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Bay Area United Against War Newsletter
Table of Contents:
A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS
B. SPECIAL APPEALS, VIDEOS AND ONGOING CAMPAIGNS
C. ARTICLES IN FULL
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A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS
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PROTEST! When Obama Announces Afghanistan Escalation
The World Can't Wait
Stop the Crimes of Your Government
News from the San Francisco
Bay Area Chapter
Emergency Response Plan for the SF Bay Area:
World Can't Wait is joining with other anti-war forces including the local chapters of the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition, Code Pink and others [list in formation] to mobilize
On the SAME WEEKDAY** that Obama announces the escalation:
5:00 PM at Fifth & Market (Powell St. BART): San Francisco street protest including die-ins
In the East Bay, feeder rallies and a BART march:
3:30 PM Rally: Marines Recruiting Station, 64 Shattuck Square, Berkeley
4:00 PM Rally: downtown Berkeley BART station then march by BART to arrive 5:00 PM at Fifth & Market in SF
** NOTE: If the news breaks on a weekend, these protests will happen the following MONDAY
The day of the announcement, the World Can't Wait SF office [(415) 864-5153] will have a recorded message confirming the protest times and locations.
Send us info on other campus and community protests that we can also publicize.
PROTEST IN THE STREETS THE DAY AN ANNOUNCEMENT IS MADE TO SEND MORE TROOPS INTO AFGHANISTAN
President Obama will soon announce the plan to expand the occupation of Afghanistan. The immediate response - that same evening, across this country - must be STREET PROTESTS & DIE-INS that boldly oppose this outrage. More protest and resistance must follow, yet that first night is crucial, since that is when the media -- and the rest of the world -- will be looking for a response from the people.
According to some media analysts, Obama may make his announcement sometime between Nov. 7 and Nov. 11, although it could happen earlier, or perhaps later. World Can't Wait is calling on all organizations and people of conscience to get ready for this. Read Elaine Brower's passionate call for our strength in unity and our determination in our demand at: worldcantwait.org
Whether Obama chooses a huge troop increase, or the covert operations & unmanned drone option to try to "win" in Afghanistan, we should be in the streets opposing ANY escalation. The only acceptable announcement to come from the administration would be that they're withdrawing combat troops, support troops, CIA drones, covert operations, and all private contractors NOW.
The U.S. invasion of Afghanistan eight years ago was an illegitimate war of aggression predicated on lies and waged as a war of terror by the Bush Regime. This invasion was and is a war crime. Just because the war now belongs to Obama doesn't make it any less a war crime. The war upon Afghanistan, like the war upon Iraq, is a war/occupation for U.S. Empire and nothing else.
People who argue that the Taliban will take control if the U.S. leaves and Afghan women will be in a far worse position should know that, since the invasion, the situation has deteriorated and gets uglier everyday for women there. The women and the people of Afghanistan have the right to self-determination. They should not be forced into choosing to live with a suffocating U.S. occupation or an Islamic fundamentalist theocracy. This is what U.S. military presence and involvement does - it forces the people there to make this horrible choice.
People of conscience in this country must take a bold and visible stand and say, "Stop the Escalation, Out of Afghanistan Now!" "The World Can't Wait/Stop the Crimes of Your Government!" Join us in resisting these U.S. wars/occupations and ongoing torture for Empire. An escalation of the war in Afghanistan, no matter how many U.S. troops are sent or frequency with which drones are used to bomb the people, is not the change that many in this country sought when they voted for Obama. This escalation perpetuates and intensifies the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan that has been a horrifying, living nightmare for the Afghan people.
STOP THE ESCALATION - OUT OF AFGHANISTAN NOW!
STOP THE CRIMES OF YOUR GOVERNMENT - THE WORLD CAN'T WAIT!
sf@worldcantwait.org
(415) 864-5153
sfbaycantwait.org
www.myspace.com/sfbaycantwait
World Can't Wait SF
2940-16th St., Rm. 200-6
San Francisco CA 94103
Bay Area United Against War endorses this emergency action.
bauaw.org
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Black is Back Coalition Rally and March: Stop
U.S. Occupation and War inside U.S. and Abroad!
Saturday, November 7 beginning at 10 am, Malcolm X Park, Washington DC
Washington, D.C. - A newly-formed Black coalition has announced a Rally and March on the White House to take place November 7, 2009 beginning in Washington, D.C.'s historic Malcolm X Park. The Rally and March are to protest the expanding U.S. wars and other policy initiatives that unfairly target African and other oppressed people around the world. Known as the Black is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations, the coalition formed on September 12, 2009 during a meeting in Washington, D.C. of more than fifteen activists from various Black organizations, institutions and communities.
http://blackisbackcoalition.org/
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Emergency public protest meeting:
Kevin Cooper, Troy Davis and Mumia Abu-Jamal:
Innocent! BUT FACING EXECUTION
Hear:
Laura Moye, Director, Amnesty International's Death Penalty Abolition Campaign; actively working for several years with Troy Davis and his family in Georgia
Hans Bennett, Founder, Journalists for Mumia Abu-Jamal; Editor, Free Mumia News; Author, The Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal: Innocent Man on Death Row
Rebecca Doran, leading activist in Kevin Cooper's defense
Sunday, November 8, 2009 2:00 pm
Centro Del Pueblo, 474 Valencia Street (between 15th and 16th Streets) San Francisco
Admission: $5.00 - $20 sliding scale. No one turned away for lack of funds.
Sponsor: Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal, 510-268-9429
freemumia.org
[Also in Palo Alto Fri., Nov. 6, 7:30 pm,
Fellowship Hall, First Baptist Church, 305 N. California
Ave, 650-326-8837, peaceandjustice.org]
labor donated
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A DAY OF ACTION FOR MUMIA ABU-JAMAL & MUSLIM POLITICAL PRISONERS
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2009
WASHINGTON, DC
Special Note:
This mobilization replaces the one that The Peace And Justice Foundation and FUJA had initially planned for Nov 23rd.
The November 12 mobilization will include a press conference at the National Press Club, and a demonstration at the U.S. Department of Justice. This will be a joint mobilization effort involving The Peace And Justice Foundation, Families United for Justice in America (FUJA), and some deeply committed grassroots folk connected to International Friends and Family of Mumia Abu-Jamal.
Volunteers are needed in the DC Metro area. To volunteer call (301) 762-9162 or e-mail: peacethrujustice@aol.com
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for immediate release:
Contact: Hendrik Voss
202-234-3440, media@soaw.org
Mass Mobilization to Shut Down the School of the Americas
November 20-22, 2009, Fort Benning, Georgia:
* The SOA graduate-led military coup in Honduras and the increasing U.S. military involvement in Colombia put a renewed focus on the School of the Americas (SOA/ WHINSEC) and the policies it represents.
* Thousands from across the Americas will converge on November 20-22 at Fort Benning, GA for a vigil and civil disobedience actions to speak out against the SOA/ WHINSEC and to demand a change in U.S. foreign policy.
* The vigil will commemorate the 20th anniversary of the 1989 SOA graduate-led Jesuit massacre in San Salvador, and the many other thousands of victims of SOA/ WHINSEC violence.
The military coup led by SOA graduates in Honduras has once again exposed the destabilizing and deadly effects that the School of the Americas (SOA/ WHINSEC) has on Latin America. Torture survivors and human rights activists from across the Americas, including Bertha Oliva, the founder of the Committee of the Family Members of the Disappeared (COFADEH) from Honduras and human rights defenders from Colombia will travel to Fort Benning, Georgia to participate in the mobilization.
The campaign to close the SOA/ WHINSEC is in a crucial phase right now. Despite promising comments from President Obama during his 2008 election campaign, the SOA/ WHINSEC is still in operation, the U.S. is poring millions into failing "military solutions" to combat the drug problems in Mexico and the Pentagon is moving forward with plans to use seven Colombian military bases in Colombia for offensive U.S. military operations.
"It is up to us to hold those responsible accountable and to push for to closing of the School of the Americas and a change in US foreign policy" said Father Roy Bourgeois, the founder of SOA Watch. "Too many have died and continue to suffer at the hands of graduates of this notorious institute."
In the fall of 2009, opponents of the SOA/ WHINSEC achieved a victory when a joint House and Senate conference committee agreed to include language in the FY 2010 Defense Authorization bill that requires the Pentagon to release names of the graduates of the SOA/ WHINSEC to the public. The Pentagon had classified the names after the continued involvement of SOA/ WHINSEC attendees in human rights abuses became public.
For more information about the November vigil to close the SOA/ WHINSEC, lead-up actions and a complete schedule of events, visit www.SOAW.org
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Four years ago activists around the world were mobilizing and organizing against the execution of Stanley Tookie Williams. We need to continue that fight today.
Fourth Annual Stanley Tookie Silliams Legacy Summit
MOBILIZING THE MOVEMENT FOR JUSICE
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 13TH, 3:00-6:00 P.M.
MERRITT COLLEGE
Huey P. Newton/Bobby Seale Student Lounge
12500 Campus Drive, Oakland
For directions go to www.merritt.edu
For more information: 510-235-9780
KEVIN COOPER, TROY DAVIS, MUMIA ABU-JAMAL: THREE INNOCENT MEN ON DEATH ROW
Featuring:
Angela Davis, author and activist.
Barbara Becnel, co-author and friend of Stanley Tookie Williams
Martina Correia, sister of Troy Davis
Release of report, "What's Really Happening on California's Death Row?"
Messages from "The Three Innocent Men"
Sneak Preview, "The Justice Chronicles," dramatic presentation of prison writings
Memorial Movie, for Oscar Grant III
Sponsors:
Stanley Tookie Williams Legacy Network; Campaign to End the Death Penalty; Kevin Cooper Defense Committee, African American Studies Department, Merritt College
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U.S. OUT OF IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN NOW!
FREE PALESTINE!
San Francisco March and Rally
on Saturday, March 20, 2010
11am, Civic Center Plaza
National March on Washington
on Saturday, March 20, 2010
Fri., March 19 Day of Action & Outreach in D.C.
People from all over the country are organizing to converge on Washington, D.C., to demand the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all U.S. and NATO forces from Afghanistan and Iraq.
On Saturday, March 20, 2010, there will be a massive National March & Rally in D.C. A day of action and outreach in Washington, D.C., will take place on Friday, March 19, preceding the Saturday march.
There will be coinciding mass marches on March 20 in San Francisco and Los Angeles.
The national actions are initiated by a large number of organizations and prominent individuals. (see below)
Click here to become an endorser:
http://answer.pephost.org/site/Survey?SURVEY_ID=5940&ACTION_REQUIRED=URI_ACTION_USER_REQUESTS&autologin=true&link=endorse-body-1
Click here to make a donation:
https://secure2.convio.net/pep/site/Donation?ACTION=SHOW_DONATION_OPTIONS&CAMPAIGN_ID=2302&autologin=true&donate=body-1&JServSessionIdr002=2yzk5fh8x2.app13b
We will march together to say "No Colonial-type Wars and Occupations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine!" We will march together to say "No War Against Iran!" We will march together to say "No War for Empire Anywhere!"
Instead of war, we will demand funds so that every person can have a job, free and universal health care, decent schools, and affordable housing.
March 20 is the seventh anniversary of the criminal war of aggression launched by Bush and Cheney against Iraq. One million or more Iraqis have died. Tens of thousands of U.S. troops have lost their lives or been maimed, and continue to suffer a whole host of enduring problems from this terrible war.
This is the time for united action. The slogans on banners may differ, but all those who carry them should be marching shoulder to shoulder.
Killing and dying to avoid the perception of defeat
Bush is gone, but the war and occupation in Iraq still go on. The Pentagon is demanding a widening of the war in Afghanistan. They project an endless war with shifting battlefields. And a "single-payer" war budget that only grows larger and larger each year. We must act.
Both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars were predicated on the imperial fantasy that the U.S. could create stable, proxy colonial-type governments in both countries. They were to serve as an extension of "American" power in these strategic and resource-rich regions.
That fantasy has been destroyed. Now U.S. troops are being sent to kill or be killed so that the politicians in uniform ("the generals and admirals") and those in three-piece suits ("our elected officials") can avoid taking responsibility for a military setback in wars that should have never been started. Their military ambitions are now reduced to avoiding the appearance of defeat.
That is exactly what happened in Vietnam! Avoiding defeat, or the perception of defeat, was the goal Nixon and Kissinger set for themselves when they took office in 1969. For this noble cause, another 30,000 young GIs perished before the inevitable troop pullout from Vietnam in 1973. The number of Vietnamese killed between 1969 and 1973 was greater by many hundreds of thousands.
All of us can make the difference - progress and change comes from the streets and from the grassroots.
The people went to the polls in 2008, and the enthusiasm and desire for change after eight years of the Bush regime was the dominant cause that led to election of a big Democratic Party majority in both Houses of Congress and the election of Barack Obama to the White House.
But it should now be obvious to all that waiting for politicians to bring real change - on any front - is simply a prescription for passivity by progressives and an invitation to the array of corporate interests from military contractors to the banks, to big oil, to the health insurance giants that dominate the political life of the country. These corporate interests work around the clock to frustrate efforts for real change, and they are the guiding hand behind the recent street mobilizations of the ultra-right.
It is up to us to act. If people had waited for politicians to do the right thing, there would have never been a Civil Rights Act, or unions, women's rights, an end to the Vietnam war or any of the profound social achievements and basic rights that people cherish.
It is time to be back in the streets. Organizing centers are being set up in cities and towns throughout the country.
We must raise $50,000 immediately just to get started. Please make your contribution today. We need to reserve buses, which are expensive ($1,800 from NYC, $5,000 from Chicago, etc.). We have to print 100,000 leaflets, posters and stickers. There will be other substantial expenses as March 20 draws closer.
Please become an endorser and active supporter of the March 20 National March on Washington.
Please make an urgently needed tax-deductible donation today. We can't do this without your active support.
The initiators of the March 20 National March on Washington (preceded by the March 19 Day of Action and Outreach in D.C.) include: the ANSWER Coalition; Muslim American Society Freedom; National Council of Arab Americans; Cynthia McKinney; Malik Rahim, co-founder of Common Ground Collective; Ramsey Clark; Cindy Sheehan; Medea Benjamin, co-founder of CODEPINK; Deborah Sweet, Director, World Can't Wait; Mike Ferner, President, Veterans for Peace; Al-Awda, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition; Heidi Boghosian, Executive Director, National Lawyers Guild; Ron Kovic, author of "Born on the 4th of July"; Juan Jose Gutierrez, Director, Latino Movement USA; Col. Ann Wright (ret.); March Forward!; Partnership for Civil Justice; Palestinian American Women Association; Alliance for a Just and Lasting Peace in the Philippines; Alliance for Global Justice; Claudia de la Cruz, Pastor, Iglesia San Romero de Las Americas-UCC; Phil Portluck, Social Justice Ministry, Covenant Baptist Church, D.C.; Blase & Theresa Bonpane, Office of the Americas; Coalition for Peace and Democracy in Honduras; Comite Pro-Democracia en Mexico; Frente Unido de los Pueblos Americanos; Comites de Base FMLN, Los Angeles; Free Palestine Alliance; GABRIELA Network; Justice for Filipino American Veterans; KmB Pro-People Youth; Students Fight Back; Jim Lafferty, Executive Director, National Lawyers Guild - LA Chapter; LEF Foundation; National Coalition to Free the Angola 3; Community Futures Collective; Advocates for Indigenous California Language Survival; Companeros del Barrio; Barrio Unido for Full and Unconditional Amnesty, Bay Area United Against War.
A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
http://www.answercoalition.org/
info@internationalanswer.org
National Office in Washington DC: 202-265-1948
New York City: 212-694-8720
Los Angeles: 213-251-1025
San Francisco: 415-821-6545
Chicago: 773-463-0311
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B. SPECIAL APPEALS, VIDEOS AND ONGOING CAMPAIGNS
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Oakland's Judge Jacobson ruled at 4:00PM Friday, October 16 to move the trial of Johannes Mehserle, killer of unarmed Oscar Grant, OUT OF OAKLAND. The location of the trial venue has not been announced.
In the case of an innocent verdict, folks are encouraged to head to Oakland City Hall ASAP to express our outrage in a massive and peaceful way! Our power is in our numbers! Oscar Grant's family and friends need our support!
For more information:
Contact BAMN at 510-502-9072
letters@bamn.com
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Tell City Hall:
All Renters Deserve Protection from Eviction!
Supervisor Avalos has proposed legislation that would extend "just cause" eviction protections to rentals build after 1979.
Without this protection, 16,000-23,000 renters can be arbitrarily evicted, suddenly and for no reason at all.
The Land Use Committee will be voting on Monday. Please call or email the following board members and the Mayor to urge them to support the "Avalos Just Cause Bill". A Sample email is below.
justcauseimage.gif
Mayor Gavin Newsom
Telephone: (415) 554-6141
Fax: (415) 554-6160
gavin.newsom@sfgov.org
Sup. Sophie Maxwell
(415) 554-7670 - voice
(415) 554-7674 - fax
Sophie.Maxwell@sfgov.org
Sup. Bevan Dufty
(415) 554-6968- voice
(415) 554-6909 - fax
Bevan.Dufty@sfgov.org
Sup. Michela Alioto-Pier
(415) 554-7752 - voice
(415) 554-7843 - fax
Michela.Alioto-Pier@sfgov.org
Sup. Carmen Chu
San Francisco, CA 94102-4689
(415) 554-7460 - voice
(415) 554-7432 - fax
Carmen.Chu@sfgov.org
Sup. Sean Elsbernd
(415) 554-6516 - voice
(415) 554-6546 - fax
Sean.Elsbrend@sfgov.org
Sample Letter/ Email
Dear Supervisor,
I am a renter in San Francisco and I am very concerned to learn that many renters here are not protected from evictions because their home was build after 1979.
There is no reason why a random group of renters could suddenly lose their housing at the drop of a hat.
Rents are still so high in this city. Getting evicted means quickly finding housing that you can afford, which is nearly impossible in this market.
Please support Supervisor Avalos's "Just Cause" ordinance. It is only fair.
Sincerely,
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Cleve Jones Speaks At Gay Rights Rally In Washington, DC
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvC3hVXZpc4
Free the SF8: Drop the Charges!
by Bill Carpenter ( wcarpent [at] ccsf.edu )
Monday Oct 12th, 2009 11:20 AM
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/10/12/18625220.php
Sony Piece of crap (Hilarious!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3I-JByPDJm0
Sick For Profit
http://sickforprofit.com/videos/
Fault Lines: Despair & Revival in Detroit - 14 May 09 - Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJ7VL907Qb0&feature=related
VIDEO INTERVIEW: Dan Berger on Political Prisoners in the United States
By Angola 3 News
Angola 3 News
37 years ago in Louisiana, 3 young black men were silenced for trying to expose continued segregation, systematic corruption, and horrific abuse in the biggest prison in the US, an 18,000-acre former slave plantation called Angola. In 1972 and 1973 prison officials charged Herman Wallace, Albert Woodfox, and Robert King with murders they did not commit and threw them into 6x9 ft. cells in solitary confinement, for over 36 years. Robert was freed in 2001, but Herman and Albert remain behind bars.
http://angola3news.blogspot.com/2009/09/video-dan-berger-on-political-prisoners.html
Taking Aim Radio Program with
Ralph Schoenman and Mya Shone
The Chimera of Capitalist Recovery, Parts 1 and 2
http://www.takingaimradio.com/shows/audio.html
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JROTC MUST GO!
The San Francisco Board of Education has re-installed the Junior Reserve Officer's Training Corps in San Francisco schools -- including allowing it to count for Physical Education credits.
This is a complete reversal of the 2006 decision to end JROTC altogether in San Francisco public schools. Our children need a good physical education program, not a death education program!
With the economy in crisis; jobs and higher education for youth more unattainable; the lure, lies and false promises of military recruiters is driving more and more of our children into the military trap.
This is an economic draft and the San Francisco Board of Education is helping to snare our children to provide cannon fodder for the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and for over 700 U.S. military bases around the world!
We can't depend upon "friendly politicians" who, while they are campaigning for office claim they are against the wars but when they get elected vote in favor of military recruitment--the economic draft--in our schools. We can't depend upon them. That has been proven beyond doubt!
It is up to all of us to come together to stop this NOW!
GET JROTC AND ALL MILITARY RECRUITERS OUT OF OUR SCHOOLS NOW!
Write, call, pester and ORGANIZE against the re-institution of JROTC in our San Francisco public schools NOW!
In solidarity,
Bonnie Weinstein
Bay Area United Against War Newsletter
San Francisco Board of Education
555 Franklin Street, 1st Floor
San Francisco, CA 94102
415/241-6427, (415) 241-6493
cascoe@sfusd.edu
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HELP VFP PUT THIS BOOK IN YOUR HIGH SCHOOL OR PUBLIC LIBRARY
For a donation of only $18.95, we can put a copy of the book "10 Excellent Reasons Not to Join the Military" into a public or high school library of your choice. [Reason number 1: You may be killed]
A letter and bookplate will let readers know that your donation helped make this possible.
Putting a book in either a public or school library ensures that students, parents, and members of the community will have this valuable information when they need it.
Don't have a library you would like us to put it in? We'll find one for you!
https://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/826/t/9311/shop/custom.jsp?donate_page_KEY=4906
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Showdown In Chicago
The Showdown in Chicago is underway! Thousands of Americans are in the midst of a series of demonstrations against Wall Street banks and their lobbyists to call for financial reform. Check out the latest news:
http://www.showdowninchicago.org/
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EYE WITNESS REPORTS FROM GAZA Video Free Gaza News October 22,2009
http://www.youtube.com/gazafriends#p/a/1/nHa-CzNCF3c
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ANSWER Statement on Proposed SF Parking Meter Hours
The ANSWER Coalition-SF Bay Area strongly opposes the proposal to extend parking meter hours in San Francisco. The SFMTA, the Metropolitan Transit Agency, is proposing to have parking meters in most of SF run until midnight Monday-Saturday, and from 11 am-6 pm on Sundays!
This is another attempt by the politicians to solve the city's budget crisis by squeezing every last dollar they can out of working people. They have outrageously jacked up MUNI fares, other city fees and parking fines. At the same time they have let the big banks, developers and other wealthy corporate interests-the ones who have created the current economic and budget crisis-off the hook.
The DPT (Department of Parking and Traffic) has already begun a policy of "enhanced enforcement," super-aggressively ticketing vehicles from 9:01 am to 5:59 pm, Monday-Saturday. Every day in every working class neighborhood of SF you can see the booted cars and trucks. On top of the $53, $63 and higher parking tickets, it costs over $200 just to get a boot removed! If your car gets towed, you have to pay $400 or more to get it back. This is causing many low-income people to lose their vehicles.
City officials are trying to mislead people by falsely claiming that the reason for extending meter hours is to collect more quarters and "open up more parking spaces." What they really want is to hit us with thousands more high-priced tickets, and then collect the ransom for booted and towed cars.
This is a class issue. The rich and the well-to-do don't have to worry about where to park in this small and crowded city. They have garages or can afford to pay for parking. It is overwhelmingly working class people who are being hit and who will be hit much, much harder if the new policy goes into effect. Many residents in neighborhoods with meters have no choice but to park at meters after 6 pm and move their vehicles before 9 am the next morning. There just aren't enough spaces otherwise.
As Cristina Gutierrez of Barrio Unido, an immigrant rights group opposed to the plan, asked: "What are we supposed to do, run out of our homes every hour at night to feed the meter?"
But the MTA board and some misguided individuals are trying to pose the issue as MUNI riders vs. car drivers. Some have even ignorantly asserted that if you own a car, you can't possibly be poor. Really? Tell that to the growing number of people forced to LIVE in their cars due to the depression!
The reality is that many people in SF both ride MUNI and own cars (some ride bikes, too). For a lot of people getting to work, shopping, medical appointments, etc. requires a car. That's especially true for families and for people whose jobs are outside SF or not easily accessible by mass transit. Posing the issue as bus riders vs. car riders is false and reactionary.
Does MUNI need more funding? Of course. Should MUNI fares be cut and service increased? No question about it. The issue is: Who should pay?
While taxes, fees, fines, fares, etc., etc, have been constantly increased for us, the taxes on corporate profits have been going down. Many big banks and corporations have been able to avoid paying income tax altogether. While we're told that there's no money for people's needs, $500,000,000 is spent every day on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Trillions of dollars have been handed over to the biggest banks in just the last year.
It's time to say: Enough is Enough! It's time for the politicians to stop trying to make working people pay for the economic crisis that the rich created. It's time to make those who can afford it-big business-pay for the services that the people of the city, state and country need.
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
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This is a must-see video about the life of Oscar Grant, a young man who loved his family and was loved by his family. It's important to watch to understand the tremendous loss felt by his whole family as a result of his cold-blooded murder by BART police officers--Johannes Mehserle being the shooter while the others held Oscar down and handcuffed him to aid Mehserle in the murder of Oscar Grant January 1, 2009.
The family wants to share this video here with you who support justice for Oscar Grant.
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/07/21/18611878.php
WE DEMAND JUSTICE FOR OSCAR GRANT!
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Urgent: Ahmad Sa'adat transferred to isolation in Ramon prison!
http://www.freeahmadsaadat.org/
Imprisoned Palestinian national leader Ahmad Sa'adat, the General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, was transferred on August 11, 2009 to Ramon prison in the Naqab desert from Asqelan prison, where he had been held for a number of months. He remains in isolation; prior to his transfer from Asqelan, he had been held since August 1 in a tiny isolation cell of 140 cm x 240 cm after being penalized for communicating with another prisoner in the isolation unit.
Attorney Buthaina Duqmaq, president of the Mandela Association for prisoners' and detainees' rights, reported that this transfer is yet another continuation of the policy of repression and isolation directed at Sa'adat by the Israeli prison administration, aimed at undermining his steadfastness and weakening his health and his leadership in the prisoners' movement. Sa'adat has been moved repeatedly from prison to prison and subject to fines, harsh conditions, isolation and solitary confinement, and medical neglect. Further reports have indicated that he is being denied attorney visits upon his transfer to Ramon.
Ahmad Sa'adat undertook a nine-day hunger strike in June in order to protest the increasing use of isolation against Palestinian prisoners and the denial of prisoners' rights, won through long and hard struggle. The isolation unit at Ramon prison is reported to be one of the worst isolation units in terms of conditions and repeated violations of prisoners' rights in the Israeli prison system.
Sa'adat is serving a 30 year sentence in Israeli military prisons. He was sentenced on December 25, 2008 after a long and illegitimate military trial on political charges, which he boycotted. He was kidnapped by force in a military siege on the Palestinian Authority prison in Jericho, where he had been held since 2002 under U.S., British and PA guard.
Sa'adat is suffering from back injuries that require medical assistance and treatment. Instead of receiving the medical care he needs, the Israeli prison officials are refusing him access to specialists and engaging in medical neglect and maltreatment.
The Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa'adat demands an end to this isolation and calls upon all to protest at local Israeli embassies and consulates (the list is available at: http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/ About+the+Ministry/Diplomatic+mission/Web+Sites+of+Israeli+ Missions+Abroad.htm) and to write to the International Committee of the Red Cross and other human rights organizations to exercise their responsibilities and act swiftly to demand that the Israelis ensure that Ahmad Sa'adat and all Palestinian prisoners receive needed medical care and that this punitive isolation be ended. Email the ICRC, whose humanitarian mission includes monitoring the conditions of prisoners, at jerusalem..jer@icrc.org, and inform them about the urgent situation of Ahmad Sa'adat!
Ahmad Sa'adat has been repeatedly moved in an attempt to punish him for his steadfastness and leadership and to undermine his leadership in the prisoners' movement. Of course, these tactics have done nothing of the sort. The Palestinian prisoners are daily on the front lines, confronting Israeli oppression and crimes. Today, it is urgent that we stand with Ahmad Sa'adat and all Palestinian prisoners against these abuses, and for freedom for all Palestinian prisoners and for all of Palestine!
The Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa'adat
http://www.freeahmadsaadat.org
info@freeahmadsaadat.org
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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
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Committee To Save Mumia Abu-Jamal
P.O. Box 2012
New York, NY 10159-2012
New videos from April 24 Oakland Mumia event
http://abu-jamal-news.com/article?name=jlboak
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 501(c)(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
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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!
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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
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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/
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C. ARTICLES IN FULL
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1) Labor, the Antiwar Movement and the Democratic Party
By Carole Seligman and Bonnie Weinstein
November 2, 2009
(Posted by authors)
2) Federal Researchers Find Lower Standards in Schools
By SAM DILLON
October 30, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/30/education/30educ.html?ref=education
3) Constraining America's Brightest
By BOB HERBERT
Op-Ed Columnist
October 31, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/31/opinion/31herbert.html?hp
4) Ford's Plan to Cut Costs Falls Short in Union Vote
By NICK BUNKLEY
November 1, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/01/business/01auto.html?hp
5) The R.O.T.C. Dilemma
By MICHAEL WINERIP
November 1, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/01/education/edlife/01rotc-t.html?hp
6) Colombia: Pact to Expand U.S. Army Presence Signed
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
World Briefing | The Americas
October 31, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/31/world/americas/31briefs-Colombia.html?ref=world
7) Prayers and Criticism in Wake of Detroit Imam's Killing by F.B.I.
By SUSAN SAULNY
October 31, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/31/us/31dearborn.html?ref=us
8) Too Little of a Good Thing
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Op-Ed Columnist
November 2, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/02/opinion/02krugman.html
9) Immigrant Jail Tests U.S. View of Legal Access
By NINA BERNSTEIN
November 2, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/02/nyregion/02detain.html?hp
10) Full Appeals Court Rejects Suit in Rendition Case
By Benjamin Weiser
November 2, 2009, 11:44 am
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/02/full-appeals-court-rejects-suit-in-rendition-case/?hp
11) Karzai Gets New Term as Afghan Runoff Is Scrapped
By ALISSA J. RUBIN and ALAN COWELL
November 3, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/03/world/asia/03afghan.html?ref=world
12) Ford Posts an Unexpected Profit of $997 Million
By NICK BUNKLEY
November 3, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/03/business/03auto.html?ref=business
13) Premature Births Behind Higher Infant Death Rates in U.S., Report Says.
By DENISE GRADY
November 4, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/04/health/04infant.html
14) Mt. Kilimanjaro Ice Cap Continues Rapid Retreat
By SINDYA N. BHANOO
November 3, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/03/world/africa/03melt.html?ref=world
15) Philadelphia Transit Workers Strike
By IAN URBINA
November 4, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/04/us/04transit.html?ref=us
16) UFC fighter was eating ketchup and rice before UFC 104
By Steve Cofield
Mon Nov 02, 2009 2:25 pm EST
http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/blog/cagewriter/post/UFC-fighter-was-eating-ketchup-and-rice-before-U?urn=mma,199656
17) Pentagon Expected to Request More War Funding
By ELISABETH BUMILLER
November 5, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/05/world/05military.html?ref=world
18) Afghan Villagers Say Air Strike Kills 9 Civilians
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
November 5, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/11/05/world/AP-AS-Afghan-Violence.html?ref=world
19) Reports Show Conflicting Number of Jobs Attributed to Stimulus Money
By MICHAEL COOPER and RON NIXON
November 5, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/05/us/05stimulus.html?ref=us
20) Some Wall Street Year-End Bonuses Could Hit Pre-Downturn Highs
By ERIC DASH
November 5, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/05/business/05pay.html?ref=us
21) U.S. Jobless Rate Shocking: 15.7 Million Workers Unemployed
By Tula Connell
November 6, 2009
http://blog.aflcio.org/2009/11/06/us-jobless-rate-shocking-157-million-workers-unemployed/
22) U.S. Unemployment Rate Hits 10.2%, Highest in 26 Years
By PETER S. GOODMAN
November 7, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/07/business/economy/07jobs.html?hp
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1) Labor, the Antiwar Movement and the Democratic Party
By Carole Seligman and Bonnie Weinstein
November 2, 2009
(Posted by authors)
On October 17th antiwar demonstrations were held across the country
marking the 9th year of Operation Enduring Freedom, the U.S. war on
Afghanistan, which began October 7, 2001. The actions also marked the
40th anniversary of the 1969 Vietnam Moratorium, a huge national
mobilization against the Vietnam War, which took place throughout the
country. The 2009 demonstrations, modest in size, opposed the U.S.
wars against Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the acts of war against
Pakistan, the U.S. supported Israeli war against the Palestinians,
and the U.S. war threats against Iran and North Korea. One thousand
marched in Boston and San Francisco. Smaller demonstrations were held
in many other cities and towns, including Detroit; Milwaukee; New
Orleans; Newport, Kentucky; Norwich, Connecticut; Honolulu-more than
48 cites across the country.
The demonstrations were initiated by the National Assembly to End the
Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations, a national network of
peace activists attempting to forge unity in the antiwar movement.
They were endorsed by a wide array of peace organizations, including
many unions, labor councils, religious and peace groups, community
organizations, veterans groups, and others.
In San Francisco, the October 17th Coalition was formed to plan a
march and rally here. Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER),
United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ), Iraq Moratorium, Code Pink, The
World Can't Wait, Bay Area Labor Committee for Peace and Justice,
U.S. Labor Against the War, all the socialist organizations
(including this magazine) and many other groups joined the coalition
and helped publicize the demonstration. The October 17th
demonstration was eventually endorsed by the San Francisco Labor
Council.
In addition to the antiwar demands of the coalition for U.S. Out Now
and an end for U.S. support to the Israeli war and occupation against
the Palestinians; the demonstrations also demanded government funding
for jobs, pensions, education, healthcare and housing, not wars and
corporate bailouts; self-determination for all oppressed nations and
peoples; an end to war crimes including torture; and prosecution of
the war criminals.
S.F. Coalition reneges on anti-Pelosi protest
The first meeting of the S.F. October 17th Coalition, held in August,
set a good principled tone by beginning to organize the October
demonstration, as well as make a decision to protest Speaker of the
House, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi's appearance at a San Francisco
Labor Day event on September 4th. The motion to protest Pelosi for
her role in funding the wars, passed unanimously.
However, the day after the second Coalition meeting, the group's co-
coordinator, Jeff Mackler, sent out an announcement to the members of
the coalition unilaterally canceling the protest!
The reasons stated for this unusual action were that the Pelosi
breakfast was sponsored by the San Francisco Labor Council, "an
organization that has consistently endorsed and supported the antiwar
movement." And, he stated that he hadn't known at the meeting where
the vote took place "that the event was to be a protest of the San
Francisco Labor Council." He stated in the letter that although
Pelosi "continued [to] support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and
the bailout for the banks," this labor breakfast was not an
"appropriate" event at which to protest Pelosi!
In this shameful letter, Mackler wrote, "Further, I request that all
leaflets that were produced to advertise this event (approximately
200) be immediately destroyed." And, "I will not be present at this
protest. Neither will any of the leading organizations of the October
17 Antiwar Coalition."
Mackler claimed that his decision was supported by all the "leaders"
of the coalition, but that is hard to determine without a democratic
debate. While this cancellation did indeed garner the support of many
of the coalition groups, the authors of this article, both activists
in the Coalition and in the Bay Area antiwar movement, strongly
opposed this reversal. So did the original maker of the motion, Steve
Zeltzer, as well as the Code Pink organization. At the meeting held
November 1st to evaluate the October 17th action, others opposed the
cancellation too.
The Labor Council itself was never the "object of protest" as
Mackler's letter said. It was clear from the beginning of the
Coalition that the object of the protest was Nancy Pelosi because she
is a leader in the government and the majority political party
leading the country and carrying out the wars, the Democrats. What's
wrong about protesting Pelosi, when she was being honored by the San
Francisco Labor Council-or, for that matter-any organization that
would want to honor a warmonger? The other obvious question is, what
if they were honoring Republican George W. Bush, as some labor unions
have done? Would it be inappropriate to demonstrate in that case?
Shortly after the notice of cancellation of the Coalition's support
for the September 4th Pelosi protest, Tim Paulson, the Executive
Director of the San Francisco Labor Council, issued a statement to
its members which said, "We are also honored to be visited by Speaker
of the House Nancy Pelosi, who has been fighting tirelessly for real
healthcare reform and is taking time out of her busy schedule to
break bread with her friends in the labor movement before she heads
back to Washington, D.C." [In fact, she has abandoned single-payer
healthcare in favor of a very weak "public option" that amounts to
nothing more than a guaranteed income for private insurance companies
while abandoning dental, vision and hearing coverage for adults; and
all health coverage for undocumented workers and their children.]
This letter went on to assure its readers that "many progressive
antiwar activists are emailing and calling the Labor Council to
distance themselves" from the protest of Pelosi.
He wrote, "This missive is just to let our friends know that you
might be met outside the hotel by some protesters, but that almost
unilaterally the labor and antiwar movements condemn these efforts."
It also contained a strong condemnation of Steve Zeltzer, the labor
activist who brought the original motion to the Oct. 17th Coalition.
It is important to note that Tim Paulson serves on the Executive
Board of the California Democratic Party. The California Democrats
play an active role trying to co-opt the antiwar movement into the
Democratic Party fold, acting mainly through the labor bureaucrats
running most of the unions.
The demonstration took place anyway. A small but respectable-sized
group (for 7:30 A.M. on a Friday morning), including representatives
from Code Pink, picketed the Pelosi Labor Council breakfast. A flyer
was distributed which said:
"Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House, is a leading policy maker in
the administration of Barack Obama and a point person for the
imperialist, profoundly anti-democratic and exploitative policies of
the Democratic Party-a principal instrument of rapacious class rule
in the United States.
"She represents the following: Escalating the war of brutal
aggression in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and beyond; sustaining the
murder of Iraq indefinitely;
"Expanding the use of torture, rendition and the implementation in
the United States of the architecture of the fascist state.
"She is a major figure in the handing over to the banksters, to date,
the sum of $23.7 trillion, as documented by Neil Barofsky in his
testimony before Congress.
"Nancy Pelosi, like the Party and administration she represents, is
an enemy of working people-of their economic survival, their right to
organize and their political independence.
"It is matter of principle to protest her public appearances. A
picket protesting the anti-working class and anti-democratic policies
that she represents is not an attack upon labor, let alone upon the
San Francisco Labor Council as an organization.
"The leadership that would foist upon the Labor Council and upon
working people the policies of the Democratic Party is a
misleadership that disarms labor and renders working people unable to
fight in their own name and in their class interests. Every defender
of the rights of working people will reject this hysteria and
recognize that it seeks to cover a bending of the knee to a labor
misleadership that undermines the future of working people in the
United States."
A letter was sent to Tim Paulson from Steve Zeltzer and signed by
several individuals-including the authors of this article, stating in
part:
"All defenders of workers' rights understand that protests against
those in government who vote for war funding are principled actions
that deserve the support of the entire antiwar and labor movements.
Your argument that it is unethical and politically 'divisive' to
protest the reactionary policies of the Speaker of the House because
she has been invited to a breakfast sponsored by the San Francisco
Labor Council is wrong. What is divisive is for the leadership of the
Council to impose a politician with a reprehensible anti-labor record
on a Labor Day event."
The letter called Paulson's actions "a smear meant to intimidate any
who oppose the policies of Pelosi, including the expansion of the
wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq."
It also reported that "One of the leaders of the San Francisco
Labor Council actually elbowed Brother Zeltzer in front of the St.
Francis Hotel and knocked flyers out of his hands as he and others
were passing them out. Zeltzer's letter to Paulson continues:
"Are these tactics that you condone, or is it your condemnation of
dissent that encourages physical attacks of those on a picket line?
"The San Francisco labor movement has a long tradition of upholding
the right of dissent, including the right to disagree with decisions
of the leadership of the San Francisco Labor Council.
"Your letter is a breach of this tradition. It constitutes a
warning to all San Francisco Labor Council delegates and to rank and
file members of the labor movement that dissent is "disloyal" and not
allowed under your regime."
The letter called on Paulson to apologize to Zeltzer and to the San
Francisco labor movement for such undemocratic and personal attacks.
Labor and the Democratic Party
At the root of this dispute is the Labor leadership's partnership
with the Democratic Party. It is the only way to explain the huge
contradiction between the San Francisco Labor Council's passing of
numerous antiwar resolutions and its breakfast honoring a major war
supporter such as Pelosi.
What message is the invitation honoring Pelosi sending to workers? At
the most basic level, it says that when push comes to shove, the
labor "leaders" will ally with the Democratic Party, in spite of the
ongoing assault it is carrying out against working people-including
the escalation of the wars responsible for rising death tolls on both
sides of the battlefields-wars that are eating up staggering amounts
of funds and resources.
From the peasants growing poppies in the fields of Afghanistan to
the economic draft of U.S. youth, it's the poor and working class who
are dying while the wealthy are profiting!
San Francisco workers are under a tremendous assault to their living
standards, as are all working people today. The Democratic Party, in
alliance with the Republicans, is leading the assault! The Democratic
Party is bailing out the banks; the Democratic Party is adding to the
Pentagon budget and to the military industrial complex. The
Democratic Party is privatizing our schools and turning public
education into military recruitment grounds or detention camps-
pushing students towards either the military or prison. Both the
Democrats and the Republicans work for the very same people and take
money from the very same people who are making trillions on Wall
Street off the backs of working people.
Any party that works for the commanders of capital and supports their
economic system of exploitation of working people is anti-labor and
should be opposed by working people.
Labor Councils and all labor organizations, in cooperation with
unorganized workers and the unemployed, should be organizing a
political party based upon satisfying the needs and human rights of
working people; a party that will put human needs before profits; a
party that will demand an immediate end to the wars; that will fight
for jobs, housing, and healthcare for all; for funding quality
education and rebuilding the country's infrastructure; and repairing
the destruction to the environment caused by the quest for profits
above all else. This party will demand, "Bail out working people, not
the corporations and banks. Tax the rich and corporate profits, not
the poor."
The antiwar movement has the obligation to protest the warmakers. Not
to do so is to give President Obama and the Democrats a long
honeymoon in which his imperial policies-a continuation of the basic
policies of the Bush administration-go unrefuted. It is futile to
expect those who profit from the U.S. war industry that supplies the
U.S. military-larger than all the militaries of the rest of the world
combined-or their paid government lackeys, to regulate themselves or
bring an end to the wars that fill their coffers.
A second opportunity to confront the warmakers was presented to the
October 17th Coalition right before the Saturday demonstration.
President Obama came to San Francisco to attend an October 15th
fundraiser dinner for the Democratic National Committee and
Organizing for America (the successor organization to Obama for
America). At the meeting of the October 17th Coalition held on
October 11th, another unanimous vote was held to protest Obama's
warmaking. When Jeff Mackler sent out the minutes of the meeting, he
neglected to include the vote and information about the Obama
protest. Coming as this did on the heels of the cancellation of the
Pelosi protest, we cannot help but conclude that Mackler, and other
leaders of the Oct. 17th Coalition did not want to confront the
Democratic Party allies of the labor bureaucrats and those in the
antiwar movement who look to the labor bureaucrats as their most
valuable allies.
Needless to say, there was no Labor Council participation in an
otherwise impressive demonstration of President Obama on October
15th. Most of the protestors were demanding a single-payer, Medicare-
for-all, national health program. Code Pink, ANSWER, and others came
out to protest the war. The October 17th Coalition was not visibly
present.
It will take a massive, working-class based antiwar movement,
independent of the war parties to bring an end to the wars and to
bring justice to the working class. Workers must take the struggles
for their interests into their own hands. In the meantime the antiwar
movement must not to allow itself to be co-opted by the Democratic
Party. That is the danger represented by the actions of the leaders
of the October 17th Coalition in San Francisco.
On the democratic process
Finally, the movements based upon the defense of working people must
be democratically run.
The regular practice of democracy in all workers' organizations-
including the antiwar movement-will help to prepare workers to run
their own struggles and organizations. Eventually, they will run the
government.
What happened in the San Francisco October 17 Coalition regarding
these two protests should be discussed in an open and democratic
manner. These same issues will confront the movement in the months
ahead and in preparations for the Spring demonstrations on the
anniversary of the Iraq war. The independence of the antiwar movement
must be jealously guarded and defended in a time when the United
States imperial machine, supported and administered by a bi-partisan
alliance of the ruling class political parties, carries out multiple,
simultaneous wars of aggression. This is a challenge we must not be
afraid to meet.
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2) Federal Researchers Find Lower Standards in Schools
By SAM DILLON
October 30, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/30/education/30educ.html?ref=education
A new federal study shows that nearly a third of the states lowered their academic proficiency standards in recent years, a step that helps schools stay ahead of sanctions under the No Child Left Behind law. But lowering standards also confuses parents about how children's achievement compares with those in other states and countries.
The study, released Thursday, was the first by the federal Department of Education's research arm to use a statistical comparison between federal and state tests to analyze whether states had changed their testing standards.
It found that 15 states lowered their proficiency standards in fourth- or eighth-grade reading or math from 2005 to 2007. Three states, Maine, Oklahoma and Wyoming, lowered standards in both subjects at both grade levels, the study said.
Eight states increased the rigor of their standards in one or both subjects and grades. Some states raised standards in one subject but lowered them in another, including New York, which raised the rigor of its fourth-grade-math standard but lowered the standard in eighth-grade reading, the study said.
"Over all, standards were more likely to be lower than higher," in 2007, compared with the earlier year, said Peggy G. Carr, an associate commissioner at the department.
Under the No Child law, signed in 2002, all schools must bring 100 percent of students to the proficient level on states' reading and math tests by 2014, and schools that fall short of rising annual targets face sanctions. In California, for instance, elementary schools must raise the percentage of students scoring above the proficient level by 11 percentage points every year from now through 2014.
Facing this challenge, the study found that some states had been redefining proficiency down, allowing a lower score on a state test to qualify as proficient.
"At a time when we should be raising standards to compete in the global economy, more states are lowering the bar than raising it," Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said in a statement. "We're lying to our children."
The 15 states that lowered one or more standards were Delaware, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Michigan, Missouri, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming. Eight that raised one or more standards were Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Missouri, Montana, New York, North Carolina, and Virginia.
Louis Fabrizio, a director at the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, said that under the No Child law, states face a dilemma. "When you set standards, do you want to show success under N.C.L.B. by having higher percentages of students at proficiency, in which case you'll set lower standards?" Mr. Fabrizio asked. "Or do you want to do the right thing for kids, by setting them higher so they're comparable with our global competitors?"
In the study, researchers compared the results of state tests and the National Assessment of Educational Progress in 2005 and 2007, identifying a score on the national assessment that was equivalent to each state's definition of proficiency.
The study found wide variation among states, with standards highest in Massachusetts and South Carolina. Georgia, Oklahoma and Tennessee had standards that were among the lowest.
Forty-eight states are working cooperatively to create common academic standards. Authorities in Texas and Alaska declined to join the effort.
Russ Whitehurst, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said it was unlikely that the effort would soon produce a nationwide system that would allow parents and employers to easily compare test results from state to state, partly, he said, because "states would still have to agree on a common test."
"And that's heavy lifting," Mr. Whitehurst said.
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3) Constraining America's Brightest
By BOB HERBERT
Op-Ed Columnist
October 31, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/31/opinion/31herbert.html?hp
That period right after college graduation is when young people tend to think they can set the world on fire. Careers are starting, and relationships in the broader world are forming. It's exciting, and optimism is off the charts.
So the gloomy outlook that this economy is offering so many of America's brightest young people is not just disconcerting, it's a cultural shift, a harbinger. "Attention," as the wife of a fictional salesman once said, "must be paid."
Maggie Mertens graduated in May from Smith College, where she was an editor of the student newspaper. She applied for "tons" of jobs and internships, probably 50 or more. "I was totally unemployed all summer," she said. She eventually landed an internship at NPR in Washington, which she described as "awesome," but it is unpaid.
"I was lucky enough," she said, "to connect up with a family that let me live with them for free in exchange for watching their baby a few times a week." But there was still no money coming in. So in addition to the 40-hour-a-week internship and the baby-sitting chores, Ms. Mertens is doing part-time seasonal work at a Whole Foods store.
Welcome to the new world of employment in America as we approach the second decade of the 21st century.
Josh Riman graduated from Syracuse University in 2006. "I had a job at a great advertising agency," he said, "but was laid off in 2007. I found a job the next day, amazingly enough, and worked at this next advertising shop for about a year and a half. Then, on my birthday, the place went bankrupt. We all lost our jobs."
Since then, Mr. Riman has been doing freelance and "pro bono" work. He has been unable to find anything even reasonably secure.
As jobs become increasingly scarce, more and more college graduates are working for free, at internships, which is great for employers but something of a handicap for a young man or woman who has to pay for food or a place to live.
"The whole idea of apprenticeships is coming back into vogue, as it was 100 years ago," said John Noble, director of the Office of Career Counseling at Williams College. "Certain industries, such as the media, TV, radio and so on, have always exploited recent graduates, giving them a chance to get into a very competitive field in exchange for making them work for no - or low - pay. But now this is spreading to many other industries."
Lonnie Dunlap, who heads the career services program at Northwestern University and has been advising young people on careers since the mid-70s, said today's graduates are experiencing the worst employment market she's ever seen.
"There's a sense of huge emotional anxiety among our students," she said. The young people are not only having trouble finding work themselves; many feel a sense of obligation to parents who are struggling with job losses and home foreclosures.
"In the past two years," said Ms. Dunlap, "we have seen a huge uptick in the number of recent alums coming back for services because they still haven't found work, as well as midcareer alums who have been laid off and need our help."
Like Mr. Noble, she mentioned the growing use of interns versus paid employees and said she can see the value of such unpaid work for some recent graduates, "though, of course, not everyone can afford to do that."
Despite the expansion of the gross domestic product in the quarter that ended in September, there is no sign of the kind of recovery in employment that would be needed to bring the American economy and the economic condition of American families back to robust health. It would be nice if some of the politicians and economists so obsessed with the G.D.P. would take a moment to look out the window at what is happening with real people in the real world.
They might see Laura Ram, who graduated from Baruch College in New York in May 2007. She was laid off from a full-time job almost exactly a year ago and hasn't worked since. She's been diligent about submitting applications and showing up at job fairs and so on, but nothing has come close to panning out.
"I haven't gone on a single interview," she said, "which manages to shock just about my entire family."
These recent graduates have done everything society told them to do. They've worked hard, kept their noses clean and gotten a good education (in many cases from the nation's best schools). They are ready and anxious to work. If we're having trouble finding employment for even these kids, then we're doing something profoundly wrong.
Gail Collins and Charles M. Blow are off today.
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4) Ford's Plan to Cut Costs Falls Short in Union Vote
By NICK BUNKLEY
November 1, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/01/business/01auto.html?hp
DEARBORN, Mich. - Union workers at the Ford Motor Company have refused to help the company make more cuts to its labor costs.
Changes to the workers' contract that would have allowed the cuts appeared headed for certain defeat Saturday after about 72 percent of workers voted to reject the deal, according to a tally compiled by The New York Times from results at separate plants.
Ford needed 9,000 more votes for passage, with fewer than 7,000 votes outstanding to be either cast or counted through Sunday.
Ford, which said it needed the changes to reduce some advantages the union gave to General Motors and Chrysler as those companies headed into bankruptcy in the spring, is not expected to seek a new deal.
The Ford proposal, which was supported by the union's leadership, would have frozen the pay of newly hired workers and banned the union from striking in order to demand higher pay or benefits until 2015. Some job classifications also would have been combined, giving Ford more flexibility to shuffle workers around.
In return, Ford promised to pay each worker a $1,000 bonus in March 2010 and to guarantee the assignment of new products to some plants, creating or saving a total of about 7,000 jobs, according to calculations by union leaders.
A person with knowledge of the private negotiations said Ford had already achieved most of the savings it needed in a deal the union approved in the spring. Ford said that earlier deal would save it about $500 million a year. The changes proposed in the latest vote would have saved far less.
A Ford spokesman, Mark Truby, said the company would not comment until the union released official results. That is expected by Monday, when Ford also plans to report its third-quarter earnings. Ford posted a $2.3 billion profit in the second quarter, although it remains deeply in debt.
The president of the United Auto Workers union, Ron Gettelfinger, told reporters Friday that he did not plan to seek a revote.
The workers' refusal to accept what would have been a third round of concessions since 2007 shows that, despite their industry's troubles, there is a limit to how much they are willing to sacrifice, said Harley Shaiken, a labor expert at the University of California, Berkeley.
"It's a hard sell in this environment," he said. "You've got the Ford paradox, where they are hailing how successful they are in the marketing, and that's obviously paying off for them, but they're asking more from their workers."
Many workers interviewed before the vote said they had yet to see benefits they were promised in the March deal even as they were being asked to change their contract again.
The deal's failure means Ford retains the right to contract some work to other companies or to plants in other countries with lower labor costs.
That worries Marvin Shine, a union official at the U.A.W. Local 600, which represents workers at Ford's sprawling Rouge manufacturing complex in Dearborn, Mich. About 93 percent of workers at the pickup truck assembly plant there voted against the deal, based on the early results.
"A lot of people are voting it down, and I can't understand why because there's no giveaways in it," Mr. Shine said. "It's a shame that there's a possibility we could lose these jobs for no reason."
But Dave Baran, who has a maintenance job at the Rouge complex, said he was unmoved by Ford's argument that it needed to follow the lead of its domestic rivals, even though Ford was the only Detroit carmaker to avoid bankruptcy and a federal rescue.
"The company's doing good," said Mr. Baran, a 30-year employee at Ford. "Why do we have to be on the same plateau as Chrysler and G.M.? We're different now."
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5) The R.O.T.C. Dilemma
By MICHAEL WINERIP
November 1, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/01/education/edlife/01rotc-t.html?hp
IN a speech last year, Drew Faust, the president of Harvard, congratulated seniors who had gone the extra mile to get their R.O.T.C. training. She meant it literally, and the extra miles they had gone were the least of it.
Harvard has not had a Reserve Officers Training Corps program on campus since antiwar protests in the 1960s shut it down. The handful of Harvard students determined enough to join R.O.T.C. must travel to Boston University and across Cambridge to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for their training, under a system developed by the military that allows host universities to serve nearby campuses.
For the last four school years, several times a week, Daniel West, Joe Kristol and Dom Pellegrini, all training to become United States Marine Corps officers, had to get to M.I.T. or B.U. by 5:45 a.m. It was so early the subway wasn't running yet.
"I'd be up at 4:45 to shave first," Mr. Kristol said.
Sometimes, when they had the energy and the weather wasn't too frigid, the three ran the half-hour to B.U. in the predawn darkness. Some days, Mr. Kristol drove them - he says that was the only reason he kept a car, which cost him $250 to $300 a month to park and maintain.
Mr. West, the student executive officer of his Marine R.O.T.C. chapter, had to be at M.I.T. or B.U. six days a week. "I'd try to schedule my Harvard classes around it," said Mr. West, an economics major who graduated in June. His first year at Harvard, seven freshmen were in the Navy R.O.T.C. group, which includes the Marines. But that year four dropped out.
"Some quit because it wasn't right for them," Mr. Kristol said. "But some couldn't take the logistics."
It's worse at Yale, which also banned R.O.T.C. in the '60s. Students must drive an hour and a half to Storrs to train at the University of Connecticut.
Anthony Runco, a Yale junior, typically leaves New Haven at noon on Thursdays for Air Force training and doesn't get back until 7:30 p.m. Freshman year he missed a Spanish class every Thursday and had to get notes from a friend; sophomore year it was an electrical engineering class.
Most years one or two graduating seniors in R.O.T.C. are commissioned as officers, according to Jerry Hill, a Yale administrator who oversees the program. Next spring there will be none. At Harvard in June, eight graduates were commissioned, in all three military branches. The year before, there were five.
These modest numbers come even though, in the last five years, the Army has nearly tripled the amount of money it has put into R.O.T.C. scholarships, to $263 million, and increased enrollment nationwide by 26 percent, to 30,721 students, to fill vacancies in its officer corps. It has been a time when military recruiters in all branches, working in a depressed economy, are _acing their quotas. At Texas A&M, 115 freshmen in 2008 received Army R.O.T.C. scholarships, compared with 35 the year before. The military has a lot at stake: 60 percent of all new Army officers each year come from R.O.T.C. programs.
R.O.T.C. students at Harvard and Yale are not the only ones campus-hopping. Harvard is one of eight colleges served by M.I.T., the Army R.O.T.C. host school. Five of these satellite colleges - Wellesley, Tufts, Gordon, Endicott and Salem State - have arranged for transportation for their cadets to get to M.I.T. Several colleges in the consortium have the R.O.T.C. staff travel to their campuses to conduct military classes and physical training, making it easier on their students.
Harvard, with its campus ban, does neither.
One of the featured speakers at the 2009 Harvard commissioning ceremony, Darnell Whitt II, a retired naval captain, noted that the year he graduated from Harvard - 1959 - 121 seniors were commissioned as officers. He told the R.O.T.C. students that he was sorry their numbers were so few and that he hoped that by the time they returned for their 50th reunion, "the current issues about military matters at Harvard will have been resolved and there will be a closer connection between the great university and those in uniform."
THIS is the 40th anniversary of the antiwar protests that led to the ban of R.O.T.C. at some of the nation's most elite universities - Harvard, Yale, Brown, Columbia, Stanford, the University of Chicago, Tufts. And yet, the attitude on these campuses today is hardly antimilitary. There are numerous signs of genuine respect for the soldiers who serve. An editorial last May in the student newspaper, The Harvard Crimson, which for decades attacked R.O.T.C., praised classmates who had joined the program. "They demonstrate a commitment to service that should be admired and followed by the rest of the student body," The Crimson said. The Yale, Columbia and Brown student papers have all published editorials in the recent past calling for the return of R.O.T.C. to their campuses.
R.O.T.C. members interviewed at Harvard, M.I.T. and Yale said they rarely if ever heard negative comments around campus, and a few said they had experienced the opposite problem.
"People stop me and thank me for serving," said Gregory Wellman, an Army R.O.T.C. cadet at M.I.T. "It's a little awkward because at this point I'm just a student and haven't done anything."
Last spring, the Republican club at Harvard sent e-mail messages asking all undergraduates about the ban on R.O.T.C. Of the 1,700 students who answered, 62 percent favored returning it to campus.
At Harvard, the attitude toward the military began to shift after the 9/11 attacks, which was about the time that Lawrence Summers became president. That November, as part of the university's Veterans Day commemoration, he had letters hand-delivered to all students in the R.O.T.C. program, thanking them for their "commitment to national service." For years, students could not list R.O.T.C. as an activity in the yearbook because it wasn't an official program, but that changed after Dr. Summers met with the yearbook staff.
By 2008, under President Faust, Harvard was allowing the Army to land two Black Hawk helicopters on campus to transport Army R.O.T.C. members to Fort Devens, Mass., for weekend training.
During a campaign visit to Columbia University, Barack Obama, a favorite on the Ivy campuses, called the R.O.T.C. ban there wrong. (R.O.T.C. students at Columbia, in Manhattan, go to Fordham University or Manhattan College, both in the Bronx, for training). "The notion that young people here at Columbia, or anywhere, in any university, aren't offered the choice, the option of participating in military service, I think is a mistake," Mr. Obama said.
Not long after that, in an editorial citing Mr. Obama, The Brown Daily Herald reversed its longtime opposition. "R.O.T.C. deserves its day on College Hill," the editorial concluded. (Currently, Brown R.O.T.C. students are trained at Providence College.)
Despite the small number of graduates commissioned in June, Harvard officials estimated the crowd at the ceremony in the Yard at 2,000, the largest turnout in years, and said they believed it was because Gen. David Petraeus was the featured speaker. He drew the longest, most enthusiastic standing ovation of any speaker that day.
There was just one protestor, a white-haired woman in a wheelchair holding an 8-by-11-inch, hand-lettered sign against her chest that read, "Bring the National Guard Home Now."
IF it's not antimilitary sentiment, why is R.O.T.C. still banned at these campuses? Four words: "Don't ask, don't tell." The law, adopted during the Clinton administration, excludes gay men and lesbians who are open about their sexual orientation from military service. Last month, President Obama renewed a promise to get Congress to overturn the law, but set no timetable.
While the Supreme Court ruled in 2006 that colleges accepting federal money could not restrict military recruiters on campus because of the exclusion of gays, the decision did not address R.O.T.C.
President Faust of Harvard, a historian, says that as much as she admires the military _- and during her June commissioning speech, she went out of her way to mention an interest she and General Petraeus shared in Ulysses S. Grant - she cannot have a student group on campus that is closed to one part of the student body. The student handbook says that the federal law is "inconsistent with Harvard's values as stated in its policy on discrimination."
"Harvard commits itself to training leaders of all kinds, and we should be training leaders for the military," Dr. Faust said in an interview. "We want to have students in R.O.T.C. I am the president of Harvard and I am their president and Harvard is their university. But we also have gay and lesbian students and I am their president and Harvard is their university."
R.O.T.C. supporters complain that Harvard's policy is full of contradictions.
Harvard will not pay the $150,000-a-year cross-registration fee that M.I.T. charges to have Harvard students take military science courses there. But university staff members are used to raise that money from wealthy alumni sympathetic to R.O.T.C. And Harvard accepts about $1 million a year from the military in the form of scholarships that cover the cost of tuition for cadets and midshipmen.
Further, while banning R.O.T.C., Harvard is a host to other military-oriented programs. The Kennedy School of Government there runs a yearlong National Security Fellows program for 20 men and women, a large percentage of them midcareer military officers.
During the interview, Dr. Faust started to address each of these issues, then stopped herself. "Trying to maintain two values - nondiscrimination and national service - is very complicated," she said. "It has us all tied in knots. There are contradictions. We make these sometimes awkward arguments that are less than pure consistency. Why do we do x and not y? Why do we have the helicopters? Why do I appear at the commissioning? There are enormous complexities and contradictions. We wind up creating compromises that are not philosophically consistent."
"The way to resolve these inconsistencies," she said, "is to permit gays and lesbians to serve in the military."
Harvard, of course is not the only place tied up in knots over this. Despite the ban at Yale, the university provides free rental cars to its R.O.T.C. students so they can make the three-hour round trip for training at UConn. "We try to support these young men and women as much as we can," Mr. Hill said.
RUTH R. WISSE, a Harvard professor of comparative literature, has criticized the R.O.T.C. ban publicly. She calls the "don't ask, don't tell" argument a smokescreen for antimilitary bias and says these universities were so cowed by the antiwar protests of the '60s that they would do anything not to stir up the same issues again. She thinks President Faust was hypocritical during the 2008 ceremony when she told the five R.O.T.C. students being commissioned, "I wish there were more of you."
"I find this funny," Dr. Wisse said. "Nobody has more authority to create more cadets than the president of the university."
Dr. Michael Segal, a neurologist and 1976 Harvard graduate who is a leader of Advocates for R.O.T.C., disagrees. He characterizes the mood at Harvard these days as "mildly pro-military," and the concern about gay rights sincere. He thinks the university should welcome R.O.T.C. despite its misgivings about "don't ask, don't tell."
Those who worry about excluding gays from the military are split over the best means of bringing about change. The Harvard Crimson editorial supports Dr. Faust, saying that first, President Obama should end "don't ask, don't tell," and then Harvard should "embrace R.O.T.C." The Brown Daily Herald says that R.O.T.C. should be brought back immediately; then students from Brown's "overwhelmingly liberal campus" who join the military could "provide gay soldiers with valuable allies in the ranks."
As for the R.O.T.C. members, they have been trained not to answer political questions from reporters. None of the 15 interviewed would discuss their feelings about "don't ask, don't tell."
"I have no personal opinion," said Vanessa Esch, 21, a naval R.O.T.C. midshipman who graduated from M.I.T. in June. "I was politically active in high school but as I got closer to serve, I got away from the nitty-gritty of these issues. My professionalism as an officer depends on not giving answers to those kinds of questions. The commander-in-chief does that."
Roxanne Bras, 22, an Army cadet from Harvard's class of 2009, called the R.O.T.C. ban just plain sad. "It's a bad feeling when an institution you love doesn't support the other institution you love."
At Harvard, an Army R.O.T.C. scholarship covering full tuition is worth about $40,000 a year. In return, students typically take a military science course each semester, do physical training three times a week, spend a weekend of field training in the fall and spring at Fort Devens and a month between junior and senior year at a leadership program. When they graduate, they become second lieutenants (or ensigns in the Navy) and must serve four years of active duty followed by four years in the Reserves.
The military brass has tried to prod the Ivies by showing support for R.O.T.C. members at these campuses. When Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, spoke at Yale in 2007, he took an hour out of a busy schedule to meet with R.O.T.C. students. Gen. Richard Myers, a former chairman, did the same at Harvard.
During a baccalaureate address last March at Princeton, which has campus Army and Air Force R.O.T.C., General Petraeus made a subtle jab at universities that banned their programs: "Let me just say thank you to this Ivy League school for proudly supporting its R.O.T.C. program."
Yet even if the Harvards and Yales decided tomorrow that they wanted R.O.T.C. back, it's not clear that would happen anytime soon. Army R.O.T.C. has 273 host campuses, serving an additional 1,256 colleges; Navy R.O.T.C. has 72 hosts serving 86 additional colleges. Whether the military would welcome the holdouts as host campuses or keep them as satellites might have to be battled out politically one day.
The challenge of getting from Harvard and Yale to the host campuses has undoubtedly helped keep R.O.T.C. numbers low, but it is not the only factor at play. While polls show that neither the Iraq war nor the Afghan war is popular with the American people, they are most likely even less popular at these liberal campuses.
R.O.T.C.'s scholarships may also look less enticing at elite universities. Since the 1990s, as endowments ballooned, the Harvards, Yales and M.I.T.'s have greatly expanded their financial aid packages to reach more middle-class families. At M.I.T., 60 percent of undergraduates now receive need-based scholarships. A middle-class student can qualify for substantial aid directly from the university without having to take on the extra demands of R.O.T.C. and committing to military service after graduating.
But the economy could change that. Students from families that were hurt by the downturn but still do not qualify for financial aid could be drawn to the R.O.T.C. scholarship, which is one of the few substantial grants that are not need-based.
Indeed, there are indications that it's beginning to happen at Cornell. Lt. Col. Steven Alexander, who runs Army R.O.T.C. there, says the economy has had a noticeable impact on interest in the program. Cornell is the only Ivy land-grant university, and part of its founding mission was training military leaders. Today, it is the only Ivy that hosts Army, Navy and Air Force R.O.T.C.
At Cornell, there are 40 cadets enrolled in the Army R.O.T.C. program; 13 will be commissioned in May, the highest number in decades.
M.I.T.'s Army consortium of eight colleges grew to 84 cadets this year, from 49 in 2006. In contrast, the number of Harvard students in Army R.O.T.C. has not changed; it was 16 in 2006 and is 16 today.
AT the Harvard commissioning ceremony, General Petraeus did not bring up the campus ban. It fell to Mr. Whitt, the former naval captain, to make the case for bringing back R.O.T.C.
Mr. Whitt quoted a Harvard president from another era, Abbott Lawrence Lowell. R.O.T.C. was established during World War I, and in 1916, President Lowell spoke about why it was important for Harvard and other universities to do their share: "The aim of a country which desires to remain at peace, but must be ready to defend itself, should be to train a large body of junior officers who can look forward to no career in the Army, and can have no wish for war, yet who will be able to take their places in the field when needed."
To be in R.O.T.C. often requires marching to a different drummer. As Mr. Wellman headed out for early morning R.O.T.C. workouts at M.I.T., he said, he often passed students coming back to the dorm after a long night out.
The R.O.T.C. students interviewed felt there was a better understanding of the military at M.I.T. than at Harvard or Yale. On the Wednesdays that Boston University midshipmen join the M.I.T., Harvard and Tufts students there, 135 R.O.T.C. members are in uniform on the campus. Two Fridays a month, there are 84 cadets in Army uniforms.
There is more mixing going on at M.I.T. between R.O.T.C. and non-R.O.T.C. students, said Thomas Schaefer, an ensign who graduated from M.I.T. in June. "It allows members of the campus community who would not interact with the military to get a sense of what's going on with our lives. We understand them better, they understand us better."
At Harvard and Yale there are so few R.O.T.C. students that on days they wear uniforms, they are mainly a curiosity. Their classmates can't seem to conceive that a student at an elite college would be preparing to go to war. Mr. West said that after explaining that he was training to be an officer, "they'd say, 'But someone like you wouldn't be sent to Iraq or Afghanistan?' They just didn't get it."
Said Taylor Giffen, a Yale Air Force R.O.T.C. cadet who graduated in June, "They'd see me in uniform, and ask, 'Hey, are you in a play?' "
Michael Winerip writes the Generation B column for Sunday Styles.
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6) Colombia: Pact to Expand U.S. Army Presence Signed
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
World Briefing | The Americas
October 31, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/31/world/americas/31briefs-Colombia.html?ref=world
In a private ceremony, the American ambassador, William Brownfield, and three Colombian ministers signed an agreement on Friday to expand Washington's military presence. Officials have said it will increase United States access to seven Colombian bases for 10 years without increasing the number of personnel beyond the cap of 1,400 specified by American law. Although details were not immediately released, a government communiqué said the pact "respects the principles of equal sovereignty, territorial integrity and nonintervention in the internal affairs of other states."
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7) Prayers and Criticism in Wake of Detroit Imam's Killing by F.B.I.
By SUSAN SAULNY
October 31, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/31/us/31dearborn.html?ref=us
DETROIT - Friday prayers were intoned on schedule at the red brick two-story house on the west side that is a makeshift home for the Masjid Al-Haqq mosque.
But leading the prayers was a son of the mosque's imam, Luqman Ameen Abdullah, who was killed by federal agents in a raid on Wednesday. The son, Omar Regan, 36, a comedian and motivational speaker, flew from Los Angeles to mourn and defend his father, who was described in federal court papers as a separatist Muslim intent on overthrowing the United States government.
"My father was a sharp-tongued individual," Mr. Regan said. "He would talk about his dislike of the government, about how law enforcement wasn't protecting and serving the people. But speaking his emotions and acting on his emotions are two different things."
Mr. Regan's sentiments were echoed by many Muslims here and across the country on Thursday and Friday, as some leaders portrayed the Federal Bureau of Investigation's counterterrorism squad of using heavy-handed tactics against Mr. Abdullah, who was not accused of terrorism.
Asked why Mr. Abdullah had not been charged with terrorism, the United States attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan, Terrence Berg, said, "The charges speak for themselves."
Mr. Abdullah, 53, died in a shootout in the raid of a warehouse just outside the city, in Dearborn, where he stored goods. The raid was one of three in which federal agents said were intended to arrest Mr. Abdullah and 10 other men on charges that included conspiracy to sell stolen goods, mail fraud and illegal possession of firearms. But the authorities said Mr. Abdullah, who had a lengthy criminal record and was forbidden to have a firearm, opened fire on the agents.
He died of multiple gunshot wounds, said a spokesman for the Wayne County coroner.
"I'm comfortable with what our agents did," said Andrew G. Arena, special agent in charge of the Detroit division of the F.B.I. "They did what they had to do to protect themselves."
Two of the 11 defendants remain at large; one, Mujahid Carswell, 30, another son of Mr. Abdullah, was arrested Thursday in Canada. (Law enforcement officials said Mr. Abdullah's shots killed an F.B.I. dog, Freddy, who is to be honored for dying in the line of duty, officials said.)
A 43-page criminal complaint described Mr. Abdullah as the belligerent leader of a faction of a group called the Ummah, meaning "the Brotherhood," which advocates the establishment of a separate nation governed by Islamic laws within the United States. The authorities had been monitoring him for years.
In January, city officials evicted Mr. Abdullah's mosque, which counts about 25 families as members, from its original location for failure to pay property taxes. He relocated to the two-story home on the west side. During the eviction, the police said, officers found two guns and about 40 other weapons in Mr. Abdullah's apartment.
Law enforcement officials said they were concerned about retaliation in the wake of Mr. Abdullah's death.
But the federal complaint on which Wednesday's raid was based also shows how much trouble Mr. Abdullah and his associates had in executing even basic criminal schemes, like switching the vehicle identification numbers on a stolen truck, or selling stolen laptops. While full of bravado, they are characterized in the complaint as being a far cry from masterminds, a notion that some of Mr. Abdullah's acquaintances supported.
"They knew a long time ago that this was a penny ante operation, and they could have stopped it," Abdullah El-Amin, an imam at the Muslim Center, Detroit's largest black mosque, said of federal authorities. "It didn't have to get to this point, people getting killed."
Mr. El-Amin said he had known Mr. Abdullah for more than 20 years, although they had never attended the same mosque. Mr. El-Amin said he had heard Mr. Abdullah talk about wanting a separate state, but described it as "sort of like the Pennsylvania Dutch have their own communities and stuff." Some, but not all, mainstream Muslim leaders agreed that Mr. Abdullah had held that view.
"The very incendiary rhetoric that the F.B.I. alleges, I never heard that from him," said Dawud Walid, executive director of the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. "There was nothing extraordinary about him."
The Muslim Public Affairs Council, a policy and advocacy group based in Los Angeles, is calling for an investigation of Mr. Abdullah's killing, which it describes as "deeply disturbing."
But Eide A. Alawan, director of the office of interfaith outreach at the Islamic Center of America, one of the largest Muslim centers in the Midwest, in Dearborn, took a critical view of Mr. Abdullah and his defenders.
"This is not the first time in history that someone has used a religion to do some harm in the name of faith," Mr. Alawan said. "Now is an opportune time for some to show their militancy. It gets attention. But it's no different than the Ku Klux Klan in the 40s and 50s using the cross."
The Muslim Alliance in North America, a national network based in Lexington, Ky., expressed shock at the killing of Mr. Abdullah, who served on its governing body.
"Reference to the Ummah as a 'nationwide radical fundamentalist Sunni group consisting primarily of African-Americans' is an offensive mischaracterization," the group said in a statement.
"To those who have worked with Imam Luqman A. Abdullah," it continued, "allegations of illegal activity, resisting arrest, and 'offensive jihad against the American government' are shocking and inconsistent. In his ministry he consistently advocated for the downtrodden and always spoke about the importance of connecting with the needs of the poor."
A funeral for Mr. Abdullah is scheduled for Saturday at the Muslim Center in Detroit.
Mary M. Chapman contributed reporting from Detroit, and Emma Graves Fitzsimmons from Chicago.
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8) Too Little of a Good Thing
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Op-Ed Columnist
November 2, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/02/opinion/02krugman.html
The good news is that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, a k a the Obama stimulus plan, is working just about the way textbook macroeconomics said it would. But that's also the bad news - because the same textbook analysis says that the stimulus was far too small given the scale of our economic problems. Unless something changes drastically, we're looking at many years of high unemployment.
And the really bad news is that "centrists" in Congress aren't able or willing to draw the obvious conclusion, which is that we need a lot more federal spending on job creation.
About that good news: not that long ago the U.S. economy was in free fall. Without the recovery act, the free fall would probably have continued, as unemployed workers slashed their spending, cash-strapped state and local governments engaged in mass layoffs, and more.
The stimulus didn't completely eliminate these effects, but it was enough to break the vicious circle of economic decline. Aid to the unemployed and help for state and local governments were probably the most important factors. If you want to see the recovery act in action, visit a classroom: your local school probably would have had to fire a lot of teachers if the stimulus hadn't been enacted.
And the free fall has ended. Last week's G.D.P. report showed the economy growing again, at a better-than-expected annual rate of 3.5 percent. As Mark Zandi of Moody's Economy.com put it in recent testimony, "The stimulus is doing what it was supposed to do: short-circuit the recession and spur recovery."
But it's not doing enough.
Suppose that the economy were to keep growing at 3.5 percent. If that happened, unemployment would eventually start falling - but very, very slowly. The experience of the Clinton era, when the economy grew at an average rate of 3.7 percent for eight years (did you know that?) suggests that at current growth rates we'd be lucky to see the unemployment rate fall by half a percentage point per year, meaning that it would take a decade to return to something like full employment.
Worse yet, it's far from clear that growth will continue at this rate. The effects of the stimulus will build over time - it's still likely to create or save a total of around three million jobs - but its peak impact on the growth of G.D.P. (as opposed to its level) is already behind us. Solid growth will continue only if private spending takes up the baton as the effect of the stimulus fades. And so far there's no sign that this is happening.
So the government needs to do much more. Unfortunately, the political prospects for further action aren't good.
What I keep hearing from Washington is one of two arguments: either (1) the stimulus has failed, unemployment is still rising, so we shouldn't do any more, or (2) the stimulus has succeeded, G.D.P. is growing, so we don't need to do any more. The truth, which is that the stimulus was too little of a good thing - that it helped, but it wasn't big enough - seems to be too complicated for an era of sound-bite politics.
But can we afford to do more? We can't afford not to.
High unemployment doesn't just punish the economy today; it punishes the future, too. In the face of a depressed economy, businesses have slashed investment spending - both spending on plant and equipment and "intangible" investments in such things as product development and worker training. This will hurt the economy's potential for years to come.
Deficit hawks like to complain that today's young people will end up having to pay higher taxes to service the debt we're running up right now. But anyone who really cared about the prospects of young Americans would be pushing for much more job creation, since the burden of high unemployment falls disproportionately on young workers - and those who enter the work force in years of high unemployment suffer permanent career damage, never catching up with those who graduated in better times.
Even the claim that we'll have to pay for stimulus spending now with higher taxes later is mostly wrong. Spending more on recovery will lead to a stronger economy, both now and in the future - and a stronger economy means more government revenue. Stimulus spending probably doesn't pay for itself, but its true cost, even in a narrow fiscal sense, is only a fraction of the headline number.
O.K., I know I'm being impractical: major economic programs can't pass Congress without the support of relatively conservative Democrats, and these Democrats have been telling reporters that they have lost their appetite for stimulus.
But I hope their stomachs start rumbling soon. We now know that stimulus works, but we aren't doing nearly enough of it. For the sake of today's unemployed, and for the sake of the nation's future, we need to do much more.
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9) Immigrant Jail Tests U.S. View of Legal Access
By NINA BERNSTEIN
November 2, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/02/nyregion/02detain.html?hp
A startling petition arrived at the New York City Bar Association in October 2008, signed by 100 men, all locked up without criminal charges in the middle of Manhattan.
In vivid if flawed English, it described cramped, filthy quarters where dire medical needs were ignored and hungry prisoners were put to work for $1 a day.
The petitioners were among 250 detainees imprisoned in an immigration jail that few New Yorkers know exists. Above a post office, on the fourth floor of a federal office building in Greenwich Village, the Varick Street Detention Facility takes in 11,000 men a year, most of them longtime New Yorkers facing deportation without a lawyer.
Galvanized by the petition, the bar association sent volunteers into the jail to offer legal counsel to detainees - a strategy the Obama administration has embraced as it tries to fix the entire detention system.
"Immigration and Customs Enforcement considers the access to legal services at Varick Street as a good model," said Sean Smith, a spokesman for Janet Napolitano, secretary of homeland security, who oversees immigration enforcement.
But the lawyers doing the work have reached a different conclusion, after finding that most detainees with a legal claim to stay in the United States are routinely transferred to more remote jails before they can be helped. The lawyers say their effort has laid bare the fundamental unfairness of a system where immigrant detainees, unlike criminal defendants, can be held without legal representation and moved from state to state without notice.
In a report to be issued on Monday, the association's City Bar Justice Center is calling for all immigrant detainees to be provided with counsel. And an article to be published this month in The Fordham Law Review treats the Varick jail as a case study in the systemic barriers to legal representation.
The new focus on Varick highlights the conflict between two forces: the administration's plans to revamp detention, and current policies that feed the flow of detainees through the system as it is now. A disjointed mix of county jails and privately run prisons, where mistreatment and medical neglect have been widely documented, the detention network churns roughly 400,000 detainees through 32,000 beds each year.
"Any attempt to get support or services for them is stymied because you don't know where they're going to end up," said Lynn M. Kelly, the director of the Justice Center.
When she asked that the lawyers' letters of legal advice be forwarded to detainees who had been transferred from Varick, she said the warden balked, saying he had to consider the financial interests of his private shareholders: 1,200 members of a central Alaskan tribe whose dividends are linked to Varick's profits under a $79 million, three-year federal contract.
Federal officials would not discuss their transfer policies, but asked for patience as they try to make the detention system more humane and cost-effective.
"We inherited an inadequate detention system from the previous administration that does not meet ICE's current priorities or needs," said Matthew Chandler, a Homeland Security spokesman. Officials say they are committed to a complete overhaul, including less-penal detention centers with better access to lawyers.
The volunteer lawyers and the petition's author, an ailing refugee from torture in Romania who spent eight months inside Varick, say many problems persist there, though the added scrutiny has led to improvements. Detainees who want a Gideon Bible no longer have to pay the commissary $7. Immigration officials are more responsive when a lawyer complains that a detainee in pain is not getting treatment.
But most detainees do not have a lawyer, and the few who do include men who have fallen prey to incompetent or fraudulent practitioners. Recurrent complaints include frigid temperatures, mildew and meals that leave detainees hungry and willing to clean for $1 a day to pay for commissary food. That wage is specified in the contract with the Alaskan company, which budgeted 23,000 days of such work the first year, and collects a daily rate of $227.68 for each detainee.
The Alaska connection is one of the stranger twists in the jail's fitful history. Opened as a federal immigration detention center in 1984, Varick became chronically overcrowded after 1998, when new laws mandated the detention of all noncitizens who had ever committed a crime on a list of deportable offenses, expanded to include misdemeanors like drug possession.
A Dominican man there died of untreated pneumonia in 1999 - the first reported death in the nationwide detention system, which now counts 106 since October 2003.
The Varick facility, which is on the corner of Houston Street, fell short of national detention standards adopted in 2000, because it lacks any outdoor recreation space. But under a grandfather clause, it was allowed to remain open until 9/11, when the terror attack, blocks away, forced its evacuation. For years, it was shuttered. It quietly reopened in February 2008, operated by Ahtna Technical Services Inc., a subsidiary of Ahtna Inc. - still with no access to fresh air.
As an Alaska Native corporation, Ahtna has won numerous federal contracts without having to compete with other companies; last year it paid its tribal shareholders about $500 each in dividends. It hires a Texas subcontractor to supply guards and transportation, along with the shackles and belly chains routinely used on detainees being moved in or out.
Varick's population includes illegal immigrants, asylum-seekers and legal immigrants who face deportation because they have past criminal convictions. Almost half of those screened by the volunteer lawyers have already been in detention for four to six months, according to the bar association report, and nearly 40 percent have legal grounds to contest deportation.
A few, the report says, have a possible claim to citizenship, which would make their detention unlawful. But the volunteers, including lawyers from 16 corporate firms, say they can offer only rudimentary legal triage to a handful of detainees a week.
The Department of Justice is asking Congress for money to expand the law project, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement invites Washington officials to visit the weekly triage sessions. The agency allowed a reporter to observe a session, but not to tour the jail. On a recent Thursday, only 11 of 35 detainees who had signed up made it into one of five glassed-in booths where they could consult with pairs of legal volunteers.
One, a 25-year-old Mexican, had been delivering food for an Italian restaurant on Madison Avenue until his detention. After a week in Varick, the government had not served him with a "notice to appear" telling why he was detained and setting the date and place where he would be heard by an immigration judge.
Volunteers were researching his case a week later when he was transferred to Atlanta. It could just as easily have been Louisiana or Texas, far from any free legal help, said Maria Navarro, a Legal Aid lawyer who supervises the volunteers. Even in cities, she said, lawyers are reluctant to represent detainees who may be suddenly moved far away.
Another 25-year-old, who had come to New York as a legal immigrant from Belize at age 2, told lawyers he had worked at Kentucky Fried Chicken to support his 5-year-old daughter, a citizen, when his sickle-cell anemia permitted. After a standing huddle, the lawyers told him that because his notice listed old convictions for possession of marijuana, he was ineligible for release on bond or with an electronic monitoring bracelet.
A Haitian, who had served time for at least one drug-related offense, had a lawyer but wanted a second opinion after being held in Varick for 16 months. He described himself as a barber, interpreter and legal resident of Brooklyn for 23 years.
"It is double jeopardy," he protested, nursing a swollen jaw with teeth missing. "I become a diabetic here, because of anxiety, stress and suicidal conditions."
Yet a detainee from the former Soviet Union praised the jail. "Varick is heaven" compared with some county jails in New Jersey (Bergen and Monmouth) and Florida, he said, citing abuse by anti-immigrant guards.
A century-long line of Supreme Court decisions holds that immigration detention is not a punishment or deprivation of liberty, and does not require legal counsel for fundamental fairness.
But Daniel I. Miller, 39, the Romanian whose petition reached the bar association, said his own case showed how high the stakes can be. Mr. Miller, a chef, fled his native land in 1994 after the secret police mutilated him for advocating gay rights. In New York, he had already been paroled for a criminal conviction - for signing his partner's name on a contract - when immigration authorities detained him.
To no avail, records show, his lawyer and an outraged doctor at St. Vincent's Hospital Manhattan urged his release from Varick for treatment of tumors on his liver. Instead, he was transferred in April to the Orange County Jail in Goshen, N.Y., where he said he also circulated a petition. The authorities there accused him of trying to start a riot and sent him to segregation with a murder defendant.
"These people have no rules, that's the main problem," Mr. Miller said, speaking from the Midtown office where he is starting an organic catering business. He credits his lawyer, Howard Brill, for that turnaround: On Sept. 2, after almost a year in custody, an immigration judge granted him the right to stay in the United States.
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10) Full Appeals Court Rejects Suit in Rendition Case
By Benjamin Weiser
November 2, 2009, 11:44 am
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/02/full-appeals-court-rejects-suit-in-rendition-case/?hp
A federal appeals court in New York ruled on Monday that Maher Arar, a Canadian man who claimed that American officials sent him to Syria in 2002 to be tortured, cannot sue for damages because Congress has not authorized such suits.
The case has been widely watched because Mr. Arar was a victim of extraordinary rendition, the controversial government policy of sending terrorism suspects to third countries that engage in torture.
In saying that he could not sue officials involved in his rendition, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled by a vote of 7 to 4 that Congress could always create a civil damages remedy for harms suffered through rendition, but it had not done so.
"We decline to create on our own, a new cause of action against officers and employees of the federal government," Chief Judge Dennis G. Jacobs wrote in a 59-page majority opinion joined by six other judges.
Judge Jacobs said that it was for the executive branch to "decide how to implement extraordinary rendition, and for the elected members of Congress - and not for us as judges - to decide whether an individual may seek compensation" from government officials for a constitutional violation.
Four judges issued dissenting opinions, in which they all joined, running a total of 117 pages. In one, Judge Guido Calabresi wrote, "I believe that when the history of this distinguished court is written, today's majority decision will be viewed with dismay."
Mr. Arar was detained in September 2002 at Kennedy International Airport as he changed planes on his way to Montreal from a vacation in Tunisia. Suspected of having ties to Al Qaeda, he was held and interrogated under harsh conditions in New York for 13 days, and then sent to Syria, where he spent a year in confinement and, he says, was tortured.
He was released in 2003, and Canadian officials later concluded that he had no involvement with terrorism.
A lawsuit filed by Mr. Arar was dismissed in 2006 by a federal district judge in Brooklyn, a ruling that was affirmed in 2008 by a three-judge panel of the appeals court. Then, in a highly unusual move, the full appeals court decided to consider the matter, and held oral arguments last December.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, a former member of the Second Circuit appeals court, participated in the oral argument of the case last December, but was later elevated to the United States Supreme Court by President Obama and did not participate in the decision.
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11) Karzai Gets New Term as Afghan Runoff Is Scrapped
By ALISSA J. RUBIN and ALAN COWELL
November 3, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/03/world/asia/03afghan.html?ref=world
KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghan officials canceled a runoff presidential vote set for Saturday and declared President Hamid Karzai the winner on Monday, a day after his remaining challenger, , Abdullah Abdullah, withdrew.
The announcement capped a fraught election widely depicted as deeply flawed by corruption and voting irregularities.
Azizullah Ludin, the chairman of Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission, said the Constitution did not require a runoff and the second-round vote, set for Saturday, had been canceled after Mr. Abdullah's announcement that he was dropping out.
Mr. Ludin said Mr. Karzai had won the majority of votes in the first round "and was the only candidate in the second round," and so was "declared the elected president of Afghanistan."
Among the commission's reasons for canceling the vote, Mr. Ludin said at a news conference, was to spare Afghans the high costs and security risks of a fresh round of balloting. Those concerns reflected the difficulties of holding an election amid a growing Taliban insurgency.
But Mr. Karzai and the election commission had been under intense pressure from Afghanistan's international backers, including the United States, to cancel the runoff, in part because of worries that the vote-rigging that marred the first round might be repeated.
While the international community and the United Nations congratulated Mr. Karzai and urged him to set about unifying the country, the way ahead was foggy at best. There has been talking of forming a unity government, but Mr. Abdullah said he would not participate.
Further, there is little popular support in Afghanistan for that option. For many Afghans a coalition government brings to mind the chaotic period in the 1990s when armed strongmen competed for turf in bloody battles that killed many civilians around the country and destroyed a swath of Kabul.
Officials from the United States and United Nations welcomed the decision and congratulated Mr. Karzai.
"We congratulate President Karzai on his victory in this historic election," said a statement from the United States Embassy in Kabul, "and look forward to working with him, his new administration, the Afghan people and our partners in the international community to support Afghanistan's progress towards institutional reforms, security and prosperity."
The United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, who arrived in Kabul on Monday, said the election process had been "difficult," and urged Mr. Karzai to form a government that would have the support of Afghanis and the international community.
"I welcome today's decision by Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission to forego a run-off vote and to declare Hamid Karzai as the winner of the 2009 presidential elections," Mr. Ban said in a statement. "I congratulate President Karzai."
Since the first round of voting on Aug. 20., casualties have mounted among American and allied forces fighting the Taliban, while accounts of widespread vote-rigging to deliver Mr. Karzai's victory have strengthened.
Earlier on Monday, Mr. Ban met both Mr. Karzai and Mr. Abdullah "to assure them and the Afghan people of the continuing support of the United Nations towards the development of the country and the humanitarian assistance that the U.N. provides to millions of Afghans every day," a United Nations statement said.
He arrived days after three men dressed as Afghan police officers attacked a guesthouse in Kabul, killing eight people, five of them foreigners who worked for the United Nations. But Mr. Ban said his organization would not be deterred from working in Afghanistan.
In an emotional speech on Sunday to thousands of supporters here, Mr. Abdullah said he could not take part in a runoff that he believed would be at least as fraudulent as the tainted first round in August, in which almost a million ballots for Mr. Karzai were thrown out as fakes.
"I hoped there would be a better process," he said. "But it is final. I will not participate in the Nov. 7 elections."
Advisers to President Obama called Mr. Abdullah's decision a personal choice that would not greatly affect American policy and was in line with the Afghan Constitution. They portrayed the election of Mr. Karzai as essentially settled, enabling Mr. Obama to move forward with deciding whether to send as many as 40,000 additional troops to Afghanistan, although an announcement probably remains at least three weeks away.
"Every poll that had been taken there suggested that he was likely to be defeated anyway, so we are going to deal with the government that is there," David Axelrod, a senior adviser to Mr. Obama, said on "Face the Nation" on CBS.
Administration officials alluded to the criticisms bedeviling Mr. Karzai - focusing on corruption and ineffectiveness in fighting the intensifying Taliban insurgency - in their comments on Sunday. But they sought to focus on security questions rather than governance and political stability, emphasizing that the chief American goal now in Afghanistan was to make sure that Al Qaeda would not re-establish bases there.
"Obviously, there are issues we need to discuss, such as reducing the high level of corruption," Mr. Axelrod said. "These are issues we'll take up with President Karzai."
Mr. Abdullah's supporters, who traveled from all over the country to hear his decision in Kabul, were unanimous in calling Mr. Karzai an illegitimate leader.
The decision was clearly a hard one for Mr. Abdullah. He choked up at the moment of announcing it before his supporters and had to pause to drink water before speaking.
"It did not come easily," he told the crowd, which had begun cheering at his announcement. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, traveling in Morocco, released a statement saying that while the Obama administration would support Mr. Karzai as president, she hoped Mr. Abdullah would "stay engaged in the national dialogue and work on behalf of the security and prosperity of the people of Afghanistan."
Mr. Abdullah rejected any suggestion of joining Mr. Karzai's government, and he clearly signaled that he was positioning himself as a future player in Afghan politics. In a news briefing later at his home, he said: "I did it with a lot of pain, but at the same time with a lot of hopes toward the future. Because this will not be the end of anything, this will be a new beginning."
Alissa J. Rubin reported from Kabul, and Alan Cowell from Paris. Carlotta Gall contributed reporting from Kabul, Jeff Zeleny from Washington, and Joseph Berger and Jack Healy from New York.
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12) Ford Posts an Unexpected Profit of $997 Million
By NICK BUNKLEY
November 3, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/03/business/03auto.html?ref=business
DETROIT - The Ford Motor Company on Monday posted a surprise third-quarter profit of $997 million and said it had had its first profitable quarter in North America in more than four years.
The carmaker also said that, at least temporarily, it had stopped rapidly burning through its much-needed cash reserves. It reported positive cash flow of $2.8 billion during the quarter, ending September with $23.8 billion.
Through the first nine months of 2009, Ford, the only Detroit automaker to avoid bankruptcy this year, has had a profit of more than $1.8 billion. Still, it has lost about $1.3 billion when one-time items, like a major debt restructuring, are excluded.
Until now, its goal had been to break even or earn a full-year profit by 2011. On Monday the company said in a statement that it "now expects to be solidly profitable in 2011, excluding special items, with positive operating-related cash flow." It did not indicate whether a fourth-quarter or full-year profit is expected this year, nor did it provide an outlook for 2010, citing continued economic uncertainty.
"We're just not sure, mainly about the strength of the recovery," Ford's chief executive, Alan R. Mulally, said on a conference call with analysts and reporters. "Clearly we're on a path and following our plan for solid profitability in 2011."
The company's earnings of $357 million in North America broke a streak of 17 consecutive quarterly losses there. That figure represents a $3 billion improvement from the same period a year ago, despite considerably lower sales across the industry.
Ford was helped by the government's so-called cash-for-clunkers program, which lifted new-vehicle sales in July and August, but executives attributed most of the upturn to cost cuts and higher net pricing.
"We are very pleased with the progress we have achieved so far this year, and we have increased confidence in our ability to deliver on our plan," Mr. Mulally said. "Ford faces significant challenges ahead, but we remain confident that we have the right plan and are taking the right actions to transform Ford into a lean company that delivers profitable growth for all of its stakeholders."
Shares of Ford stock were up 7 percent to $7.50 in afternoon trading. The earnings report prompted Moody's Investors Service to upgrade its rating of Ford to B3 from Caa1, and Fitch Ratings raised its outlook for Ford to positive from stable.
"Moody's expects that the company will remain solidly on track to return to profitability and positive operating cash flow for its automotive business by 2011," Moody's said in announcing its upgrade. "Moreover, Ford's $23.8 billion cash position should provide an adequate liquidity cushion in the event that the pace of recovery in automotive demand is slower than the company anticipates."
The company posted an after-tax operational profit of $873 million, or 26 cents a share, beating even the most optimistic of forecasts by Wall Street analysts. Its overall profit is equal to 29 cents a share.
The profit occurred even as third-quarter revenue fell 3 percent, to $30.9 billion. The company said it now expected to reduce its annual structural costs by $5 billion this year, $1 billion more than its original target.
The United Automobile Workers union is expected to announce on Monday that its members soundly rejected a deal to help Ford further cut its labor costs. The deal would have generally matched concessions that workers at Chrysler and General Motors approved in the spring.
Ford workers ratified a deal in March that saves the company an estimated $500 million a year, but this time many expressed anger at being asked to make more sacrifices at a time when the company's finances and market share are improving.
But Ford easily won approval of a separate deal from its 7,000 union workers in Canada over the weekend. The Canadian Automobile Workers union said 83 percent voted in favor of that deal, which freezes wages until 2012 and allows Ford to close its 41-year-old assembly plant in St. Thomas, Ontario.
The U.A.W. deal would have frozen wages for newly hired workers until 2015, combined some job classifications and barred the union from going on strike to demand higher pay or benefits. In rejecting the deal, workers gave up a $1,000 bonus that Ford would have paid them in March.
Many in the U.A.W. undoubtedly were influenced by Ford's efforts to portray itself as different from G.M. and Chrysler since both those companies borrowed billions of dollars from the federal government and filed for Chapter 11 protection.
Ford has been having more success than its cross-town rivals at attracting customers, and its newest vehicles are winning commendations from sources like the magazine Consumer Reports, which last week declared Ford to be "the only Detroit automaker with world-class reliability" and on par with Toyota and Honda in terms of vehicle quality.
The company's sales in the United States are down 22 percent this year through September, the smallest decline among the six largest automakers; the industry is down 27 percent over all.
"We have created a very strong business, and we're not taking any taxpayer money," Mr. Mulally said.
As recently as two years ago, Ford was widely regarded as the laggard of the Detroit Three. (That unwelcome distinction is now held by Chrysler, which intends to outline its future plans with its Italian partner, Fiat, on Wednesday.)
Last year, Ford lost $14.6 billion, the most in its history. Mr. Mulally initially joined the leaders of G.M. and Chrysler in pleading with members of Congress to aid their companies, but Ford later decided to forgo emergency loans.
Despite its improvements, Ford remains heavily in debt. It borrowed $23.5 billion in 2006, a move initially viewed as an ominous sign of its future prospects but which turned out to be extremely fortunate after the credit markets collapsed.
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13) Premature Births Behind Higher Infant Death Rates in U.S., Report Says.
By DENISE GRADY
November 4, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/04/health/04infant.html
High rates of premature birth are the main reason the United States has higher infant mortality than do many other rich countries, government researchers reported Tuesday in their first detailed analysis of a longstanding problem.
In Sweden, for instance, only 6.3 percent of births were premature, compared with 12.4 percent in the United States in 2005 - the latest year for which international rankings are available.
Infant mortality also differed markedly: for every 1,000 births in the United States, 6.9 infants died before they turned 1, compared with only 2.4 in Sweden. Twenty-nine other countries also had lower rates.
If America could match Sweden's prematurity rate, the new report said, "nearly 8,000 infant deaths would be averted each year, and the U.S. infant mortality rate would be one-third lower."
Dr. Alan R. Fleischman, medical director of the March of Dimes, said the new report was "an indictment of the U.S. health care system" and the poor job it had done in taking care of women and children.
Infant mortality is widely used as a way to gauge the health of a nation, and the relatively high rates in the United States have long dismayed health officials.
The high rates of prematurity in the United States have various causes. The smallest, earliest and most fragile babies are often born to poor and minority women who lack health care and social support. The highest rates of infant mortality occur in non-Hispanic black, American Indian, Alaska Native and Puerto Rican women.
When it comes to prematurity, fertility treatments - drugs that stimulate ovulation, and procedures that implant more than one embryo in the uterus - also play a role, by raising the odds of twins or higher multiples, which have an increased risk of being born too soon.
Another factor is the increasing use of Caesarean sections and labor-inducing drugs to deliver babies early, said Marian F. MacDorman, a statistician at the National Center for Health Statistics and an author of the report.
"I don't think there are doctors doing preterm Caesarean sections or inductions without some indications, but there sort of has been this shift in the culture," Dr. MacDorman said. "Fifteen or 20 years ago, if a woman had high blood pressure or diabetes, she would be put in the hospital and they would try to wait it out. It was called expectant management. Now I think there's more of a tendency to take the baby out early if there's any question at all."
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14) Mt. Kilimanjaro Ice Cap Continues Rapid Retreat
By SINDYA N. BHANOO
November 3, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/03/world/africa/03melt.html?ref=world
The ice atop Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania has continued to retreat rapidly, declining 26 percent since 2000, scientists say in a new report.
Yet the authors of the study, to be published Tuesday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, reached no consensus on whether the melting could be attributed mainly to humanity's role in warming the global climate.
Eighty-five percent of the ice cover that was present in 1912 has vanished, the scientists said.
To measure the recent pace of the retreat, researchers relied on data from aerial photographs taken of Kilimanjaro over time and from stakes and instruments installed on the mountaintop in 2000, said Douglas R. Hardy, a geologist at the University of Massachusetts and one of the study's authors.
The photographs measure horizontal shrinkage of the ice, and the stakes indicate the reduction in depth. Both are decreasing at the same rate, Dr. Hardy said.
Researchers studying the mountaintop, including those involved in this study, differ in their conclusions on how much of the melting could result from human activity or other climatological influences.
The lead author of the study, Lonnie G. Thompson, a glaciologist at Ohio State University, has concluded that the melting of recent years is unique.
In 2000 he extracted deep cylinders of ice from Kilimanjaro's glaciers and found that the higher layers were full of elongated bubbles - signs that melting and refreezing had occurred in recent years.
There was no presence of the bubbles in the deeper layers of the cores, Dr. Thompson said.
If his dating of the ice core layers is accurate, surface melting like that seen in recent years has not occurred over the last 11,700 years.
But Georg Kaser, a glaciologist at the Institute for Geography of the University of Innsbruck in Austria, said that the ice measured was only a few hundred years old and that it had come and gone over centuries.
What is more, he suggested that the recent melting had more to do with a decline in moisture levels than with a warming atmosphere.
"Our understanding is that it is due to the slow drying out of ice," Dr. Kaser said. "It's about moisture fluctuation."
But Dr. Thompson emphasized that the melting of ice atop Mount Kilimanjaro was paralleled by retreats in ice fields elsewhere in Africa as well as in South America, Indonesia and the Himalayas.
"It's when you put those together that the evidence becomes very compelling," he said.
Cabinet to Meet on Mt. Everest
KATMANDU, Nepal (AP) - Nepal's cabinet will hold a meeting on Mount Everest to highlight the threat from global warming, which is causing glaciers to melt in the Himalayas, an official said Monday.
The cabinet will meet at the Everest base camp this month, just before an international climate change conference in December in Copenhagen, said Deepak Bohara, the forest and soil conservation minister.
Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal and other cabinet members will fly by plane to the 17,400-foot camp, the starting point for mountaineers trying to climb the world's highest mountain.
Last month, the cabinet of Maldives donned scuba gear and held an underwater meeting to highlight the threat of global warming to that nation, the world's lowest.
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15) Philadelphia Transit Workers Strike
By IAN URBINA
November 4, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/04/us/04transit.html?ref=us
Philadelphia's morning commute ground to a halt on Tuesday after the city transit system's largest union went on strike at 3 a.m. Eastern time.
The strike by Local 234 of the Transport Workers Union left commuters walking, hitching rides, catching cabs or biking to work. The impact was lessened somewhat by the fact that public schools in the city were closed Tuesday for teachers' conferences.
The strike was announced a few hours after the Phillies beat the Yankees in Game 5 of the World Series, the last game of the series scheduled to be played in Philadelphia.
The action was in clear defiance of Gov. Ed Rendell, who over the weekend had ordered the union and the transit authority, known as Septa, to remain at the bargaining table or risk consequences.
Willie Brown, president of Local 234, said negotiations stalled because of disagreements over wages and workers' rights.
He said that the transit authority had consistently been pulling money out of its already underfunded pension plan and that management was unwilling to negotiate over a right for employees to choose work assignments based on seniority.
Transit workers in Philadelphia are paid an average of $52,000 a year, excluding benefits. They are seeking annual raises of 4 percent and to keep employees' contributions toward the cost of their health care coverage at 1 percent of pay, Mr. Brown said.
Transit officials denied the accusations about raiding the pension fund, and said their offer, raises totaling 11.5 percent spread over five years with no raise in the first year, coupled with increases in workers' pensions, was a generous one.
At a news conference late Monday night, Mr. Rendell called the decision to strike before dawn "irresponsible."
The mayor of Philadelphia, Michael Nutter, added that he was "totally outraged" that the union chose to strike in the middle of the night.
A strike against the transit authority in 2005 lasted seven days, while a 1998 transit strike lasted 40 days.
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16) UFC fighter was eating ketchup and rice before UFC 104
By Steve Cofield
Mon Nov 02, 2009 2:25 pm EST
http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/blog/cagewriter/post/UFC-fighter-was-eating-ketchup-and-rice-before-U?urn=mma,199656
If anyone needed a huge postfight bonus at UFC 104, it was Pat Barry. The heavyweight out of New Orleans, scored Knockout of the Night and Fight of the Night for his victory over Antoni Hardonk. That was good enough for $120,000. Good thing, Barry needed the infusion of cash in the worst way. He confirmed to MMAScrapsRadio that he was completely down on his luck before the fight, agreeing that he had little to eat in Los Angeles the week of the fight.
"I still had my apartment but if something would've happened and the fight had been canceled, I would've been evicted six days later."
Barry, 30, said he didn't even tell his trainer Duke Roufus for fear that he would think the fighter had the wrong motivation going into the fight. Barry said he didn't ask anyone for money including his mother:
"I could ask someone but then at the same time, how hard are you going to work for something if everytime you get in trouble somebody catches you? I did something to put myself in this position I have to work my way out of it."
Listen to Barry talk about his troubles before the fight at the following url:
http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/blog/cagewriter/post/UFC-fighter-was-eating-ketchup-and-rice-before-U?urn=mma,199656
Barry got his $120,000 bonus check last Tuesday. He couldn't believe it. When he went to deposit the check, his truck wouldn't start. Barry got a jump and hit the bank sporting a black eye and pink striped shorts.
"I go to the bank, I'm sweaty, I've got the black eye, I haven't shaven in two days, I'm strung out because I haven't slept, I have green circles under my eyes so I'm like 'Can I have a deposit slip mam?'. She gives it to me, I fill it out hand it to her. She looks at the deposit slip, then the check, then looks at me and says 'Excuse me I'll be right back.' Then a manager comes out, a guy in a suit and says 'What seems to be the problem?' I was like 'Well I have a black eye, that's the only problem I know this looks really ridiculous.' So he asks me for my ID, I hand him my license an he's like 'Your license says Pat Barry, but this check was written to Patrick Barry.' So I decided to be funny and tell him Pat Barry is in my trunk right now. He didnt laugh. So I told him take your time man do whatever you need to do because I have no where to go and my truck probably wont start when I go outside so you can just do whatever you need to do. An hour later he came back and everything was fine, the check was in my bank account."
Listen here to the entire Barry interview:
http://www.mmascrapsradio.com/
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17) Pentagon Expected to Request More War Funding
By ELISABETH BUMILLER
November 5, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/05/world/05military.html?ref=world
WASHINGTON - The nation's top military officer said Wednesday that he expected the Pentagon to ask Congress in the next few months for emergency financing to support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, even though President Obama has pledged to end the Bush administration practice of paying for the conflicts with so-called supplemental funds that are outside the normal Defense Department budget.
The financing would be on top of the $130 billion that Congress authorized for the wars just last month.
The military officer, Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, did not say how much additional money would be needed, but one figure in circulation within the Pentagon and among outside defense budget analysts is $50 billion.
Representative John Murtha, the Pennsylvania Democrat who is chairman of the House appropriations defense subcommittee, cited $40 billion last week as a hypothetical amount for the supplemental financing request. The number represented a standard calculation of $1 billion for every 1,000 troops deployed.
Defense officials said the final request would depend on the number of additional troops Mr. Obama decided to send to Afghanistan. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top NATO commander in Afghanistan, has asked for 40,000 more troops on top of the 68,000 American troops already there.
The request is likely to ignite objections from Democrats on Capitol Hill who are increasingly alarmed about the eight-year-old war in Afghanistan, and it could become a vehicle for a battle between Mr. Obama and his liberal Democratic base.
At the National Press Club on Wednesday, Admiral Mullen said he anticipated the need for more money for the wars in the coming year beyond the $130 billion authorized for the 2010 fiscal year, which runs from Oct. 1, 2009, until Sept. 30, 2010. He was responding to a questioner who asked, "Assuming that U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan increase, do you expect that the Defense Department will submit an emergency supplemental funding request during the coming months?"
Admiral Mullen replied: "From what I can see, I certainly think there will be some requirement. I just don't know exactly what it will be yet."
Admiral Mullen's spokesman, Capt. John Kirby, said afterward that although the admiral wanted to move away from supplemental defense financing, there might be "a need for another supplemental on the unique and current demands of dynamic operations in two theaters of war."
The White House had little comment on Admiral Mullen's remarks. "The president's budget provides a full-year funding for anticipated costs in Iraq and Afghanistan, and he has made clear his intent to fund these wars through the normal budgeting process," Tommy Vietor, a White House spokesman, said in an e-mail message. "No decisions have been made about additional costs related to new resource requests from the Department of Defense."
Although the size of any request would depend on the number of extra forces sent, Defense Department officials say they are likely to need more money even without a buildup. Robert F. Hale, the Pentagon comptroller, recently told staff members of the House Appropriations Committee that it would be hard to get through September 2010 with $130 billion, regardless of a troop increase, said a Congressional staff member who did not want to be identified as discussing internal matters. Mr. Hale declined to comment.
In March, Mr. Hale told the House Budget Committee that $130 billion would be enough for the year and that he did not expect to ask for more. But he did caution that "there may be significant unforeseen developments or changes in wartime strategy or tactics that cannot be addressed with existing resources."
Mr. Obama did include the $130 billion for the wars as part of his regular $668 billion defense budget this year, the first time that has happened since 2001. President George W. Bush regularly financed the wars with emergency requests that usually came after the Pentagon budget was introduced.
In April, before the current Pentagon budget was passed, the Obama administration asked Congress for approval of an emergency $83.4 billion to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan through Sept. 30. The administration said the money was needed because legislation passed during the Bush administration provided only enough money to pay for the wars through midyear.
Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, said at the time that the request was unavoidable and that it would be the last outside the normal budget process.
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18) Afghan Villagers Say Air Strike Kills 9 Civilians
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
November 5, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/11/05/world/AP-AS-Afghan-Violence.html?ref=world
Filed at 11:50 a.m. ET
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) -- An overnight rocket strike by international forces killed nine civilians, including at least three children, villagers said Thursday. Local Afghan authorities said they had no reports of civilian deaths.
NATO said the target of the strike was a group of people believed to be planting a bomb and that the alliance was investigating the allegations.
The incident illustrates the confusion and blame that regularly result from night raids and strikes in Afghanistan and threaten U.S.-led efforts to curb the Taliban.
In Kabul, the head of the U.N. mission warned that Afghanistan cannot count on international support indefinitely unless the government tackles corruption and bad governance.
Residents of Korkhashien village drove the bodies to the governor's office in the nearby provincial capital of Lashkar Gah, and Associated Press footage and photos showed at least two children among the dead.
Helmand provincial spokesman Daoud Ahmadi confirmed a strike in Korkhashien, but said eight Taliban militants were killed while hiding out in a compound.
However, President Hamid Karzai's office condemned ''the attack on civilians'' in a statement. Ahmadi could not be reached to see if his information had changed.
NATO said a rocket fired from the ground hit nine people whom the international coalition believed were planting a bomb. The NATO forces ''were not aware of any civilians in the vicinity at the time of the strike,'' it said in a statement. It said no other people were targeted. NATO said it was investigating the incident but did not give further details.
The NATO force ''takes all credible allegations of civilian casualties very seriously and investigates each allegation to determine the facts,'' Navy Capt. Jane Campbell said in the statement. ''If any civilians were injured through our actions, we deeply regret it.''
Villager Abdul Rashin said the people were killed while harvesting corn in their fields.
The convoy of vans and station wagons from Korkhashien drove from the governor's office to a central market, where the villagers shouted blame at both Karzai and his international allies.
''Death to Karzai! Death to the foreigners!'' they yelled as passers-by looked through the car windows at the blanket-covered corpses. The villagers had propped open the rear doors of the cars to show off the bodies, and a young boy on a bicycle stopped to peer in.
Though NATO forces have retooled their mission to focus on protecting the population -- and have been issued new rules for airstrikes aimed at reducing civilian casualties -- it is often difficult to distinguish militants from civilians in areas where the Taliban live among the people and often grew up in the villages they hide out in.
In eastern Khost province, several hundred people demonstrated Thursday against an overnight raid that killed a resident of Baramkhil village. Walishah Hamat, head of the Mandozayi district government, said the dead man was innocent.
NATO said the man was a militant who was killed when Afghan and international forces were pursuing an insurgent leader who had been recruiting foreign fighters to the area.
More than eight years into the Afghan war, NATO forces are still struggling to fight off the Taliban movement and win the trust of the people they are defending.
NATO forces often struggle in the parallel propaganda war, even though Taliban attacks have killed many more civilians. Late Wednesday, a Taliban rocket killed five civilians when it hit a family's house, said Gov. Jamaldin Bader of Nuristan province.
A fraud-marred presidential election this summer has also weakened support for the Karzai government among its international allies.
Karzai was declared the winner of the presidential race this week after his main challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, withdrew from a runoff that he said could not be free and fair.
Kai Eide, the top U.N. official in Afghanistan, issued a stern warning to Karzai on Thursday, saying it was imperative that his new administration reform and crack down hard on corruption or risk losing the support of countries that have been providing Afghanistan with funds and with foreign troops to establish security.
''There is a belief among some that the international commitment to Afghanistan will continue whatever happens because of the strategic importance of Afghanistan,'' Eide said during a news conference in Kabul. ''I would like to emphasize that that is not correct. It is the public opinion in donor countries and in troop-contributing countries that decides on the strength of that commitment.''
A presidential spokesman argued that foreign donors have also contributed to corruption with the way that lucrative international contracts are awarded.
''Corruption requires closer and more effective cooperation between the government of Afghanistan and the international community,'' Humayun Hamidzada said. He did not elaborate on the corruption surrounding contracts.
Increasing violence in the country is also threatening the U.N. mission there. On Thursday, the world body said it was temporarily relocating more than half of its international staff while it looks for safer accommodation for them, following an attack last week on a guesthouse that killed five staffers.
In an initial speech welcoming his re-election, Karzai promised to create an inclusive government and banish the corruption that has undermined his administration. But he did not spell out how he would institute reforms, and he was flanked during his news conference by his two vice presidents -- both former warlords widely believed to have looted Afghanistan for years.
Eide said: ''We can't afford any longer a situation where warlords and power brokers play their own games. We have to have a political landscape here that draws the country in the same direction, which is in the direction of significant reform.''
Hamidzada said Karzai is helping unify Afghanistan by bringing these people into government.
''He has brought together Afghans from all walks of life and from all political backgrounds. In order for stability and development to take hold, we must move in the path of inclusivity,'' he said.
The Afghan Defense Ministry said 17 militants have been killed in three separate clashes in the last 24 hours.
Associated Press writers Elena Becatoros and Heidi Vogt in Kabul and Alfred de Montesquiou in Uzbeen contributed to this report.
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19) Reports Show Conflicting Number of Jobs Attributed to Stimulus Money
By MICHAEL COOPER and RON NIXON
November 5, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/05/us/05stimulus.html?ref=us
In June, the federal government spent $1,047 in stimulus money to buy a rider mower from the Toro Company to cut the grass at the Fayetteville National Cemetery in Arkansas. Now, a report on the government's stimulus Web site improbably claims that that single lawn mower sale helped save or create 50 jobs.
Earlier that same month, when Chrysler got a $52.9 million stimulus order for new cars for the government, the struggling automaker claimed that the money did not save a single job.
Those two extremes illustrate the difficulties in trying to figure out just how many jobs can be attributed to the $787 billion stimulus program. Last week the Obama administration released reports from more than 130,000 recipients of stimulus money in which they claimed to have saved or created more than 640,000 jobs, but a review of those reports shows that some are simply wrong, while others contain apparently subjective estimates.
A spokesman for Toro said the 50-job figure was not accurate, making it one of a number of reports with apparent errors. In many other cases, though, claims of jobs created are simply judgment calls, often by recipients trying to follow complex federal guidelines.
More than half of all the jobs claimed - 325,000 - were those of educators that states said they were able to keep on the job thanks to stimulus aid. But some school districts said that they might not have actually laid off teachers without the stimulus money. Many Head Start programs reported saving the jobs of employees who in fact had simply been given raises with stimulus money - putting their claims of 8,000 jobs under review. Many states and private companies seem to have used different criteria when estimating whether stimulus aid had saved jobs or not, and when calculating full-time positions.
The reports, for all their shortcomings, do provide the first check of how the stimulus bill is working so far. They suggest that more than half the jobs claimed so far are in the public sector - despite the fact that President Obama has said that he expects only 10 percent of stimulus jobs to be in the public sector.
A computer analysis by The New York Times of government reports showed that at least 30,000 of the jobs were being claimed in highway, street and bridge construction, and at least 14,000 were with transit agencies. The analysis found that the $5 billion push to weatherize homes, which was delayed in many states because of uncertainty over how much money the workers should be paid, had yielded only a little over 5,000 jobs so far, nearly half of which were in Ohio.
The reports, which have been posted on the government's Web site, www.recovery.gov, provide unusual transparency for government spending, showing how much money each contractor has received and where the work has been done, right down to the ZIP code. But they seem to raise as many questions as they answer.
The reports make no distinction between a newly created job and a saved job. They do not specify whether a job is in the public or private sector. And descriptions of the work vary in detail, making it difficult to categorize some work and to compare how various programs are doing.
Elizabeth A. Oxhorn, a White House spokeswoman on the stimulus, said that some of the data, which officials had always warned would contain errors, was rough because it was posted online quickly after it was received, in an effort at transparency. The jobs numbers would likely be adjusted both upward and downward, she said.
"As with all economic indicators - even statistics that have been around for decades - the brand-new measures posted last week are subject to subsequent revision, as further analysis clarifies and improves the data," she said.
Although President Obama initially said that 90 percent of the jobs created by the stimulus program would be in the private sector, the data suggests that well over half of the jobs claimed so far have been in the public sector. They include the 325,000 jobs in education, including teachers, administrators and support staff, as well as many of the 73,000 other jobs paid for with education grants, many of which were in public safety.
Republicans, who overwhelmingly opposed the stimulus program, said the figures showed that the program was failing in its stated mission of creating a large number of private sector jobs. Administration officials said that they believed the stimulus program was still on track to save or create 3.5 million jobs by the end of next year, and that in the end 90 percent of the jobs would be in the private sector.
The job data can be loose. Philip Mattera, the research director for Good Jobs First, a labor-oriented research organization in Washington, examined the reports and found 2,464 projects that claimed no jobs at all, even though more than half of the work had been done, at a cost of more than $1 billion. That suggests that many projects have undercounted job creation.
But the dogs that do not bark are not receiving as much attention as those that do. Onvia, a Seattle company that tracks government spending at the federal, state and local levels, noted that the data is only as good as the recipients that have reported it, and pointed out a number of questionable reports.
In one, a Kentucky shoe store reported that it had created nine jobs with an $890 order for work boots. In another, a $7,960 contract for a "Basketball System Replacement" in Ohio claimed three jobs.
It was not clear what positions they played.
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20) Some Wall Street Year-End Bonuses Could Hit Pre-Downturn Highs
By ERIC DASH
November 5, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/05/business/05pay.html?ref=us
Now is the time of year when a Wall Streeter's fancy turns, not so lightly, to thoughts of bonuses.
Inside major financial companies, the annual rite of tallying bonuses is about to begin, with a sense of relief and even elation that would have been unthinkable only a year ago. After all those federal bailouts, many banks are turning handsome profits. Top producers are looking forward to blowout paydays once again.
In financial circles, the question on everyone's mind is this: Just how big will this payday be?
The answer, it seems, is extremely big - perhaps the biggest industrywide since 2007, at the height of the bubble, according to a study released on Wednesday by the pay consultant Johnson Associates.
The annual report, a closely watched signpost for the bonus season, projected that the financial industry payouts would be up 40 percent from 2008, when they plunged in the midst of the financial crisis. In 2008, Wall Street handed out nearly $20 billion in cash awards and billions more in stock and other incentives to employees based in New York.
What is most remarkable about the estimate, compiled by Johnson Associates, is how quickly pay is expected to rebound for traders - Wall Street's current kings and queens of ka-ching.
For people who trade bonds, commodities and currencies, bonuses are expected to soar as much as 60 percent, to around their pre-crisis levels. A typical senior fixed-income trader can expect a total pay package of about $930,000 in cash and stock, compared with a package last year of about $695,000. Paychecks for stock and derivatives traders are likely to jump by half that much. Bonuses for investment bankers, by contrast, are projected to rise 15 to 20 percent. Star performers could see their paychecks surge even higher.
Whatever the actual numbers, the bonuses - most of which will be calculated between now and the end of the year and paid out in early 2009 - are bound to be controversial given the hard economic times many Americans are facing and the resentment directed at the financial industry.
The Obama administration's special pay master, Kenneth R. Feinberg, has restricted pay at the seven companies that received extraordinary government support, but most of the industry is outside his purview. Big banks are grappling with changes to their bonus systems, which regulators claim may have encouraged employees to take excessive risks. Many banks are planning to increase the percentage of bonuses paid in the form of stock or options.
"It's going to be a political and optical problem for the banks," said Michael S. Melbinger, an executive compensation lawyer at Winston & Strawn.
But while the economic fortunes of Wall Street and Main Street have diverged, so too have the fortunes of certain employees within the financial industry. This will be an unusually lopsided year for bonuses. While traders are looking forward to fat bonuses, payouts for people working in asset management, corporate and retail banking and the insurance businesses are expected to be flat or even down, according to the study.
Given the decline in the once-booming mergers and acquisition business, bonuses for certain dealmakers could fall 10 to 15 percent. And the once-gilded paychecks of hedge fund managers are expected to decline 15 to 25 percent. Private equity executives will be among the hardest hit, with their year-end bonuses falling 20 to 25 percent as they struggle to sell many of their investments.
"This is a year of two different worlds," said Alan Johnson, of Johnson Associates. "It's not a broad-based recovery."
The firm's study by no means provides a complete view of bonuses. For example, it did not examine specific dollar amounts for individual employees; instead, it looked at the projected increase to the bonus pool for several different financial businesses. In addition, it looked only at year-end bonuses and long-term stock awards, leaving aside large salary increases and option grants that several big banks made earlier this year. "Main Street is ticked off that Wall Street is making all this money," said Joseph E. Bachelder, a compensation lawyer.
Still, after traumas of the last year exposed how poorly many banks managed their risks, many Americans might be relieved to know that experienced risk managers are a hot commodity on Wall Street. For them, according to the Johnson study, annual bonuses are expected to rise 40 percent this year.
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21) U.S. Jobless Rate Shocking: 15.7 Million Workers Unemployed
By Tula Connell
November 6, 2009
http://blog.aflcio.org/2009/11/06/us-jobless-rate-shocking-157-million-workers-unemployed/
Stunningly bad news on the nation's jobless rate today: Unemployment worsened in October to 10.2 percent, a huge jump from 9.8 percent in September. That's 15.7 million jobless workers, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Worse, the unemployment and underemployment rate is a shocking 17.5 percent-more than 27 million American workers without full-time jobs.
The construction, manufacturing and retail industries had the biggest losses, with 62,000 construction jobs lost in October, 61,000 in manufacturing and 40,000 in retail. Health care and temporary employment were the only bright spots, with health care jobs increasing by 29,000 and temp jobs by 44,000.
The nation's jobs situation would be even more dire without the Obama administration's American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Nearly 1 million jobs have been saved or created because of the economic stimulus plan, and the White House says the nation is on track to meet the president's goal of 3.5 million by the end of next year.
But as today's numbers show, the overall jobs situation isn't improving any time soon, according to Economic Policy Institute Director Larry Mishel, who predicts that one-third of the U.S. workforce will be unemployed or underemployed in 2010.
Long-term unemployment is the worst in 24 years, and there now are more than six workers for every available job. The U.S. Senate finally passed an extension of unemployment insurance, and President Obama is expected to sign the bill today. But far more needs to be done.
In short, the nation needs jobs.
Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman says although "the apocalypse has been postponed" because of the Obama administration's economic recovery package passed by Congress earlier this year, it's essential to follow up with further fiscal action-that is, spending money now to create long-term benefits, like jobs-to prevent prolonged suffering.
Economist Julianne Malveaux puts the case succinctly:
Absent public job creation, it is likely that the economy will not fully recover.
Help certainly isn't coming from Wall Street or Big Business.
Now that they have pocketed their bailout cash, Wall Streeters are impervious to the nation's ongoing jobs disaster. In fact, an annual report by Johnson Associates on financial industry payouts projected they will be up 40 percent from 2008, when they plunged in the midst of the financial crisis.
In 2008, Wall Street handed out nearly $20 billion in cash awards and billions more in stock and other incentives to employees based in New York.
Wall Street is celebrating a "recovery" based on a 3.5 percent increase in the gross domestic product (GDP) in the third quarter of this year. But America's workers know there can be no recovery unless everyone who wants to work can find a good job.
This alarming jobs report "should be a wake-up call to sleepy politicians," says AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka:
Every day, it becomes more urgent that the federal government step up to the plate with bold actions to boost job creation. Such action should include urgently needed fiscal relief to state and local governments, community jobs programs, additional investments in infrastructure and green jobs and credit relief to small and medium-sized businesses. Failing to act puts us at very real risk of a lost generation-of hard-working Americans who can't put food on the table and bright young people who never realize their potential.
The AFL-CIO and our allies are unveiling an effort this month to push for immediate job creation, among other critically needed economic aid for working families. The nation needs to act fast to stop the hemorrhage of jobs and the economic crisis among working families.
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22) U.S. Unemployment Rate Hits 10.2%, Highest in 26 Years
By PETER S. GOODMAN
November 7, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/07/business/economy/07jobs.html?hp
The American unemployment rate surged to 10.2 percent in October, its highest level in 26 years, as the economy lost another 190,000 jobs, the Labor Department reported Friday.
The jump into the realm of double-digit joblessness - from 9.8 percent in September - provided a sobering reminder that, despite the apparent end of the Great Recession, economic expansion has yet to translate into jobs, leaving tens of millions of people still struggling.
"The guy on the street is going to ask, 'What recovery?' " said Stuart G. Hoffman, chief economist at the PNC Financial Services Group in Pittsburgh. "The job market is still in reverse."
The sharp rise in unemployment seemed certain to inject fresh tension into the debate over economic policy in Washington.
Republicans point to elevated joblessness as proof that the Obama administration's $787 billion spending package aimed at stimulating the economy had failed. Labor unions and some Democrats are calling for another round of spending to create more jobs. And all of this comes against a backdrop of continued worries about swelling federal budget deficits.
In an interview this week, Richard L. Trumka, president of the nation's largest labor union, the A.F.L.-C.I.O., called on the government to unleash fresh spending on large-scale construction projects to put people back to work.
Absent that, "it will probably be 2012 before there starts to be real job creation," Mr. Trumka said.
Yet despite the headline-grabbing unemployment number in the government's snapshot of the October job market, economists sifting through the details found several reasons to take comfort.
The pace at which jobs are disappearing continued to taper off in October, the precursor to eventual growth.
Between November 2008 and April 2009 - amid the paralyzing fear that accompanied the collapse of prominent financial institutions like Lehman Brothers - the economy shed an average of 645,000 jobs a month. Between May and July, the pace dropped to an average monthly loss of 357,000 jobs. And over the last three reports, average monthly job losses have slipped to 188,000, after factoring in upward revisions to the data for August and September.
The number of temporary workers increased by 44,000 in October, adding to gains in the previous two months - an apparent sign that businesses have squeezed as much production as they can out of their existing workforces and feel the need to bring in more people.
"That goes the right way," said Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington. "That's an encouraging sign."
The hope is that as the economy expands, companies will use fresh profits to add to payrolls as they reach for increased sales. As workers spend their paychecks, they will create opportunities for other businesses, generating more jobs.
Some experts see this scenario unfolding now, asserting that the economy will add jobs by late winter.
"People are hurting, but if you can get past the sticker shock of the unemployment rate and look at the guts of the report, they are still very consistent with a recovery," said Michael T. Darda, chief economist at the research and trading firm MKM Partners. "We're getting very close to the peak unemployment rate."
But some doubt whether recent trends can continue, absent another dose of government spending.
Though the economy grew at a 3.5 percent annualized rate between July and September, much business activity was stirred up by special programs aimed at encouraging consumers to spend, not least the cash-for-clunkers program that provided taxpayer-financed cash incentives to people trading in their cars.
As the effects of this and other stimulus programs fade over coming months, fundamental weakness may reemerge, with consumers - whose spending accounts for 70 percent of overall economic activity - confronting enormous debt, the loss of wealth and fears about job security.
"We just went through an unbelievable financial catastrophe in this country and it typically takes a long time to come back," said Joshua Shapiro, chief United States economist at MFR, a market research firm in New York, who envisions jobs continuing to decline until at least the middle of next year.
Beneath the dueling interpretations of future prospects, the report left little doubt that the present was still bleak in millions of American households.
In Columbia, S.C., Raymond Vaughn is still unemployed a year and a half after he lost his job installing and repairing windows. Back in April, he was training for a new career in medical billing, a growing field, through an online course he found on the Internet. But his unemployment benefits soon ran out, eliminating his $221-a-week check, and then he could no longer muster the $98 weekly payments for his course.
Mr. Vaughn, 43, is back to what has become a familiar if dreary everyday routine. He drives to the unemployment office downtown, where the crowds seem thicker than ever. He waits his turn to sit in front of a computer so he scan meager listings and send out fresh applications. Then, he returns home, to his sagging couch and his television, where cheerful news anchors tell him that the economy is looking up.
"They say it's supposed to be better, that's what I see on the news," Mr. Vaughn said. "But I sure see a lot of people down at the unemployment office. I really don't see how the job stuff is going to change. I don't see any jobs out there."
Last month, Mr. Vaughn thought he had a job, a position at a factory that makes flooring boards for $13 an hour. But two weeks before he was to go in for training, the company called him to revoke the offer.
"They said they had a hiring freeze," he said.
And so Mr. Vaughn finds himself stuck in a crowded slice of a lean economy: another unemployed man living on the largess of a woman. His fiancée's wages from her secretarial job pay the bills.
The latest job report amplified the reality that the pain has fallen particularly hard on men, who suffered a 10.7 percent unemployment rate in October, as compared to 8.1 percent among women. Among African American men, unemployment reached 17.1 percent in October.
Unemployment reached 9.5 percent among white Americans, 13.1 percent among Hispanics and 27.6 for teenagers.
Among all groups, the underemployment rate - a broader measure of the jobs shortfall which includes people whose hours have been cut, those working part-time for lack of full-time work, and those who have given up looking - is 17.5 percent.
Health care remained a rare bright spot, adding 29,000 jobs in October. For another month, construction and manufacturing led the declines, losing 62,000 and 61,000 jobs respectively.
Such were the details of a report dominated by a single fact: The official jobless rate now occupies two digits. More than a mere statistical marker, some worried that this could perpetuate anxiety, prompting a further hunkering down within the economy.
"It's a benchmark," said Mr. Baker. "It's part of a general backdrop of economic news that does affect decisions by businesses and purchases of big ticket items."
Javier C. Hernandez contributed reporting.
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