even as he spoke of decades of complacency and problems left for another day "even as foreign competitors outpaced us."
"Well, we have reached the end of that road," he said. "And we, as a nation, cannot afford to shirk responsibility any longer."
The president did not mention Ford, the other company in Detroit's Big Three. While it has had problems, Ford has not yet found it necessary to seek government assistance.
The president envisioned an auto industry much different, almost surely smaller, and more nimble. Yet in doing so, and voicing confidence that the industry can travel that road, he recalled an earlier Detroit that "built an arsenal of democracy that propelled America to victory in the Second World War, and that powered our economic prowess in the first American century."
The decision to ask G.M.'s chairman and chief executive, Rick Wagoner, to resign caught Detroit and Washington by surprise, and it underscored the Obama administration's determination to keep a tight rein on the companies it is bailing out - a level of government involvement in business perhaps not seen since the Great Depression.
"This is not meant as a condemnation of Mr. Wagoner, who has devoted his life to this company; rather, it's a recognition that it will take a new vision and new direction to create the G.M. of the future," Mr. Obama said.
The president made clear that some form of bankruptcy, or something close to it - a quick, court-supervised restructuring, as officials described it in advance - could still be an option for G.M. or Chrysler or both. "What I am not talking about is a process where a company is broken up, sold off, and no longer exists," the president said.
Mr. Obama's auto industry task force, in a report released Sunday night assessing the viability of both companies and detailing the administration's new plans for them, concluded that Chrysler could not survive as a stand-alone company.
The report said the company would get no more help from the government unless it can finalize a proposed alliance with the Italian automaker Fiat by April 30. It must also reduce its debt and health care obligations.
If a deal is reached between Chrysler and Fiat, the administration says it would consider another loan of $6 billion to Chrysler.
G.M., on the other hand, has made considerable progress in developing new energy-efficient cars and could survive if it can cut costs sharply, the task force reported. The administration is giving G.M. 60 days to present a cost-cutting plan and will provide taxpayer assistance to keep it afloat during that time.
Although some observers of the auto industry have attributed Detroit's troubles in part to generous wages and health benefits for assembly line workers, the president made no mention of those factors. "The pain being felt in places that rely on our auto industry is not the fault of our workers, who labor tirelessly and desperately want to see their companies succeed," he said. "And it is not the fault of all the families and communities that supported manufacturing plants throughout the generations."
Rather, he said, there has been a failure of leadership.
Along with Mr. Wagoner's ouster, the task force said most of the company's board would be replaced over the next few months. In a statement Monday, Mr. Wagoner said he had been urged to "step aside" by administration officials, "and so I have."
His resignation is the latest example of the government taking a hands-on role in making major decisions at companies it is bailing out. The government has already pushed banks to make management changes and sharply reduce or eliminate their dividends, and it also is directing many of the decisions at the troubled insurance giant, American International Group, which is nearly 80 percent owned by the government after its rescue.
In deciding to urge Mr. Wagoner to step down, the Obama administration seemed mindful of the public's growing outrage over bailouts of private companies, as well as the bonuses paid to employees of A.I.G.
Mr. Obama is well aware that he cannot afford to give the appearance of using tax dollars to reward executives who have done a poor job, and he began signaling as early as last week that he would take a tough stance with the automakers.
The plan Mr. Obama announced on Monday will also include government backing of warranties for G.M. and Chrysler cars and trucks, to give consumers enough confidence to buy them, even if one or both are forced into bankruptcy.
Mr. Wagoner has presided over a steep drop in G.M.'s domestic market share, which has led to tens of billions of dollars in losses. His critics have said that management's failure to move aggressively to address the company's problems contributed to its dire financial situation.
G.M. and Chrysler have almost exhausted the combined $17.4 billion in federal aid they have received since December. G.M. has asked for up to $16.6 billion more, and Chrysler has requested another $5 billion.
Bondholders are under pressure to convert two-thirds of the $27 billion owed them into G.M. stock, while the United Auto Workers union is being asked to substitute stock for 50 percent of their health care benefits for retirees. Both groups have resisted those changes.
Administration officials say they have enough money to offer the assistance they envision under plans already approved by Congress. Even so, Mr. Obama may face skepticism on Capitol Hill and from the public.
As part of the companies' original agreement for the loans, both were required to submit restructuring plans. Mr. Wagoner's removal underscores how much more G.M. needs to cut than was proposed in the plan the company submitted.
Administration officials stressed that the company needed a fresh approach and leadership changes; they said Steven Rattner, the former investment banker who co-chairs the auto task force, delivered the news to Mr. Wagoner.
Frederick A. Henderson, G.M.'s president, will succeed Mr. Wagoner on an interim basis as chief executive; Kent Kresa, a board member, will assume the chairmanship. Members of the auto panel spoke with Mr. Henderson recently and came away with a favorable impression of him, people familiar with the panel's discussions said.
G.M. collapsed last fall when new-vehicle sales in the United States plummeted to their lowest level in 25 years. G.M. lost more than $30 billion in 2008, and has been subsisting on government loans since the beginning of the year.
The administration briefed lawmakers on the plan Sunday night. Afterward, Representative Thaddeus G. McCotter, Republican of Michigan, whose district is just outside Detroit, expressed frustration over the ousting of Mr. Wagoner and with administration officials for not being clearer about the potential job losses that lie ahead.
"Why would you ask Rick Wagoner to resign when you are giving G.M. 60 days to meet a new target, but you aren't saying what the new goal is yet," Mr. McCotter said in an interview.
Sheryl Gay Stolberg reported from Washington and Bill Vlasic from Detroit. Micheline Maynard and Nick Bunkley contributed reporting from Detroit and David M. Herszenhorn from Washington.
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
14) Setbacks in Bay Area Add to Pain for The Chronicle
By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA
March 30, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/30/business/media/30chronicle.html?ref=business
San Francisco offers a cast of offbeat stars - rockers, politicos, Internet moguls - playing for an audience with more than its share of affluent, literate people, on a stage rich in history, eccentricity and natural beauty. It sounds like a journalist's dream, a great market for a news organization.
Yet extinction threatens The San Francisco Chronicle, the leading local news source. The Hearst Corporation says the newspaper lost about $1 million a week last year, and it must either sell the paper, close it or lay off a large part of its already diminished staff.
A plunge in advertising revenue has battered American newspapers, but red ink flowed from The Chronicle even in years when profit margins above 20 percent were the industry norm. Media analysts and current and former Hearst executives lay some blame on moves by the company and the previous owners, the de Young family - particularly a damaging 35-year partnership with a smaller paper, The Examiner, whose effects are still felt years after it was dissolved.
But fault also lies with the geography, demographics, competition and technology that all make the Bay Area perhaps the toughest newspaper market in the country. What is certain is that The Chronicle no longer has anything like the grip it once had on this region. From 2003 to 2008, the paper lost a third of its circulation, among the steepest declines in the industry.
Often dismissed as parochial, The Chronicle has not been a magnet for major awards - it was too idiosyncratic for that - but it has always paid serious attention to subjects that arouse local passions, like gay rights, the environment and arts. It is one of a handful of papers with an architecture critic, John King, a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist whose predecessor, the late Alan Temko, won a Pulitzer in 1990.
Like the city itself, The Chronicle cherishes whimsical touches, like a sports section that was printed on green paper - and occasionally still is - and front-page feature articles like a recent one about a local fish with strange eyeballs. The paper is best known for columnists with devoted followings, like Leah Garchik and Jon Carroll, whose work is often quirky, personal and resolutely local. The columnist Herb Caen, who died in 1997, was often called the voice of the city.
"The Chronicle reflected the unique culture of the place, which can be like a small town, mostly through its beloved columnists," said Robert Rosenthal, managing editor from 2002 to 2007. "But I think it's been in backpedal mode for so long, the constant downsizing, that it has lost some of that." On any sunny weekend, the long brunch lines outside Dottie's True Blue Cafe in the Tenderloin district illustrate the printed paper's shrinking place in city life. People who, a few years ago, would have leafed through The Chronicle while waiting for tables are instead tapping on iPhones and laptops.
"People eat through their whole meals texting, e-mailing, where they used to read papers," said Kurt Abney, owner of Dottie's. "At the end of the day, we used to have a huge pile of newspapers by the front door that people left behind, but now it's only a few."
Though most American newspapers are still profitable, the Internet has eroded circulation and advertising, and it cut first and deepest in the Bay Area, a leader in Internet use and home to sites like Craigslist.
The Chronicle's Web site, SFGate.com, draws an unusually large audience for a paper its size, three million to four million people monthly, according to Nielsen Online, but generates a fraction of the paper's revenue.
But some challenges posed by the region long predate the Internet.
The Bay Area has no real center of gravity, and San Francisco, at the tip of a peninsula, has no inner ring of suburbs. The city has only 760,000 of the region's more than four million residents. Nearby counties have far bigger populations, with their own economic bases and urban cores in places like San Jose and Oakland, and their own major newspapers.
"The Bay Area has this extraordinary fragmentation," said Anthea Stratigos, chief executive of Outsell, a media research firm. "It's a region of microclimates, and the person in Contra Costa County might not care about San Francisco City Hall."
The Chronicle (weekday circulation 339,000 last year) dominates in San Francisco, but beyond the city it trucks papers long distances to compete with The San Jose Mercury News (224,000) to the south, The Contra Costa Times (181,000) and The Oakland Tribune (92,000) to the east.
"Even in the best years, The Chronicle and The Examiner had one-third of the print revenue in the metropolitan market, unlike other major papers that, in their heyday, had 70 percent," said Steven B. Falk, who headed the San Francisco papers' joint operating agency in the late 1990s, and later was president and publisher of The Chronicle.
A large part of the region's population migrated from elsewhere. In fact about 30 percent are foreign-born.
Alan Mutter became The Chronicle's managing editor in 1984, arriving from Chicago where, he said, "millions of people are rooted to the area, and even in the suburbs their orientation is to the city." In the Bay Area, "I was struck that it's not that way at all."
The Wall Street Journal, USA Today and The New York Times have combined circulation in the Bay Area of 183,000, almost as high as in the much larger Los Angeles area. "Maybe they're looking for something better than the local papers, or just something that's not local," said Mr. Mutter, who left newspapers two decades ago and writes a blog on news media, Reflections of a Newsosaur.
In past decades, the rival Examiner was sometimes seen as a more serious paper. But The Chronicle more closely mirrored the city's irreverent, politically liberal outlook.
"Back in the '50s, when we were tried for obscenity for publishing Allen Ginsberg's 'Howl,' The Chronicle did a very honest, sympathetic job of covering that," said Lawrence Ferlinghetti, the poet and co-founder of City Lights bookstore, a local landmark.
In the 1970s, The Chronicle published Armistead Maupin's serial fiction that would become the "Tales of the City" novels, complete with gay characters, sex and profanity - work that most newspapers would not have touched.
Mr. Maupin said, "It was Herb Caen who taught me that hookers and hippies could be interesting characters, even heroic figures."
For 120 years, the Hearsts owned The Examiner, competing with The Chronicle. In 1965, when the papers had similar circulation, they struck a fateful joint operating agreement, sharing expenses and income. By the late 1990s, The Examiner's circulation was a quarter of The Chronicle's.
In 2000, Hearst bought The Chronicle for $660 million, ending the joint operation. Under heavy pressure not to close The Examiner, Hearst turned it over to local owners, along with $66 million in subsidies. The Examiner faded, was sold again, and became a free paper.
The Chronicle purchase coincided with the dot-com crash, followed by recession, so its revenue quickly sank. Hearst says The Chronicle has lost money every year since 2000.
The Chronicle's newsroom, which had well over 500 people after the merger, could have fewer than 200 soon, after proposed layoffs. But executives concede that even with the cuts, it is not clear the paper can make a profit. "I read it every day - I'd hate to go without it," said Mr. Maupin, who left The Chronicle staff years ago. "But by way of confession, I should add that I read online. I'm part of the problem."
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
No comments:
Post a Comment