Tag Archives: New York Times

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Gitmo -The Neverendin​g Story


Yesterday, the New York Times and other news outlets reported on a “trove of more than 700 classified military documents” that provide “new and detailed accounts of the men who have done time at the Guantánamo Bay prison in Cuba, and offers new insight into the evidence against the 172 men still locked up there.” The documents were obtained by the open government website WikiLeaks but obtained by the Times through another source. The documents reveal details about detainee behavior and treatment, but are “silent about the use of the harsh interrogation tactics at Guantánamo — including sleep deprivation, shackling in stress positions and prolonged exposure to cold temperatures — that drew global condemnation.”

THE DETAILS: The Times editorializes today that the documents serve as “a chilling reminder of the legal and moral disaster that President George W. Bush created” at Gitmo and “describe the chaos, lawlessness and incompetence in his administration’s system for deciding detainees’ guilt or innocence and assessing whether they would be a threat if released.” “Innocent men were picked up on the basis of scant or nonexistent evidence and subjected to lengthy detention and often to abuse and torture,” the Times editorial notes, adding that suicides there “were regarded only as a public relations problem.” The documents show that there were 158 detainees “who did not receive a formal hearing under a system instituted in 2004. Many were assessed to be ‘of little intelligence value’ with no ties to or significant knowledge about Al Qaeda or the Taliban.” The Guardian notes that 212 Afghans at Gitmo were either “entirely innocent,” “mere Taliban conscripts” or “had been transferred to Guantanamo with no reason for doing so.” Among inmates who proved harmless were an 89-year-old Afghan villager, suffering from senile dementia, and a 14-year-old boy who had been an innocent kidnap victim. The so-called 20th 9/11 hijacker, Mohammed Qahtani, “was leashed like a dog, sexually humiliated and forced to urinate on himself.” And U.S. forces held Sami al-Hajj, a Sudanese cameraman for Al-Jazeera, for 6 years before finally letting him go. Hajj had insisted he was just a journalist and he went back to work for Al-Jazeera after his release.

DOUBLE GUANTANAMO?: The idea of Guantanamo has become so toxic internationally that even military leaders such as Gen. David Petraeus want it shut down. “Gitmo has caused us problems, there’s no question about it,” Petraeus said in 2009, adding, “I oversee a region in which the existence of Gitmo has indeed been used by the enemy against us.” Yet at the same time, others sing Guantanamo’s praises. Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney (R), who will likely run for president next year, said in his last campaign for the White House that the prison needs to be expanded, not closed. “I want them on Guantanamo, where they don’t get the access to lawyers they get when they’re on our soil. I don’t want them in our prisons, I want them there,” Romney said during a 2007 presidential debate. “Some people have said we ought to close Guantanamo. My view is we ought to double Guantanamo,” he later added.

FAILING TO CLOSE GITMO: Just three years ago, closing the Guantanamo Bay prison had broad bipartisan support. While Obama campaigned on closing Gitmo, even Republicans, including President Bush and Obama’s opponent, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), agreed. But Attorney General Eric Holder’s recent announcement that alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed would be tried in a military tribunal instead of a civilian court all but ended any hopes that the prison would be closed anytime soon. Yet, as the Washington Post chronicled last weekend, “For more than two years, the White House’s plans had been undermined by political miscalculations, confusion and timidity in the face of mounting congressional opposition.” Who’s fault is it that Gitmo is still open? While Democrats in Congress largely abandoned the President, the White House didn’t exactly put a lot of political capital on the line either. As former White House counsel Greg Craig noted, “There was a real serious problem of coordination in this whole thing.” Indeed, the administration had planned to transfer some uncontroversial detainees to Northern Virginia but abandoned the move at the last hour after Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) discovered that Gitmo detainees would be moving to his district. The White House never cleared their plan with Wolf. Since then, as Obama noted last year, Gitmo has “been subject to a lot of…pretty rank politics.” And as “Not In My Backyard” cries from members of Congress intensified, the legislative branch eventually cut off funds to close Gitmo and approved a measure to bar any detainees from being relocated to the United States.

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

International Relations:Intervention In Libya


Over the weekend, U.S. and allied air and naval forces launched strikes on the military assets of the regime of Libyan leader Col. Muammar Qaddafi. Last night marked the third night of air strikes and the New York Times is reporting “the military campaign to   destroy air defenses and establish a no-fly zone  over Libya has nearly accomplished its initial objectives, and the United States is moving swiftly to hand command to allies in Europe, American officials said on Monday.” The intervention came following a UN Security Council resolution on Friday that   endorsed the creation of a no-fly zone  and authorized “all necessary measures” to protect civilians. The UN resolution came as Qaddafi forces were threatening to rout — and some fear massacre — anti-government forces that had retreated to the eastern city of Benghazi. President Obama also explained the decision to authorize force: “The core point that has to be upheld here , is that the entire international community, almost unanimously, says that when there is a potential humanitarian crisis about to take place, when a leader that has lost legitimacy and decides to turn his military on his own people, we simply can’t stand by with empty words, we have to take some sort of action.” The sudden US intervention has proved controversial and spawned a serious debate over the nature of the mission’s objectives and the extent of US involvement that has divided foreign policy thinkers and political leaders on both sides of the aisle. While there is legitimate debate over the merits of intervention, many Republican 2012 candidates and conservative talking heads, ever desperate to attack the President and score cheap political points, are launching absurd attacks and even  critiquing him for taking action they days before supported. As Politico noted, this is a “reminder of the dearth of foreign policy experience among the main GOP contenders.”

CONTEXT:   What began as a popular uprising, similar to Egypt and Tunisia, quickly spiraled into an armed revolt following Qaddafi’s use of mercenary forces to brutally and indiscriminately suppress the protests. Just a few weeks ago, rebel forces controlled much of the country and appeared on the cusp of toppling Qaddafi. But Qaddafi rallied and launched a furious counter-attack, which forced a rebel retreat across the country. As Qaddafi’s forces approached the eastern city of Benghazi, there were growing fears of a massacre and humanitarian and refugee crisis. This prompted the Arab League to call for Western intervention. On Friday, the United Nations Security Council authorized international action in Libya by a vote of 10-0 with five countries (Brazil, Germany, Russia, China, India) choosing to abstain. Over the past three days, the U.S. fired more than 130 Tomahawk cruise missiles and launched numerous air strikes, which have prevented the fall of Benghazi and a humanitarian crisis. President Obama said yesterday that “after the initial thrust has disabled Gaddafi’s air defences… there will be a transition in which we have a range of coalition partners, who will then be participating in establishing a no-fly zone.” Yet there is some  confusion and disagreement within NATO over who will take charge of the operations from the US. The sudden nature of the intervention has also led to complaints from congress that the President did not properly consult with congress. The New York Times noted that “lawmakers from both parties argued that Mr. Obama had exceeded his constitutional authority by authorizing the military’s participation without Congressional approval. The president said in a letter to Congress that he had the power to authorize the strikes, which would be limited in duration and scope, and that preventing a humanitarian disaster in Libya was in the national interest.”

END GAME?:   Intervention has led to a serious debate that has cross-cut party lines over the merits and objectives of the operation. Many fear the administration has not defined clear objectives or laid out an end game for its intervention. Republican Sen. Richard Lugar said, “I do not understand the mission  because as far as I can tell in the United States there is no mission and there are no guidelines for success.” One cause for confusion is that in the first few weeks of the uprising in Libya the Obama administration called for Qaddafi to go, but it is unclear whether rebel forces have the capability to oust Qaddafi. Brian Katulis of the Center for American Progress warns, “you could have this very awkward phase emerging where Gaddafi is entrenched while there’s a rump state in eastern Libya and some but not all states in the Arab world work to isolate the regime.” This has led to fears of mission creep, where U.S. forces would escalate their intervention to ensure Qaddafi’s ouster. James Fallows of the Atlantic writes, “the  most predictable failure in modern American military policy has been the reluctance to ask, And what happens then? … After this spectacular first stage of air war, what happens then? If the airstrikes persuade Qaddafi and his forces just to quit, great! But what if they don’t?” Conservative Wall Street Journal columnist noted that “the  biggest takeaway, the biggest foreign-policy fact, of the past decade is this: America has to be very careful where it goes in the world, because the minute it’s there — the minute there are boots on the ground, the minute we leave a footprint — there will spring up, immediately, 15 reasons America cannot leave.” However, Senator Carl Levin (D-MI), the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said on Meet the Press that the President “has a  military operation with very clear mission, and that’s what the president should do is have a clear mission and to avoid mission creep…this mission has been very carefully limited.” The Obama administration has insisted that the military intervention will be limited and has rejected sending in U.S. ground troops. President Obama said yesterday in Chile, “First of all,   I think it’s very easy to square   our military actions and our stated policies. Our military action is in support of a international mandate from the Security Council that specifically focuses on the humanitarian threat posed by Colonel Qaddafi to his people. … As part of that international coalition, I authorized the United States military to work with our international partners to fulfill that mandate. Now, I also have stated that it is U.S. policy that Qaddafi needs to go. And we got a wide range of tools in addition to our military efforts to support that policy… But when it comes to our military action, we are doing so in support of U.N. Security Resolution 1973, that specifically talks about humanitarian efforts. And we are going to make sure that we stick to that mandate.”
 
RIGHT WING NOISE:   For days, many conservative presidential hopefuls and political pundits had called for U.S. intervention in Libya, but following the international community’s action, few took to the airwaves to back the President. Politico reported,   “After  demanding for weeks that he be more decisive on Libya, not one candidate in the field of 2012 GOP hopefuls has expressed support for President Barack Obama since he began bombing the North African nation. The GOP’s presidential prospects either sharply criticized the commander-in-chief this weekend or avoided weighing in.” For those GOP hopefuls and pundits that attacked the President, the critique centered on the premise that he waited too long and shouldn’t have sought international support — apparently it is preferable to go to war without international support. Sarah Palin said she wouldn’t criticize the President while she was abroad in India, but then went on to criticize the President saying if she were there would have been “less dithering.” John Bolton said on Fox News that the Obama administration was “wrong to base its decision to use force” due to the support of the Arab League or the United Nations. HBO’s Bill Maher noted on Friday, “Republicans don’t know what to do  with this because they wanted this to happen, the no fly zone, so that’s good, but now Obama wants it so it’s bad. … Fox News today just put up a test pattern that said, ‘Please be patient while we figure out how this makes Obama the worst president ever.'”

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Stand up — united — and defeat them


Wisconsin Republicans‘ all-out assault on unions and middle-class families has nothing to do with fixing the budget deficit — for them, it’s just about winning. They pretty much admitted it this weekend. Check out this quote from Sunday’s New York Times:

“Scott Walker and I and my brother [Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald] went into this session with the understanding that we had to deliver on campaign promises, that people wanted the Republicans to make change, that the more feathers you ruffle this time, the better you’ll be.”

– Republican State Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald

They think “ruffling feathers”, like beating down unions and middle-class families, will make it easier to get reelected. It’s not about what’s best for America or Wisconsin. It’s all about winning the next election for them.

For us, it’s about protecting good-paying jobs. Unions and middle-class families are the backbone of the economy and we need to stand in solidarity with them — that’s why we’re joining our friends at MoveOn, Service Employees International Union, and 29 other organizations in a national day of action. Together, we’ve organized rallies in most major cities and all 50 state capitals across the country this Saturday at noon.

Now it’s time to get the word out and make sure every event is a success. Please sign up to attend the rally closest you right now, then spread the word to everyone you know.

Find a rally near you for this Saturday at noon and sign up to attend now. http://act.democracyforamerica.com/go/513?akid=517.1612139.eyNYjc&t=1

This is an all-hands-on-deck moment so don’t stop with just signing up. We also need to get the word out and recruit others to attend.

The bigger each event is, the more press coverage we’ll generate and the greater impact our message will have on the national narrative. So don’t come to the rally alone. Bring a friend. Bring two friends. Heck, drive a car full of friends.

This fight in Wisconsin is bigger than just one state.

It’s Ohio.

It’s Indiana.

It’s New Jersey.

It’s all of us.

And don’t for a second think Republicans in Congress aren’t paying attention.

With a federal budget showdown looming as Republicans threaten to shutdown the Government, these rallies also serve to put them on notice. If Republicans try to cut the vital programs or the workers’ rights people depend on to protect their middle-class families, America will stand up — united — and defeat them.

Join us this weekend at a rally in Washington.

Find a rally in Washington now.

Thank you for everything you do.

-Charles

Charles Chamberlain, Political Director

Democracy for America

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Radical Right: The Truth Behind The Anti-Union Assault …ThinkProgress.org

3 Comments

Two months after taking office, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) has launched one of the most aggressive attacks on union rights since the 1960s. Purporting to rein in the state’s budget deficit, Walker is pushing legislation that marks “a lethal threat to public-sector labor” by threatening “to strip state employees of the right to bargain collectively for anything besides their pay.” Walker’s radical policy has sparked eight days of protests in Wisconsin from a range of parties, including firefighters, teachers, the Green Bay Packers, and even Egyptian unions. President Obama recently called Walker’s policy “an assault” on workers’ rights. Despite the unpopularity of his position, Walker has refused any compromises offered by the unions and members of his own party unless collective bargaining rights are eliminated. To prevent such a calamity, 14 state Democratic lawmakers took a page out of President Abraham Lincoln‘s playbook and fled the state last week to prevent the bill from moving forward. Rather than following any fiscal principle, Walker’s crusade against workers betrays a political calculation to gut the rights and organizing capabilities of his political opposition. Rather than shy away from such blatant anti-democratic policies, Republican governors are following suit and threatening to derail and destroy the few remaining political voices for the middle and working class.

THE BUDGET BUSTER: The stated motivation behind Walker’s union-busting ambitions is Wisconsin’s looming deficit: “We’re broke and it’s about time somebody stood up and told the truth,” he said. The state budget has a $137 million shortfall in the current fiscal year and faces a $3.6 billion projected shortfall in the upcoming 2011-13 biennium. Citing this projected $3.6 billion deficit, Walker insists “we’ve got to balance the budget and fix it once and for all” which requires public employees “to help us out” and make “shared sacrifice” by paying a greater percentage of pensions and health care premiums. While unions offered to make those concessions, Walker still demands eliminating collective bargaining rights because it “costs local governments money.” But a closer look at Wisconsin’s deficit reveals Walker’s budget woes don’t stem from workers’ collective bargaining rights. The claim that public employees must sacrifice their bargaining rights to balance this year’s budget is misleading as there is no obvious relationship between union membership and state budgets. Indeed, “the biggest savings Walker is proposing for the current budget have nothing to do with public employees. His bill proposes to save $165 million this year by simply refinancing state debt.” But the $3.6 billion deficit Walker is apoplectic over is actually exacerbated by his own tax cuts. According to Wisconsin’s nonpartisan fiscal office , Walker’s three tax cut bills “will reduce general fund tax collections by $55.2 million in 2011-12 and $62.0 million in 2012-13.” And, as the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities‘ Nick Johnson states, “the governor is likely to propose a LOT more tax cuts” in his proposed budget, including a total repeal of the state’s corporate income tax. As Johnson notes, the tax cuts are “worsening the state’s overall budget picture, and it is the state’s overall budget picture — not the current-year picture alone — that [Walker] is using to justify going after the workers.” Thus, the real fiscal truth behind Walker’s deficit woes reveals Walker — not workers — as the budget buster.

THE UGLY TRUTH: As the Washington Post’s Ezra Klein notes, what Walker is doing is not attacking the budget but “attacking the right to bargain collectively — which is to say, he’s attacking the very foundation of labor unions, and of worker power — and using an economic crisis unions didn’t cause, and a budget reversal that Walker himself helped create, to justify it.” By doing so, the Republican governor will strike a severe blow at long-standing allies of his political opposition. Unions have typically been “an important part of the core Democratic coalition” and Walker is creating an opportunity to land a blow at his opposition by attacking the political participation on behalf of those who support workers’ rights. Any question of whether Walker’s attack on unions is politically motivated can be answered by the fact that he exempted the police and firefighter unions from this power grab — two groups that supported his candidacy. Certainly, Walker’s anti-union policies didn’t arise in a vacuum but were orchestrated and buttressed by notorious right-wing political players including Koch Industries and the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation — “a $460 million conservative honey pot dedicated to crushing the labor movement.” Indeed, the Bradley Foundation’s CEO, former state GOP chairman Michele Grebe, headed Walker’s campaign and transition. What’s more, media and astroturf organizations ginning up support for Walker’s power grab include the MacIver Institute (which produced a series of videos attacking anti-Walker protesters) the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute (which funded polls, policy pieces, and attack videos against Walker’s opposition) and Americans for Prosperity (which not only helped elect Walker but bused in Tea Party supporters to hold a pro-Walker demonstration Saturday). All of these groups receive funding from the Bradley Foundation. As the New York Times’ Paul Krugman notes, “billionaires can field armies of lobbyists; they can finance think tanks that put the desired spin on policy issues; [and] they can funnel cash to politicians with sympathetic views.” Given this political reality, unions “are among the most important” of the institutions “that can act as counterweights to the power of big money.” Nancy MacLean, a labor historian at Duke University, said “eliminating unions would do to the Democratic Party what getting rid of socially conservative churches would do to Republicans.” “It’s a stunning partisan calculation on the governor’s part,” she said, “and really ugly.”

ANTI-UNION TIDAL WAVE: The high-stakes battle against union rights is gaining momentum in other GOP-led states. While “Wisconsin is moving the fastest and most aggressively so far,” Wisconsin Democracy Campaign director Mike McCabe points out that “this is a national push, and it’s being simultaneously pushed in a number of states.” Ohio Republican Gov. John Kasich, who believes public employees should be fired if they strike, is backing a similar bill in Ohio to roll back collective-bargaining rights for about 400,000 public employees. Kasich will see at least 5,000 protesters today at the statehouse to protest his efforts. Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) is ahead of the curve as he has already “aggressively gone after the state’s public-sector unions, taking away their collective-bargaining rights on his first day in office in 2005.” He is also pushing the legislature to weaken tenure protection for teachers. “The new crop of governors is even more bold,” said Walker ally and Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad (R). Incredulous over state employee benefits, Branstad indicated “he was anxious to reassess Iowa’s public employee benefits and had brought in an official from the private sector to examine the state’s collective-bargaining law.” Currently, 16 states are “now weighing, or expected to weigh, laws to trim unions powers or benefits” including New Jersey, Michigan, Tennessee, Idaho, Indiana, and Florida. This tidal wave of contempt that Republican controlled states hold against unions marks more than a blind power grab, and more than “a violent break with a bipartisan consensus about government workers that has operated unquestioned for four decades.” Should it succeed, this Republican onslaught on unions will eradicate the existence of “the few influential players in our political system representing the interests of middle- and working-class Americans.” As SEIU president Mary Kay Henry points out, “it’s not just union members at risk; it’s the services these members provide-whether that be as teachers, public safety personnel or home health care workers.” Whether Walker and his cohort will succeed is unclear, but as Krugman notes, “anyone who cares about retaining government of the people by the people should hope that it doesn’t.”

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

incredible impact Change.org members make -congrats!


We are blown away by the incredible impact Change.org members have made around the world by starting, joining, and winning dozens of meaningful campaigns over the past few weeks. So we wanted to drop you a quick note to say thank you. And congratulations. And let’s keep fighting.

Here are a few of the top victories and successes we’ve had together:

Late last week, the largest florist in the world, 1-800-Flowers, responded to 54,000 Change.org members and agreed to begin selling Fair Trade flowers and insist on a strong code of conduct for all their suppliers to counteract the deplorable working conditions that thousands of female flower workers face in South America. They’ve promised to offer Fair Trade flowers in time for Mother’s Day, making 1-800-Flowers a leader in the industry. (Click here to write a thank you message on 1-800-Flowers’ Facebook wall.)

After a devastating clothing factory fire in Bangladesh took the lives of 27 workers, you asked seven clothing companies, including Abercrombie, the Gap, and Target to compensate the victims’ families and revamp safety standards in their affiliated factories. After 65,000 of us spoke up, a spokesperson from Target said this to us: “I want to understand what we have to do to get our brand off the Change.org petition … Tell me what we need to do, and we will try to do it.” All seven companies met your demands.

An Ohio mom named Kelley Williams-Bolar was sentenced to jail last month for sending her kids to a safer school in a neighboring district. Another mom in Massachusetts started a petition on her behalf – and the campaign gained wide notice in Time, USA Today, and on Good Morning America. We teamed up with grassroots groups Color of Change and MomsRising to deliver more than 165,000 signatures in person to the office of Ohio Governor John Kasich. Less than 24 hours later, Governor Kasich took an important step toward pardoning Kelley.

After firing a lesbian soccer coach for having a child with her partner, Belmont University heard from 21,000 of us — including students, athletes, and alumni of the school — and has adopted a new policy to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation. And although there’s still work to do to stop Chick-Fil-A from funding anti-gay groups, your activism made national news (including the New York Times!), and Chick-Fil-A’s CEO was forced to post a video responding to pressure from pro-equality advocates and Change.org members across the country.

Kim Feil, a Change.org member from Arlington, Texas, has been successfully beating back the massive Chesapeake Energy Corporation from dangerously drilling for natural gas in her neighborhood, with the support of more than 8,000 Change.org members across the country. The Arlington city council has now twice delayed its decision — one member told the local Fox affiliate that the council has been overwhelmed by messages sent by Change.org members.

The list doesn’t stop there. You’ve made a jaw-dropping number of victories possible, from pushing Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to grant clemency to Sara Kruzan, to successfully calling on the South African Minister of Justice to meet with activists combating “corrective” rape, to getting Nashville’s housing authority to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation.

You can read more about these victories and many others here: http://www.change.org/victories?alert_id=oKSsLEIEUE_lBvfiWNFOF&me=aa

Each victory was only possible because an activist like you decided to start a petition to make change in their community, city, or country. If there’s something you want to change, you can start your own petition here: http://www.change.org/start-a-petition

We’re so proud to be working with you. Thanks for everything you do.

– Patrick and the Change.org team