Undernews For April 2, 2009

THE PROGRESSIVE REVIEW
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Editor: Sam Smith

2 April 2009
WORD

I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country. - Thomas Jefferson
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PUBLIC SCHOOL FOES FUNNEL A HALF MILLION BUCKS TO AL SHARPTON'S GROUP

NY Daily News - The Rev. Al Sharpton and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein stunned the education world last June when they joined forces to reform the nation's public schools.

They called their ambitious venture the Education Equality Project, and they vowed in a Washington press conference to lead a campaign to close the decades-old achievement gap between white and black students.

What Klein and Sharpton never revealed is that the National Action Network, Sharpton's organization, immediately received a $500,000 donation for its involvement in the new effort.

The huge infusion of cash - equal to more than a year's payroll for Sharpton's entire organization - was quietly provided by Plainfield Asset Management, a Connecticut-based hedge fund, where former Chancellor Harold Levy is a managing director.

The money came at a critical moment for the National Action Network. Sharpton was then settling a long-running IRS investigation of his organization. As part of that settlement, he agreed in July to pay $1 million in back taxes and penalties both he personally and his organization owed the government.

The $500,000 from the Connecticut firm did not go directly to National Action Network. Levy funneled the cash to another nonprofit, Education Reform Now, which allowed his company to claim the donation as a charitable tax deduction.

The money was then transferred in several payments to Sharpton's group, which does not have tax-deductible status because it is a lobbying organization.

Sharpton and Levy confirmed the contribution. . .

Levy says his firm came up with the idea to make the contribution, and neither Klein nor Bloomberg asked him to aid Sharpton.

At the time, Plainfield Asset Management, a major investor in gaming operations, was pressing city and state officials for approval of two deals worth hundreds of millions of dollars annually.

CREDIT UNIONS ALSO IN DANGER

Erbin Crowell, Providence Journal - With our financial system in disarray, I was surprised to learn that my credit union, Coastway Credit Union, has proposed converting from a member-owned nonprofit into a bank. After all, credit unions have been a bright spot in these difficult times, providing loans in a responsible manner and avoiding the kinds of risky, greed-driven lending that fed the crisis.

Coastway has a long history as a Rhode Island member-owned co-op. It's the fourth oldest continuously operating credit union in America, founded in 1920 as the Telephone Workers' Credit Union. Over the years it has carefully grown to more than $25 million in member-owned equity and $284 million in assets. Today, one in 40 Rhode Islanders is a member.

What is motivating Coastway's leadership to turn a nonprofit, member-owned cooperative into a bank? How can Coastway give up its nonprofit tax exemption without charging customers higher rates and fees? And what will happen to the $25 million owned by Coastway's members?

These are the sorts of concerns that have led national organizations such as the Consumer Federation of America and the National Cooperative Business Association to oppose proposed credit-union conversions such as Coastway's. . .

Credit unions that have converted to banks now charge higher rates on loans and offer lower-paying deposits. This has been clearly documented.

Seventy five percent of credit unions that have converted have eventually sold stock. And all too often the very executives and directors who advocated conversion to a bank end up with a disproportionate share of that stock. At a minimum, this possibility of undue enrichment is a conflict of interest between the opportunity for personal gain and the responsibility to serve the members' best interests. . .

We need to reform U.S. conversion law to make it fair to rank-and-file members. The easiest solution is to require a majority of all members to vote for a conversion, as opposed to current law which requires only a majority of voting members to approve. This was the standard before 1998 and this "majority-rules" standard is commonly used by federal regulators for other types of conversions. . .

BUSH CAPOS OKAYED DITCHING CONSTITUTION

Matthew Rothschild, Progressive - The Bush Justice Department, if you can call it that, issued legal opinions in late 2001 asserting that the President had the authority to use the military within the US against suspected terrorists, and that he could use the military to barge into your home without a warrant.

"The warrant and probable cause requirements . . . are unsuited to the demands of wartime and the military necessity to successfully prosecute a war against an enemy," said an October 23, 2001, memo.

The authors were John Yoo, who was then deputy assistant attorney general, and Robert Delahunty, who was special counsel at the Justice Department. And they sent the memo to Alberto Gonzales, then the counsel to the President.

Domestic eavesdropping without a warrant was also OK, according to Bush lawyers at Justice.

They also said the President could unilaterally abrogate treaties, and that Congress had no say-so over the treatment of detainees.

Yoo and Delahunty clearly contemplated waging war here at home.

"Efforts to fight terrorism may require not only the usual wartime regulations of domestic affairs, but also military actions that have normally occurred abroad," said the Yoo-Delahunty memo.

It contemplated using the U.S. military in the United States for "attacking civilian targets, such as apartment buildings, offices, or ships where suspected terrorists were thought to be; and employing electronic surveillance methods more powerful and sophisticated than those available to law enforcement agencies." And it recognized that these actions could be "involving as they might American citizens.". . .

Yoo and Delahunty also proposed shelving the First Amendment. "First Amendment speech and press rights may also be subordinated to the overriding need to wage war successfully," they wrote.

REMEMBER THAT WAR WE WON IN IRAQ?

NY Times - As the American military prepares to withdraw from Iraqi cities, Iraqi and American security officials say that jihadi and Baath militants are rejoining the fight in areas that are largely quiet now, regrouping as a smaller but still lethal insurgency. . .

There is much debate as to whether any new insurgency, at a time of relative calm in most of Iraq, could ever produce the same levels of violence as existed at the height of the fighting here. A recent series of attacks, however, like bubbles that indicate fish beneath still water, suggest the potential danger, all the more perilous now because the American troops who helped to pacify Iraq are leaving.

Several well-planned bombings, one on a street recently reopened because it was thought to be safe, have killed 123 people, most of them in and around Baghdad. . .

Assassination attempts on members of the Awakening movement, some of them former insurgents who switched sides for pay, are rising, as are fears that some of the members are joining Islamic extremists or other insurgent groups. . .

DUNCAN BULLYING SCHOOL SYSTEMS INTO EXCESSIVE PAPERWORK

NY Times - Secretary of Education Arne Duncan told the nation's governors that in exchange for billions of dollars in federal education aid provided under the economic stimulus law, he wants new information about the performance of their public schools, much of which could be embarrassing. . .

The data required includes the following:

- Student math and reading scores on local tests, as well as on the National Assessment of Education Progress, a federal test that is more difficult.

- The numbers of schools declared failing under federal law that have demonstrated student achievement gains within the last three years.

- The numbers of students, by high school, who graduate and go on to complete at least a year's worth of college credit.

Speaking with reporters in a conference call, Mr. Duncan inadvertently demonstrated how the information collected from states could be used to try to shame educators and public officials into making changes.

OBAMA MAY SEND EVEN MORE TROOPS TO AFGHANISTAN

Wall Street Journal - President Barack Obama is weighing whether to deploy 10,000 more troops to Afghanistan but lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are questioning an increased commitment and seeking specific measures of progress against the deteriorating conditions in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

When President Obama took office, the U.S. had about 38,000 troops in Afghanistan. The White House has announced plans to send 21,000 reinforcements in coming months, increasing the tally to almost 60,000.

Mr. Obama will decide this fall whether to order 10,000 more troops to Afghanistan next year, senior Pentagon officials told a Senate panel Wednesday, bringing the total to almost 70,000. . . .

A senior Pentagon official said in an interview that commanders in Afghanistan want to deploy the 10,000 additional forces to southern Afghanistan, a Taliban stronghold that is also one of the largest drug-producing regions in the world. The extra forces would provide an additional brigade of combat troops as well as a new American division headquarters in southern Afghanistan, the official said.

BREVITAS

CRASH TALK

McClatchy - The massive programs designed to rescue the nation's financial sector are operating without adequate oversight, with vague goals and limited disclosure of their details to the taxpayers who are paying for them, government watchdogs told a Senate panel.

The Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, was launched in the midst of last fall's collapse of the nation's banking system and is designed to get loans flowing to businesses and individuals.

But "without a clearer explanation" about parts of the program, "it is not possible to exercise meaningful oversight over Treasury's actions," said Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard Law School professor who leads a special congressional oversight panel monitoring the TARP program. Her comments came in a Senate Finance Committee hearing on the bailout program.

Noting that TARP passed Congress six months ago, Warren said that her group has repeatedly called on the Treasury Department to provide a clear strategy for the program - and that "the absence of such a vision hampers effective oversight."

The Government Accountability Office shared some of the same concerns, saying in a new report that "Treasury continues to struggle with developing an effective overall communication strategy" for the TARP program.

Beyond that, the GAO's report pointed out the difficulty in even measuring whether TARP is working.

Jason Walsh, Christian Science Monitor - Europeans are taking militant actions to protect their jobs, pointing to a growing anger - and willingness to act on it - among workers in the European Union.

In the latest such move, staff at US automotive-parts manufacturer Visteon in Northern Ireland occupied a factory. . .

The British arm of Visteon, which is a major supplier to Ford, announced Tuesday that it was cutting almost 600 jobs across the United Kingdom, including 210 in Northern Ireland. It filed for bankruptcy the same day.
Workers immediately occupied Visteon's manufacturing facility in Belfast, seeking an enhanced layoff package, which they say should be financed by the factory's former owner, Ford Motor Co.

In Ireland, fired workers at Waterford Crystal occupied the world-renowned glassmaking factory after it was shut down. The occupation, which started in late January, ended after almost two months with the announcement that 176 jobs had been saved for at least six months.

In Dundee, Scotland, staff at Prisme, a box manufacturer, are in the fifth week of an occupation and are reportedly planning to restart the business as a workers' cooperative.

In France, workers at Caterpillar took the dramatic step Tuesday of kidnapping four managers, who were held for 24 hours at the company's plant in the southeastern city of Grenoble before being released Wednesday.

THE MIX

Pink News, UK - Six of the seven parties in Swedish parliament have backed a proposal to introduce a gender-neutral marriage law. The proposal passed today with a 261 to 22 vote and 16 abstentions. The only party to oppose the ruling were the Christian Democrats, stating that the party wanted to maintain "a several hundred-year-old concept" of marriage.
It is not yet certain that the changes will affect church marriage ceremonies, but in February, a majority of Church of Sweden bishops said the church should no longer handle legal marriage registrations, DPA reported.

CANADA

Portside - For the second time in 10 months, Canada's House of Commons told Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his Conservative government, including Immigration Minister, Jason Kenney, to stop deporting U.S. soldiers resisting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The vote united the three opposition parties, the Liberals, the Bloc Quebecois and the New Democratic Party in a close 129-125 vote.

HEALTH & SCIENCE

Geek's Guide to World Domination - The Mallinckrodt Baker Material Safety Data Sheet describes the lethal dose of caffeine as 192mg/kg in rats. . . In humans, lethal toxicity is estimated at between 150 and 200 mg/kg, meaning that an average adult would have to consume between 80 and 100 cups of coffee in a very short period of time to induce extreme badness. Forensic Science International reports a couple deaths from caffeine toxicity, all resulting from overdose of caffeine pills. The moral seems clear: once you reach your 70th cup of the afternoon, consider switching to Benzedrine, methamphetamines or another similar stimulant.

WAR DEPARTMENT

Jeremy Scahill, AlterNet - Federal records obtained by AlterNet reveal a multi-million dollar contract for a private U.S. paramilitary force operating out of Jerusalem. . . Triple Canopy, a Chicago company now based in Virginia. It may not have Blackwater's thuggish reputation, but Triple Canopy has its own bloody history in Iraq and a record of hiring mercenaries from countries with atrocious human rights records. What's more, Obama is not just using the company in Iraq, but also as a U.S.-government funded private security force in Israel/Palestine, operating out of Jerusalem. Beginning May 7th, Triple Canopy will officially take over Xe/Blackwater's mega-contract with the U.S. State Department for guarding occupation officials in Iraq. . . According to federal records, the original arrangement with Triple Canopy in Israel appears to date back to at least September 2005 and has been renewed every year since.

READER COMMENTS

OBAMA ALIGNS HIMSELF WITH RIGHT WING OF DEMOCRATS

The bottom line is: Obama's the new Bill Clinton. - Walter Wouk

HOLBROOKE ATTACKS AFGHAN ANTI-DRUG POLICY

"By forced eradication we are often pushing farmers into the Taliban hands," Mr Holbrooke said.

Using Predator drones against wedding parties has the same effect, Mr. Holbrooke.

MARIJUANA

I am a retired cop with 15 years service. Is the war on drugs working. No. Will it work? No. Smoking pot leads you to harder drugs? No. Peer pressure leads to harder drugs or experimenting does though. Not to mention the fact that some parents don't know where or what their kids are doing. The cost of arresting pot heads is to costly to continue. It cost approximately 24 thousand dollars to house one pot head a year. Think of the savings and the room for hard core criminals. Myself along with thousands of my fellow law enforcement agree. There are bigger criminals to be caught. Legalize it and tax it and fine those dumb enough to bring it outside into the public.

DON'T ASK, DON'T READ

I wonder if Republicans were this concerned when the Patriot Act was rammed through Congress in even less time. Somehow I think they'd sing a different tune if congress members declared their intent to read the whole thing before they voted on it. But, hey, it was just legislation toying with the Constitution. . . no big deal. I'm not defending this practice, but let's face it: very few members of congress read the legislation they're voting on. Takes too much time out of campaigning. - robbie

An organization called Downsize DC has been pushing a "read the bills act" mandating congresspersons read the crap before they vote. You don't have to agree with them on gun control to support that (they're against it). I'll note in passing that our new prez has already reneged several times on his promise to post bills on the internet five days before a vote.

OBAMA'S MEDICAL RECORD PLAN

It is not just that the medical records will be wide open to law enforcement, it is that these records will be open to anyone who is willing to pay $20-100 to get the scoop on their neighbors. Just as cell phone records are today.

HOLOCAUST DENIAL

How can holocausts be described inhumane if they're repeated time and time again by humans? I don't agree in anyway with holocausts, but i also don't think you can describe it with words such as inhumanity, and then say it is being repeated even today. - Dr. Artit

A GREEN PARTY FIRST 100 DAYS

"All these things have been supported by Nader who in 2004 spent a lot of time and money defending "Green" challenges to his ballot inclusion."

It was the Democrats who spent millions trying to keep Nader off the ballot in 2004. Some of Nader's more sectarian supporters are willing to say anything about the Greens.

OBAMA AIDES SAY OUTSOURCING TORTURE IS 'STATE SECRET"

Maybe now that Obama is in the big chair and has a view of what is going on from the inside he's saying that some of the measures that the Bush administration took were justified?

Maybe now that Obama is in the big chair, he is showing us he is just another sleazy opportunistic politician. There is no justification for torture. Many people will buckle under torture and tell the torturer anything, or confess to any crime, just to make it stop. An innocent person confessing to a crime they didn't commit and know nothing about does not yield useful information, and extracting information is such a way is a crime against humanity. Look it up in the Geneva conventions.

THE WAR AGAINST ART

Art tells the truth in ways that politicians and businessmen cannot control. But part of the answer is to show that art is not a touchy-feely, non-profit pastime. It is the entire world of industrial and aesthetic design, fashion, communications, architecture, advertising and promotion. There isn't a single item humans make that isn't designed. There is not a process or procedure in manufacturing or shipping that is not designed. There are no buildings, vehicles, furniture, roads, bridges, dams, or anything else that is not designed. There is nothing sold or promoted without advertising, instruction books, sales sheets, invoices, or paid for with cheques or cash - all designed. Art & design are the central human activity. We just need to brag about it more.

Real art doesn't need their fucking money. I don't support poor people's tax money paying for art so that rich people's kids can not suffer at work and make bullshit. I've seen it a million times, some over-pampered rich kid gets to do nothing and make crap and call it art because everyone wipes their ass for them because of their daddy's buildings.

Millions have to suffer and die in misery because of these rich spoiled jerks who call themselves progressives. All you know how to do is sit in Starbucks, mocking those who you think are inferior and being fashionistas or recessionistas. If you care about poor people, hang out with them. Hang out with people who can't afford a car, or don't look good.

The WPA was the beginning of disaster for the arts; it taught people that it was more important to please the government art czars than to make things people will pay to look at or hear or otherwise experience. It was part of the Autobahn theory of government which put power in the hands of a few at the top, who would decide what the public wanted.

The academic arts system is made to create deluded graduate students who pay into the system but almost never get a payout. The museums are there with government arts to prop up the investments of the super-rich when they buy an artist low. They also engage in tax-dodging rackets for the ultra-rich by accepting donations of pieces artificially inflated in price at auction.

Finally art is a good target not because art is powerful, but because it's so weak and cannot justify the place it has. Artists became postmodernists and gave up believing in truth, after all, why spend time learning when you could just do a conceptual piece? Theory was good for the lazy. It's impossible to make the case that art schools should take money while the homeless or public schools are not fully supported. - wellbasically

WINTER BIRDS MOVING NORTH AS CLIMATE WARMS

It also appears the times of migration are also shifting. The on-line reports of this year's purple martin and monarch butterfly migrations seem to indicate arrivals two to three weeks earlier than typically expected. With the exception of the the ice storm plagued year of 2007, this new pattern is becoming the rule rather than the exception.

BILL TO NOWHERE

The small businessman is capable of thinking concretely about how to help people directly, while the politicians are mired in their abstract notions about "helping the economy." They seem to be incapable of understanding that "the economy" starts with real people, and lots of us real people are struggling to pay our bills.

Guaranteed income was a mainstream, moderate idea in the 1960s, with supporters from the left and the right, George McGovern and Richard Nixon, Martin Luther King and Milton Friedman. It's an idea we ought to revive and update - Steven Shafarman

APPOINTEE TAX PROBLEMS

I think Obama should keep on nominating tax evaders. At least the government is recovering some back taxes.

WHAT THE CENTRISTS HAVE WROUGHT

Bipartisanship = I'll hug your Elephant if you'll kiss my Ass.

It wouldn't be so bad if the so called "centrism" was only a matter of economic policies. The destructive, indeed suicidal tax cuts are insanity. But these are issues on which people can disagree. The opinions may be foolish, self serving, even pathological, but they are not criminal.

But there is criminal, and incredibly heinous behavior that is called "centrism" and "bipartisianism". One of the most flagrant is over torture. Obama has announced his thankfulness that the British government is keeping its secrets about what was done to British citizens in Guantanamo. His administration has said that no CIA agents will be prosecuted for torture. It is pretty clear that none of those who ordered the tortures are going to be prosecuted. Now, less than a week after these announcements, we learn that the tortures were not limited to waterboarding, but included other interrogation techniques like genital mutilation.

"The 25 lines edited out of the court papers contained details of how Mr Mohamed's genitals were sliced with a scalpel and other torture methods so extreme that waterboarding, the controversial technique of simulated drowning, 'is very far down the list of things they did,' the official said," Tim Shipman and Melissa Kite, report for The Telegraph.

How could he have ever excused such behavior? How could he have ever thought that this information would not come out? This is not just criminal, it is idiotic. Obama has earned the appellation Bush44. His behavior has come to the level of covering up gross criminal acts, some of which have quite apparently led to death. Bush44 is now a criminal. - m

THE STORY THE MEDIA WON'T TOUCH

You only need to use logic to come to the conclusion that American politicians and drug money are connected. Why are there illegal narcotics? Take marijuana, for example. There is no medical, health, safety, or moral reason for marijuana to be illegal. The only reason for the illegal status is financial. Illegal substances are worth more money. Any politician who is against legalizing marijuana has only one reason for their position, and that is financial. Logic proves that any politician against the legalization of marijuana has taken that position because they are paid to do so. Drug cartels are no different from any other big business; they want to protect the value of their goods. The bribes (whoops, I mean "campaign contributions") they make to politicians are miniscule compared to the profit they make. Thus politicians accept money from drug cartels to keep narcotics illegal.

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