News Stories for November 15, 2011
Huffington PostPolice clad in riot gear and armed with tear gas cleared out Oakland's anti-Wall Street encampment early Monday, the latest law enforcement crackdown amid complaints around the country of health and safety hazards at protest camps.
The raid at the Occupy Oakland camp, one of the largest and most active sites in the movement, came a day after police in Portland, Ore., arrested more than 50 people while shutting down its camp amid complaints of drug use and sanitation issues.
Police in Burlington, Vt., also evicted protesters after a man fatally shot himself last week inside a tent.
Police staged a previous raid on the Oakland encampment Oct. 25, but Mayor Jean Quan allowed protesters to re-establish their tent city. On Monday, however, Quan said officials could no longer ignore the problems the camp posed.Read the source story here.
Think Progress
The most powerful line in conservative Judge Laurence Silberman’s decision upholding the Affordable Care Act is his simple recognition that the law’s opponents “cannot find real support for their proposed rule in either the text of the Constitution or Supreme Court precedent.” Today, the Supreme Court agreed to follow in Silberman’s footsteps — considering whether the judiciary can appropriately strike down a landmark health care law despite the fact that there is nothing in the Constitution allowing them to do so.
Read the source story here.
The Washington Post
Read the source story here.
The Progressive
I’m getting more and more concerned about the excessive force that police departments are using against nonviolent participants in the Occupy Movement.
We all know about the Iraq War vet, Scot Olsen, who got his skull fractured in Oakland after police shot a teargas canister that hit his head, and shot another teargas canister into the crowd of people who went to help him. (Thankfully, Olsen has been able to leave the hospital.)
Then in Berkeley last week, police used their batons to jab and poke totally peaceful protesters and forced a professor down on the ground and handcuffed and arrested her.
And on Sunday in Chapel Hill, more than 25 officers, some brandishing semi-automatic rifles, stormed a building that protesters were occupying. Check out this photo to see what a police overreaction looks like.
They made people get on the ground and pointed guns at their heads. The police “put a gun in my face,” said Hannah Shaw. “That was terrifying,” she told WRAL TV.
The police arrested eight, and handcuffed a reporter from the News and Observer.
What we’re witnessing here is the increasing militarization of our police forces, which have gotten all sorts of fancy equipment and new toys in the post-9/11 era and seem itching to try them out, even against nonviolent protesters.
This has got to stop, before it gets uglier.Read the source story here.
The Stranger
Here's the livestream. "The NYPD is about to devastate the camp," the woman narrating the live feed just said.
A moment later, referring to the cops and the fire department, the woman added, "They are throwing and breaking everything. They are destroying everything you donated."
"All news coverage of this demolition is being prevented by police tactics..." the narrator says, referring to the way large police and fire vehicles are blocking the road, "and so we are led to believe that it's because what they're doing in the park is so atrocious they don't want you to see it. That's a tent! That's a tent they're destroying! Not moving it, destroying it."
UPDATE: New York Times reports, "Hundreds of New York City police officers began clearing Zuccotti Park of the Occupy Wall Street protesters early Tuesday, telling the people there that the nearly two-month-old camp would be 'cleared and restored' before the morning and that any demonstrator who did not leave would be arrested."
This is going to get ugly.Read the source story here.
Think Progress
Economists have debunked the myth that environment regulations stall job growth again and again. Even as Mitt Romney calls to “tear down the vast edifice of regulations the Obama administration has imposed,” data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show regulations haven’t hurt the economy. In 2010, only 0.3 percent of layoffs were due to higher costs from government regulations/intervention. By comparison, lower business demand caused 25 percent of layoffs.
Past studies also confirm that regulations have virtually no impact on jobs. Richard Morgenstern’s landmark study found that over a decade of regulations on heavily polluting industries didn’t cause “a significant change” in employment:
According to the study, when jobs were lost, they were often made up elsewhere in the same industry. For every $1 million companies spent, as many as 11 / 2 net jobs were added to the economy.Read the source story here.
Crooks and LiarsThe city of Oakland closed 13 schools this year to "save" $2 million. Crushing a group of peaceful campers? Priceless.
Thirty-two people were arrested today, including many clergy members, and Occupy Oakland's tent city has been dismantled.
The decision to evict the protesters by Mayor Jean Quan has cost her more than the $1 million she shelled out for extra police back-up. Dan Siegel, Quan's legal adviser, posted on Facebook that he has resigned over Monday's police raid of Occupy Oakland.Read the source story here.
SOURCE
Gov. Scott Walker claims that Ohio’s overwhelming rejection of anti-labor legislation modeled on the measures he developed and promoted in Wisconsin has no bearing on the debate about whether he should remain in office.
The governor is in full spin mode.
No surprise there. The governor faces the threat of a recall drive that begins Tuesday — a grass-roots initiative organized by the same sort of labor, farm and community coalition that overturned the Ohio law.
By any measure, last Tuesday’s election results from Ohio represented a devastating rejection of the agenda Walker and his allies have been peddling since February. Offered an opportunity to endorse a Walker-style attack on collective bargaining rights for state, county and municipal workers and teachers, Ohioans voted “no” by 61-39 percent.
Of Ohio’s 88 counties — with big cities, small towns and rural areas — 82 voted to defend public employees and their unions.
More Ohioans took a pro-union position in 2011 than voted for the governor who promoted the anti-labor legislation, John Kasich, in 2010.
Faced with the facts, Walker’s political team claimed that comparisons of Wisconsin and Ohio were “ridiculous.” The governor, appearing at a hair-styling school in Green Bay, said of the Ohio results: “I don’t think they will have any correlation (here in Wisconsin).”
Funny, that’s not what Wisconsin’s governor was saying back in February, when he refused to negotiate with unions representing state employees, and when he and his aides tried to lock hundreds of thousands of Wisconsinites out of the state Capitol.Read the source story here.
Political Wire
A new congressional analysis, put together by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) and obtained by Newsweek, finds Americans earning more than $1 million a year "collect more than $30 billion in government largesse each year."
"In all, millionaires receive hefty help from Uncle Sam. The $30 billion in handouts, to put it in perspective, amounts to twice as much as the government spends on NASA, and three times the budget of the Environmental Protection Agency. On the other hand, it would only cover the cost of fighting about three months in Iraq and Afghanistan. Still, eliminating them would help make a small dent in the $1.5 trillion congressional leaders are trying to find by Thanksgiving."
Read the source story here.
Think Progress
Late last month, a national backlash forced Bank of America to abandon its plan to charge customers $5 a month to use their debit cards. But Huffington Post reports that the corporation has quietly been mining other sources of fees, preying on its most vulnerable customers to rake in millions in revenue:
Shawana Busby does not seem like the sort of customer who would be at the center of a major bank’s business plan. Out of work for much of the last three years, she depends upon a $264-a-week unemployment check from the state of South Carolina. But the state has contracted with Bank of America to administer its unemployment benefits, and Busby has frequently found herself incurring bank fees to get her money.Read the source story here.To withdraw her benefits, Busby, 33, uses a Bank of America prepaid debit card on which the state deposits her funds…Busby visits the ATMs in her area and begrudgingly accepts the fees, which reach as high as five dollars per transaction. She estimates that she has paid at least $350 in fees to tap her unemployment benefits. [...]
In short, the same banks whose speculation delivered a financial crisis that has destroyed millions of jobs have figured out how to turn widespread unemployment into a profit center: The larger the number of people who are out of work and dependent upon the state for sustenance, the greater the potential gains through administering their benefits.
Crooks and Liars
Via Mother Jones, PolitiScoop identifies Wisconsin Tea party members bragging online about collecting signatures on petitions to recall Gov. Scott Walker -- in order to destroy them. One of them even bragged that he would "be able to destroy upwards of 15-20 percent of the entire collected ballots in the state of Wisconsin":
Madison -- The kick off campaign to recall embattled governor Scott Walker kicks off in just four days and with that date approaching, the tea party has plans of its own. Politiscoop has received several screen shots of tea party and right wing activists planning to pass themselves off as those circulating petitions to recall the governor.Read the source story here.In one facebook post a user named Charles Atlas Shrugging begins the plan by saying "I'd like to collect signatures of those who want to recall Walker...so I can have something to feed my shredder.."
In another such post Matt Wynns who claims to be a small business owner states "I shall be heating my home with recall signature. as they sign, I'll make sure to tell them not to sign another petition. I figure I can get a hundred to a few hundred signatures off the ballot. F*#&* (Word edited) Liberals.
The list of disgusting posts go on, even after a user reminded each and every one of them that their plans would violate Wisconsin statutes. It makes me wonder if the media will pick up on these plans and make it public knowledge, just as they did with the Scott Walker death threat on facebook. I agree all threats are serious and have no place in the arena, but if I were to compare these posts to the suggestive post about Scott Walker, I would have to say these are more pointed, planned and with the intent of harming Democracy as well as those circulating petitions.
The Progressive
YOU MAY HAVE HEARD ABOUT the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which helps Republicans draft bills in statehouses. (We reported on the group last month.) But you’ve probably not heard of the Republican State Leadership Committee, which gets them elected in the first place.
This little-known group, formed in 2002, is the only national organization that focuses on electing Republican majorities to state legislatures. It has been active in forty-six states and has spent tens of millions of dollars. Based in Alexandria, Virginia, the committee targets legislative chambers—from Maine to Wisconsin—where there is a chance for control to change hands.
The group played a decisive role in the 2010 elections, and helped flip twenty state legislative chambers from Democrat to Republican. Republicans now control more state legislatures than at any time since 1928.
The committee’s main tactic was to barrage the public airwaves with negative ads, much of it done at the tail end of the campaign season. GOP stalwarts such as Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie aggressively executed the battle plans through their consulting firms.
“We’ve had hard-fought campaigns before, but we’ve never seen out-of-state money drop a negativity bomb in so many races,” says Ann Luther, who sits on the board of Maine Citizens for Clean Elections. “It was shocking.”
Able to raise unlimited funds, the Republican State Leadership Committee is a stalking horse for corporate America. Top contributors to the group include Altria (formerly Philip Morris), Anheuser-Busch, Citigroup, Comcast Cable, Exxon Mobil, Home Depot, Monsanto, PhRMA, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Verizon, and WellPoint.Read the source story here.
Daily Kos
Unions and other groups are joining in plans for a big two-month birthday party for Occupy Wall Street, in the form of a day of action this Thursday, Nov. 17:
The AFL-CIO, the Service Employees International Union and the Laborers’ International Union of North America will partner with Occupy Wall Street for “We are the 99 percent” rallies on Thursday. Liberal groups like MoveOn.org and the American Dream Movement plan to participate.In New York, the day will kick off at 7 AM confronting the stock exchange. Later in the day, protesters will spread around the city occupying the subway, before joining a rally in Foley Square at 5 PM and marching from there.
Many of the events, union officials said, will be focused on urging lawmakers to pass more federal funding for infrastructure.
Read the source story here.
The New York Times
[Cantwell] has been after the lords of big finance for almost a decade, and is furious now that reforms intended to rein in the kind of car-bomb speculation that brought down the global economy have been seriously diluted. Wall Street has not changed its ways.
“People are really frustrated,” she said. “Where are the regulators? Why aren’t the banks lending? Where’s the money for small business? Why do we only bail out the people with power?”
If populism, directed at the manipulators of paper wealth and the politicians in their pockets, is a path to electoral victory next fall then the Democrats could do no better than to look at Cantwell on this coast, and Elizabeth Warren on the other. Two women, long-belittled by the suits, have been laser-focused on corporate excess since well before protesters decided to occupy Wall Street. And in the process, they’ve angered many of their own party members, whose hands are soiled by “the largest lobbying force ever assembled on the face of the earth,” as Warren characterized it.
Read the source story here.
Crooks and Liars
Jennifer Granholm spoke with Fareed Zakaria about where American jobs have gone and offers up a perfect case study to show that despite their skill at repeating it ad nauseam, the GOP's answer for jobs just won't work:
Among the lessons that hit home the hardest occurred back in 2003, when she tried to keep an Electrolux plant in Greenville, Mich. (the "Refrigerator Capital of the World"). Then-Gov. Granholm offered the company all sorts of incentives, including tax breaks and worker concessions, only to be told by Electrolux that "there is nothing you can do to compensate for the fact we can pay $1.17 an hour for labor in Mexico."Granholm rightfully points out that whither Michigan has gone, so too will the whole country until we start having a conversation about keeping American jobs that doesn't not solely include tax cuts and concessions from labor.
On the factory's last day, as Electrolux was completing the move to Ciudad Juárez and the last of the 3,000 employees were laid off, she remembers one of them coming up to her and saying, "I'm 48. I went from high school to factory. All I know is how to make refrigerators. Governor, who is going to hire me?"
Read the source story here.
Think Progress
CBS News’ 60 Minutes aired a report last night alleging that several members of Congress have traded stock using information they received during private briefings or meetings, enabling them to profit from inside information. By far the most damning story was about House Financial Services Chairman Spencer Bachus (R-AL), who in 2008, the day after receiving a private briefing from the nation’s chief economic officials on the extent of the financial crisis, proceeded to bet that the stock market would tank.
Read the source story here.
The Washington Post
Perry's memory lapse showed that he wasn't asserting anything that he is truly serious about because he is not serious about what government does, or ought not to do. For him, governing seems a casual undertaking.
"And I will tell you," he declared, "it's three agencies of government when I get there that are gone: Commerce, Education and the — what's the third one there? Let's see."
Yes, let's see what "gone" might imply. Would Perry end all federal aid to education? Would he do away with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the part of the Commerce Department that, among other things, tracks hurricanes? Energy was the department he forgot. Would he scrap the department's 17 national labs, including such world-class facilities as Los Alamos, N.M., Oak Ridge, Tenn., or — there's that primary coming up — Aiken, S.C.?
I'm not accusing Perry of wanting to do any of these things because I don't believe he has given them a moment of thought. And that's the problem for conservatives.
Read the source story here.
- The New York Times:
Occupy Wall Street Protesters Shifting to College Campuses - The new York Times:
Police Begin Clearing Zuccotti Park of Protesters - Think Progress:
Oakland Mayor Jean Quan's Legal Advisor Resigns In Support Of Occupy Oakland - The American Independent:
Occupy Detroit is acquiring office space, housing - Crooks and Liars:
Poll: Overwhelming Majority Think U.S. Economic Structure Favors The Rich - Think Progress:
Note To The GOP: The Balanced Budget Amendment You're Voting On Would Make Your Budget Unconstitutional - The Washington Post:
Why the stimulus still matters, in one chart - Puget Sound Business Journal:
U.S. banks adding hidden fees for customers - The Polical Wire:
Chance of Recession Next Year Tops 50% - Think Progress:
Kasich Opens Ohio's State Parks To Fracking While Oil And Gas Industry Gives Him Most Donations Of Any Ohio Politician - Firedog Lake:
Occupy Wall Street's "Leader-full" Movement - Huffington Post:
Scott Walker Recall Effort: Group Organizing Recall Effort Victim Of Cyberattack - The Washington Post:
Economic outlook for 2012 even worse than we thought - Huffington Post:
UC Chancellor Orders Internal Review In Light Of Police Violence Against Occupy - The News Tribune:
Fact Check: Is WA tax revenue on the Rise? - The Seattle PI:
Occupy Seattle cost hits $529,000 - Nation of Change.org:
Super Collision: Will Obama and Capitol Dems Betray the Middle Class, Seniors and the Poor? - National Journal:
Poll: Americans Weary of Foreign Entanglements