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June 29th, 2013

6/29/2013

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The neo-liberal goal is to privatize all that is public and work to make all that is public corporate profit....from labor to taxes....from public roads to public transportation.  Maryland is rampant Third Way corporate  neo-liberal......let's bring the democratic party back to labor and justice!

We must organize, create networks, and create Democracy Now groups in every community!


The Push-back Against Privatization Across the Country


Saturday, 29 June 2013 11:00 By Brendan Fischer, PRWatch | Report


The decades-long effort to privatize public services and assets is hitting some bumps, with state and local governments reconsidering whether for-profit companies should be allowed to indiscriminately profit off of taxpayer dollars with limited accountability.

In New Jersey, legislation to ensure that public services won't be privatized unless it will result in actual savings for taxpayers has passed both chambers of the legislature. In Texas, a bipartisan coalition is fighting against a private prison in Montgomery County, and Kentucky is rejecting private prisons altogether. And in Fresno, California, voters rejected a proposal backed by the city's popular mayor to privatize trash collection services.

“The fact is, when taxpayers see what they lose by handing over control of their roads, prisons and other services, they don’t want anything to do with outsourcing," says Donald Cohen, chair of In The Public Interest, a resource center on privatization. "We hope that what we’re seeing in places like New Jersey, Texas, Kentucky and Fresno is part of a trend to restore control of services to American taxpayers.”

New Jersey Could Curb Privatization Abuses

The New Jersey bill, if signed by Governor Chris Christie, might be the first of its kind in the nation. The legislation would prohibit privatization contracts that achieve "cost savings" by cutting services or raising rates, and also require that the company provide its workers comparable wages and benefits. This would thwart efforts by corporate interests to provide the veneer of cost savings by replacing middle-class public employees with low-wage workers.

The bill would also require for-profit corporations to actually stand by their promises: their performance would be subject to audit, which could lead to penalties or the loss of a contract if they fail to produce the promised cost savings.

Not surprisingly, the bill is opposed by groups like the Chamber of Commerce, who will likely urge Christie to veto it. And Gov. Christie is no stranger to privatization: at the same time the bill was moving through the legislature, Gov. Christie entered a contract to privatize the state's lottery system. Whether he will sign this latest bill to guarantee accountability for privatizers remains to be seen.

Tea Party and Others Raising Voices Against Private Prisons

Although the New Jersey proposal tracks a Republican-Democrat divide, in Texas, opposition to prison privatization is crossing party lines.

GEO Group is seeking to purchase a second prison in Montgomery County, but Tea Party groups and others are rallying against it.

Jon Bauman, vice president of the Texas Patriots PAC of The Woodlands, says the first correctional facility in the county -- which was constructed with $45 million in tax-exempt bonds -- ended up being primarily run as a federal institution rather than holding county inmates, as originally promised.

“This idea that they were building a jail for us was bogus, it was a fraud” he said. “They weren’t building a jail for us, they were building a jail for an industry.”

GEO Group is becoming familiar with rejection: earlier this year, for example, its effort to spend $6 million for naming rights on a Florida Atlantic University stadium was met with protests from students and faculty, causing the company to withdraw its offer.

Other private prison operators are also feeling the heat. Kentucky is not renewing its contract with Corrections Corporation of America, ending its three decade experiment on letting outside companies incarcerate inmates for the state. This is the fifth contract cancellation for CCA in a month.

In Fresno, "The People's Voice is Being Heard"

In Fresno, voters this month rejected an effort backed by Mayor Ashley Swearengin to outsource trash service for the city's 500,000 residents to a private company (and cut pay for its workers), in order to make up for budget shortfalls. Lawmakers narrowly passed the privatization plan in December, but it was sent to voters for approval after opponents collected 40,000 petition signatures.

Pro-privatization forces outspent opponents nearly 3-to-1, but voters nonetheless voted to reject the Mayor's plan and keep trash collection in public hands.

Council Member Sal Quintero said of the vote: "The people's voice (against privatization) is being heard."


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DO NOT THINK THAT THIS SHOUT AGAINST NAKED CAPITALISM IS ONLY YOUNG AND RADICAL.......IT IS MAINSTREAM MIDDLE CLASS PROFESSIONAL AS WELL.  THEY ARE KILLING DEMOCRACY AND PREYING ON THE PUBLIC AND NO ONE IS EXEMPT!



Challenging Casino Capitalism and Authoritarian Politics in the Age of Disposability


Posted on Jun 27, 2013 Monthly Review Press
By Henry A. Giroux, Monthly Review Press

This excerpt from Henry A. Giroux’s new book, “America’s Education Deficit and the War on Youth” (2013, Monthly Review Press), first appeared at Truthout.

Introduction

There is by now an overwhelming catalogue of evidence revealing the depth and breadth of the corporate- and state-sponsored assaults being waged against democracy in the United States. Indeed, it appears that the nation has entered a new and more ruthless historical era, marked by a growing disinvestment in the social state, public institutions, and civic morality. The attack on the social state is of particular importance because it represents an attempt to shift social protections to the responsibility of individuals while at the same time privatizing investments in the public good and undermining the bonds of communal solidarity. The renowned sociologist Zygmunt Bauman makes this clear in his definition and defense of the social state:

A state is “social” when it promotes the principle of the communally endorsed, collective insurance against individual misfortune and its consequences. . . . And it is the same principle which lifts members of society to the status of citizens—that is, makes them stakeholders in addition to being stockholders, beneficiaries but also actors responsible for the benefits’ creation and availability, individuals with acute interest in the common good understood as the shared institutions that can be trusted to assure solidity and reliability of the state-issued “collective insurance policy.” The application of that principle may, and often does, protect men and women from the plague of poverty—most importantly, however, it stands a chance of becoming a profuse source of solidarity able to recycle “society” into a common, communal good, thanks to the defense it provides against the horror of misery, that is, of the terror of being excluded, of falling or being pushed over the board of a fast-accelerating vehicle of progress, of being condemned to “social redundancy” and otherwise designed to “human waste.”

Matters of politics, power, ideology, governance, economics, and policy now translate unapologetically into a systemic disinvestment in those public spheres that traditionally provided the minimal conditions for social justice, dissent, and democratic expression. The reign of the commodity, with its growing economy of individualism, privatization, and deregulation, offers a market solution for all of society’s problems. Yet, given that the apostles of neoliberalism work tirelessly to destroy with naked power the numerous essential institutions of social justice and social protections that exemplify the social state, it is clear that solving society’s problems is not their goal. Neoliberalism aims to enhance the wealth and power of those already rich. No longer responsive to the social contract and the preservation of labor, neoliberalism “shifts into a mode of elimination that targets most of us—along with our environment—as waste products awaiting managed disposal.” Unfortunately, neoliberalism, or what might better be called “casino capitalism,” has become the new normal.

Unabashed in its claim to financial power, self-regulation, and a survival of the fittest value system, neoliberalism not only undercuts the formative culture necessary for producing critical citizens and the public spheres that nourish them, it also facilitates the conditions for producing a bloated defense budget, the prison-industrial complex, environmental degradation, and the emergence of “finance as a criminalized, rogue industry.” It is clear that an emergent authoritarianism haunts a defanged democracy now shaped and structured largely by corporations. Money dominates politics; the gap between the rich and poor is ballooning; urban spaces are becoming armed camps; militarism is creeping into every facet of public life; and civil liberties are in shreds. Neoliberalism’s ideology of competition now dominates policies that define public spheres such as schools, allowing them to be stripped of a civic and democratic project and handed over to the logic of the market. Regrettably, it is not democracy, but authoritarianism, that remains on the rise in the United States as we move further into the twenty-first century.

The Politics of Fraud

The 2012 U.S. presidential election took place at a pivotal moment in this transformation away from democracy, a moment in which formative cultural and political realms and forces, including the rhetoric used by election candidates, appeared saturated with celebrations of war and social Darwinism. Accordingly, the possibility of an even more authoritarian and ethically dysfunctional leadership in the White House in 2013 caught the attention of a number of liberals and other progressives in the United States. American politics in general, and the 2012 election in particular, presented a challenge to progressives, whose voices in recent years have been increasingly excluded from both the mainstream media and the corridors of political power. Instead, the media played up the apocalyptic view of the Republican Party’s fundamentalist warriors, who seemed fixated on translating issues previously seen as non-religious—such as sexual orientation, education, identity, and participation in public life—into the language of a religious revival and militant crusade against evil.

How else to explain Republican vice-presidential nominee Paul Ryan’s claim that the struggle for the future is a “fight of individualism versus collectivism,” with its nod to McCarthyism and the cold war rhetoric of the 1950s? Or former senator Rick Santorum’s assertion that “President Obama is getting America hooked on ‘the narcotic of government dependency,’” promoting the view that government has no responsibility to provide safety nets for the poor, disabled, sick, and elderly.

There is more at work here than simply a ramped-up version of social Darwinism, with its savagely cruel ethic of “reward the rich, penalize the poor, [and] let everyone fend for themselves.” There is also a full-scale attack on the social contract, the welfare state, economic equality, and any viable vestige of moral and social responsibility. As Robert O’Self argues, the social contract is crucial to what it means for Americans to lead a decent life. At the same time, he wonders if there is a place for women in the Republican Party’s view of the contract. Of course, he could easily have added youth, people of color, immigrants, the elderly, and the unemployed. He writes:

The social contract is supposed to bind us together. It’s everything from Medicare to the Americans with Disabilities Act to Social Security to the Equal Pay Act. It is the basic architecture of our collective responsibility to ensure that Americans share in a decent life. The social contract says that though our individual fates differ, we have a collective destiny, too. Many of us respond viscerally to comments from politicians like Mr. Akin because he leaves us wondering what place for women Republicans see in that collective future.

The Romney-Ryan appropriation of Ayn Rand’s ode to selfishness and self-interest is of particular importance because it offers not only a glimpse of a ruthless form of extreme capitalism in which the social contract is shredded, but also provides a testimony to a logic of cruelty and disposability in which the poor are considered “moochers,” viewed with contempt, and singled out to be punished. But this theocratic economic fundamentalist ideology does more. It destroys any viable notion of civic virtue in which the social contract and common good provide the basis for creating meaningful social bonds and instilling in citizens a sense of social and civic responsibility. The idea of public service is viewed with disdain just as the work of individuals, social groups, and institutions that benefit the citizenry at large are held in contempt.

As George Lakoff and Glenn W. Smith point out, casino capitalism creates a culture of cruelty, with “its horrific effects on individuals— death, illness, suffering, greater poverty, and loss of opportunity, productive lives, and money.” But it does more by crushing any viable notion of the common good and public life by destroying “the bonds that hold us together.” Under casino capitalism, the spaces, institutions, and values that constitute the public are now surrendered to powerful financial forces and viewed simply as another market to be commodified, privatized, and surrendered to the demands of capital. With market-driven zealots in charge of both parties, politics becomes an extension of war, and greed and self-interest trump any concern for the well-being of others. For the extremists who now control the Republican Party, in particular, reason is trumped by emotions rooted in absolutist certainty and militaristic aggression, and skepticism and dissent are viewed as the work of Satan.

At the same time, both Republicans and Democrats embrace the logic of casino capitalism in which Wall Street creates an economy focused on speculative, short-term investments “designed to make a killing rather than expanding the productive base of the economy.” Casino capitalism is the true religion of America and provides a common ground for both major parties, in spite of their differences on the role of government and the welfare state. Casino capitalism does not make tangible products needed to address basic human needs or foster broad-based prosperity as much as it “creates an infinite amount of paper assets that can be traded between individuals.” It is an economy that has become a playground for gamblers and bettors in which the dice are loaded in favor of the ultra-rich, bankers, hedge fund managers, and financial elite who operate on the assumption that “society’s resources are best allocated by profit-seeking individuals betting on short-term price movements in intangible or paper assets.” Casino capitalism thrives on a deregulated and ascendant financial sector that offers easy credit (particularly evident before the 2007 economic recession), cheap mortgages, and the seductive lure of a promising lifestyle built on ever burdening debt.


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You will get very little on the decent regarding this NSA issue.  We know neo-liberals are active in creating this mess so democratic leaders now will protect this massive surveillance and not civil liberties.  Mainstream media will only show Snowden as a detriment and never address the fact that privatizing national security is a national security threat when corporate crime and corruption is systemic.

THIS IS A HUGE DEAL FOLKS......PLEASE GET ENGAGED AND SHOUT PUBLICLY......ATTEND YOUR LOCAL PROTESTS EN MASSE!

Op-Ed Contributors The Criminal N.S.A.
By JENNIFER STISA GRANICK and CHRISTOPHER JON SPRIGMAN Published: June 27, 2013 New York Times

THE twin revelations that telecom carriers have been secretly giving the National Security Agency information about Americans’ phone calls, and that the N.S.A. has been capturing e-mail and other private communications from Internet companies as part of a secret program called Prism, have not enraged most Americans. Lulled, perhaps, by the Obama administration’s claims that these “modest encroachments on privacy” were approved by Congress and by federal judges, public opinion quickly migrated from shock to “meh.”  It didn’t help that Congressional watchdogs — with a few exceptions, like Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky — have accepted the White House’s claims of legality. The leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, and Saxby Chambliss, Republican of Georgia, have called the surveillance legal. So have liberal-leaning commentators like Hendrik Hertzberg and David Ignatius.

This view is wrong — and not only, or even mainly, because of the privacy issues raised by the American Civil Liberties Union and other critics. The two programs violate both the letter and the spirit of federal law. No statute explicitly authorizes mass surveillance. Through a series of legal contortions, the Obama administration has argued that Congress, since 9/11, intended to implicitly authorize mass surveillance. But this strategy mostly consists of wordplay, fear-mongering and a highly selective reading of the law. Americans deserve better from the White House — and from President Obama, who has seemingly forgotten the constitutional law he once taught.

The administration has defended each of the two secret programs. Let’s examine them in turn.

Edward J. Snowden, the former N.S.A. contract employee and whistle-blower, has provided evidence that the government has phone record metadata on all Verizon customers, and probably on every American, going back seven years. This metadata is extremely revealing; investigators mining it might be able to infer whether we have an illness or an addiction, what our religious affiliations and political activities are, and so on.

The law under which the government collected this data, Section 215 of the Patriot Act, allows the F.B.I. to obtain court orders demanding that a person or company produce “tangible things,” upon showing reasonable grounds that the things sought are “relevant” to an authorized foreign intelligence investigation. The F.B.I. does not need to demonstrate probable cause that a crime has been committed, or any connection to terrorism.

Even in the fearful time when the Patriot Act was enacted, in October 2001, lawmakers never contemplated that Section 215 would be used for phone metadata, or for mass surveillance of any sort. Representative F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., a Wisconsin Republican and one of the architects of the Patriot Act, and a man not known as a civil libertarian, has said that “Congress intended to allow the intelligence communities to access targeted information for specific investigations.” The N.S.A.’s demand for information about every American’s phone calls isn’t “targeted” at all — it’s a dragnet. “How can every call that every American makes or receives be relevant to a specific investigation?” Mr. Sensenbrenner has asked. The answer is simple: It’s not.

The government claims that under Section 215 it may seize all of our phone call information now because it might conceivably be relevant to an investigation at some later date, even if there is no particular reason to believe that any but a tiny fraction of the data collected might possibly be suspicious. That is a shockingly flimsy argument — any data might be “relevant” to an investigation eventually, if by “eventually” you mean “sometime before the end of time.” If all data is “relevant,” it makes a mockery of the already shaky concept of relevance.

Let’s turn to Prism: the streamlined, electronic seizure of communications from Internet companies. In combination with what we have already learned about the N.S.A.’s access to telecommunications and Internet infrastructure, Prism is further proof that the agency is collecting vast amounts of e-mails and other messages — including communications to, from and between Americans.

The government justifies Prism under the FISA Amendments Act of 2008. Section 1881a of the act gave the president broad authority to conduct warrantless electronic surveillance. If the attorney general and the director of national intelligence certify that the purpose of the monitoring is to collect foreign intelligence information about any non­American individual or entity not known to be in the United States, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court can require companies to provide access to Americans’ international communications. The court does not approve the target or the facilities to be monitored, nor does it assess whether the government is doing enough to minimize the intrusion, correct for collection mistakes and protect privacy. Once the court issues a surveillance order, the government can issue top-secret directives to Internet companies like Google and Facebook to turn over calls, e-mails, video and voice chats, photos, voice­over IP calls (like Skype) and social networking information.

Like the Patriot Act, the FISA Amendments Act gives the government very broad surveillance authority. And yet the Prism program appears to outstrip that authority. In particular, the government “may not intentionally acquire any communication as to which the sender and all intended recipients are known at the time of the acquisition to be located in the United States.”

The government knows that it regularly obtains Americans’ protected communications. The Washington Post reported that Prism is designed to produce at least 51 percent confidence in a target’s “foreignness” — as John Oliver of “The Daily Show” put it, “a coin flip plus 1 percent.” By turning a blind eye to the fact that 49-plus percent of the communications might be purely among Americans, the N.S.A. has intentionally acquired information it is not allowed to have, even under the terrifyingly broad auspices of the FISA Amendments Act.

How could vacuuming up Americans’ communications conform with this legal limitation? Well, as James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, told Andrea Mitchell of NBC, the N.S.A. uses the word “acquire” only when it pulls information out of its gigantic database of communications and not when it first intercepts and stores the information.

If there’s a law against torturing the English language, James Clapper is in real trouble.

The administration hides the extent of its “incidental” surveillance of Americans behind fuzzy language. When Congress reauthorized the law at the end of 2012, legislators said Americans had nothing to worry about because the surveillance could not “target” American citizens or permanent residents. Mr. Clapper offered the same assurances. Based on these statements, an ordinary citizen might think the N.S.A. cannot read Americans’ e-mails or online chats under the F.A.A. But that is a government ­fed misunderstanding.

A “target” under the act is a person or entity the government wants information on — not the people the government is trying to listen to. It’s actually O.K. under the act to grab Americans’ messages so long as they are communicating with the target, or anyone who is not in the United States.

Leave aside the Patriot Act and FISA Amendments Act for a moment, and turn to the Constitution.

The Fourth Amendment obliges the government to demonstrate probable cause before conducting invasive surveillance. There is simply no precedent under the Constitution for the government’s seizing such vast amounts of revealing data on innocent Americans’ communications.

The government has made a mockery of that protection by relying on select Supreme Court cases, decided before the era of the public Internet and cellphones, to argue that citizens have no expectation of privacy in either phone metadata or in e-mails or other private electronic messages that it stores with third parties.

This hairsplitting is inimical to privacy and contrary to what at least five justices ruled just last year in a case called United States v. Jones. One of the most conservative justices on the Court, Samuel A. Alito Jr., wrote that where even public information about individuals is monitored over the long term, at some point, government crosses a line and must comply with the protections of the Fourth Amendment. That principle is, if anything, even more true for Americans’ sensitive nonpublic information like phone metadata and social networking activity.

We may never know all the details of the mass surveillance programs, but we know this: The administration has justified them through abuse of language, intentional evasion of statutory protections, secret, unreviewable investigative procedures and constitutional arguments that make a mockery of the government’s professed concern with protecting Americans’ privacy. It’s time to call the N.S.A.’s mass surveillance programs what they are: criminal.



Jennifer Stisa Granick is the director of civil liberties at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society. Christopher Jon Sprigman is a professor at the University of Virginia School of Law.


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This is a good video if you care to google it.  The group appears to be avant garde/Occupy so often sensationalizes for some ....but they do a good job with issues and they have a good sense of public sentiment!  Please open your media exposure to the youth who see the urgency of action!!!



Thursday, 27 June 2013

A Message To Humanity: The Time is Now - The Revolution Is Coming!

A revolution is coming to America.. Not Just America but the World, people are waking up and finally realising how the world works and that their rights as free human beings are slowly being taken away from them.. The 99% are rising up!



As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose
sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies. As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon
corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and
those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the
people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the
Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic
power. 

We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest
over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled
here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.
They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage. They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses.
They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one's skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.

They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system
through monopolization. They have profited off of the torture, confinement,and cruel treatment of countless animals, and actively hide these practices.They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions. They have held students hostage with tens
of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right.They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers'health care and pay. They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility.

They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance. They have sold our privacy as a commodity.They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press. They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit. They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce. They have donated large sums of money to politicians, who are responsible for regulating them. They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil. They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people's lives or provide relief in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantial profit.They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit. 

They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media. They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt.They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad. They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts. To the people of the world, we, the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power.Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.

To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy,we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.
Join us and make your voices heard!

The statement issued from Zuccotti Park, by the general assembly, at Occupy Wall Street.


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June 28th, 2013

6/28/2013

0 Comments

 
Hello everyone,....I will be at an event on Friday and will not blog, but come back Saturday!  I do not normally blog on weekends but there is much happening!!!


0 Comments

June 27th, 2013

6/27/2013

0 Comments

 
This immigration bill in the making is tied to the TPP trade deals and is completely market-based meaning it seeks to maximize profits.  As regards labor, you are already seeing what they are doing to domestic workers......keeping unemployment high (it is 25% and 40% with part time work....it is not 7.6%!)  to keep workers desperate and building a predatory business environment that traps the working class in debt to survive.  Don't think this is just a result of recession.....it is the result of policy and political neglect of public protections.  We know that this immigration bill will only expand this environment....there will be no protection for labor.

I WAS GLAD TO HEAR THE UPPER-MIDDLE CLASS SAY THEY ARE JOINING THE FIGHT AGAINST CORPORATIONS BECAUSE THEY KNOW THEY ARE GOING DOWN AS WELL!


Corporations have brought labor down to third world costs as free labor now exists as Internships, college students working in research in corporate labs, VISTAs working for poverty wages in public sector jobs, immigrant/low income worker wage theft, and prison labor forced to work for $2 an hour.  Marketplace Money placed labor costs on par with China when robots were factored in.  Progressives shouted at this supermajority of democrats to protect labor and the neo-liberals completely ignored this because they are working for wealth and profit....and labor and justice exploitation maximizes profit!  STOP ALLOWING A NEO-LIBERAL DNC CHOOSE YOUR CANDIDATES......RUN AND VOTE FOR LABOR AND JUSTICE IN PRIMARIES!

Sleeping-Giant Issue of Unpaid U.S. Interns Gets Scrutiny

By Jim Snyder & Christie Smythe - Jun 27, 2013 12:00 AM ET Bloomberg Financial

Win McNamee/Getty Images Scotusblog.com intern Dan Stein runs with news of affirmative action ruling front of the U.S. Supreme Court building on June 24, 2013 in Washington DC. By the time Ladan Nowrasteh got her masters degree in journalism, her resume was stacked with experience. Her bank account wasn’t nearly as full.

According to a survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers, more than 63 percent of graduating seniors in 2013 either had an internship or a co-op, a position more closely tied to an educational curriculum. About 48 percent of those were unpaid, according to the survey. Photographer: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Like many students trying to get a leg up, Nowrasteh, 26, of Falls Church, Virginia, worked a string of unpaid internships while in undergraduate and graduate school. She often had to work part-time jobs simultaneously to pay for things like food and rent.

“The value I was getting was non-monetary,” Nowrasteh, who did seven unpaid internships as a student, said in an interview. “I wouldn’t have gotten all that experience if I wasn’t willing to work for free.”

The practice, especially common in competitive industries like journalism, finance and filmmaking, could change if the appeals court upholds the ruling of a federal judge in New York who found that moviemaker Fox Searchlight Pictures Inc. violated labor laws by not paying two of its interns. Cases have also been brought against Hearst Corp., Conde Nast Publications and the Public Broadcasting Service’s Charlie RoseShow.

“This question of whether private-sector internships violate the minimum wage laws has been sort of a sleeping-giant issue for many years,” said David Yamada, director of the New Workplace Institute at Suffolk University Law School in Boston. “The absence of payment is done with a wink and a nod. Interns know they better not make any trouble about this.”

Half Unpaid According to a survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers, a Bethlehem, Pennsylvania-based recruiting and research group, more than 63 percent of graduating seniors in 2013 either had an internship or a co-op, a position more closely tied to an educational curriculum. About 48 percent of those were unpaid, according to the survey.

To critics, unpaid internships are an abuse of the labor system, a way for employers to take advantage of desperate job seekers. Supporters, including some former unpaid interns, see it as a way to get training and career contacts.

Nowrasteh said it paid off for her in the end. Three months after she graduated from American University, she had a job doing social media work in the Washington area.

Eric Glatt, 43, wasn’t as satisfied. The lead plaintiff in the case against Fox Searchlight, Glatt had left a job at the insurer American International Group Inc. in New York to pursue a career in film. After earning a certificate in film editing, he eventually took two temporary positions on the set of the movie “Black Swan,” where he spent much of his time learning the art of making copies.

Taken Advantage “I knew I was being taken advantage of,” Glatt, now a law student at Georgetown University in Washington, said in an interview. “I just didn’t think there was anything I could do about it.”

That changed when he read a news article about a six-part test the U.S. Labor Department uses to judge whether unpaid internships violate labor laws.

In ruling against Fox Searchlight, U.S. District Judge William H. Pauley in Manhattan said internships can be exempt from minimum wage requirements only if they adhere to all the criteria in the Labor Department test, which is based on a 1947 U.S. Supreme Court (1000L) decision concerning railroad trainees.

The criteria require that a position be structured for the intern’s benefit and should not displace regular workers. The employer also should not derive immediate advantages from the intern’s activities.

Lunch Orders Glatt and Alexander Footman, who also worked as an unpaid intern at Fox Searchlight, alleged that they were asked to perform routine errands and other tasks, such as making deliveries, organizing file cabinets, making photocopies and taking lunch orders.

Los Angeles-based Fox Searchlight, a unit of 21st Century Fox, the entertainment group being split off News Corp (NWSA). in a restructuring, had argued that the internships should be held to a less stringent “primary benefits test,” which would allow a position to be unpaid if the intern received a greater benefit than the employer. The company argued the interns got more benefits than it did.

Fox Searchlight did obtain “an immediate advantage from Glatt and Footman’s work,” Pauley said in his ruling. “Menial as it was, their work was essential. The fact they were beginners is irrelevant.”

“We are very disappointed with the court’s rulings,” Chris Petrikin, a company spokesman, said in an e-mail. “We believe they are erroneous, and will seek to have them reversed by the Second Circuit as quickly as possible.”

Economic Downturn Most internships in the private sector would not qualify to be unpaid under the stricter test that Pauley upheld, Yamada, of Suffolk University Law School, said.

The number of unpaid internships tends to go up during economic downturns, said Phil Gardner, who directs the Collegiate Employment Research Institute at Michigan State University in East Lansing.

Gardner doubted that Glatt’s legal victory will put a stop to the practice, though it may make employers think twice about not paying interns, he said. That could hurt students, who may face more limited opportunities to gain experience.

“You start at the bottom, and you do what you have to do to get your break,” Gardner said in an interview. “That’s the mindset. It’s really resistant to change.”

Valuable Experience Angela Huynh said as a student at Syracuse University in New York she took an unpaid marketing internship at a unit of Time Warner Inc.’s Warner Bros. studio, where she ran errands and also sat in on production meetings and helped put together press events.

“There were definitely times when I felt like, ‘I don’t really need to be going to get coffee this much,’” Huynh said in an interview. Overall, though, she said the experience was valuable. Now 28 with a master’s degree in creative writing from Columbia University in New York, Huynh said some of the people she used to work with are helping her try to find a job in the industry.

“I didn’t feel like I was being taken advantage of,” she said.

In their lawsuit, Glatt and Footman alleged that Fox Searchlight keeps its production costs down by “employing a steady stream of unpaid interns.”

Such staffers “are becoming the modern-day equivalent of entry-level employees, except that employers are not paying them for the many hours they work,” the former interns alleged in their complaint, filed in September 2011.

Favors Wealth Glatt said one of his motivations for bringing the case is he believes unpaid internships favor students from higher-income households whose parents can afford to cover their expenses or people like him who were starting second careers and had savings to carry them through.

The Labor Department’s internship standards have not always prevailed in disputes over unpaid labor. In April 2011, the U.S. Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, Ohio, affirmed a lower-court’s ruling in finding that the test is “overly rigid” and “a poor method for determining employee status in a training or educational setting.”

The case centered on work requirements at Tennessee Seventh-day Adventist school Laurelbrook Sanitarium and School Inc., which directed its nursing assistant students to perform services for an on-site health care facility.

If Pauley’s decision is challenged and later affirmed by the U.S. Court of Appeals in Manhattan, the case might be considered in conflict with the Ohio federal appeals panel, raising the possibility that the issue could end up before the U.S. Supreme Court.

‘Legal Uncertainty’ The ruling in the Fox Searchlight case “creates a significant legal uncertainty,” said Samuel Estreicher, professor of labor and employment law at New York University. He said he would advise employers not to use unpaid interns in light of the decision.

“I think it’s going to discourage internship programs, even where they largely benefit the intern,” he said.

Bloomberg News pays all the interns it employs, said Liz Wamai, the company’s global head of recruiting.

Outten & Golden LLP, which represents Glatt and Footman, is also handling lawsuits brought by former unpaid interns at News Corp. (NWSA) and Fox Entertainment Group Inc., Hearst Corp., Conde Nast Publications and Rose. The PBS host has settled the case with former interns, said Juno Turner, an attorney with the firm. The Conde Nast and News Corp. cases still pending. Plaintiffs in the Hearst case were dealt a setback in May when U.S. District Judge Harold Baer Jr. in Manhattan declined to uphold the Labor Department test and rejected their request to include other interns in their suit.

Robert Shindell, a vice president at Intern Bridge Inc., a college recruiting and research company based in Austin, Texas, said it wasn’t clear what the broader impact of the court cases may be. Most companies can probably afford to pay interns, who would earn about $3,000 if they were paid the minimum wage over three months.

“Hopefully some of these companies do the moral and just thing and just pay their employees,” Shindell said in an interview.

The case is Eric Glatt et al v. Fox Searchlight Pictures Inc., 1:11-cv-0684, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).

To contact the reporters on this story: Jim Snyder in Washington at jsnyder24@bloomberg.net; Christie Smythe in Brooklyn at csmythe1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Jon Morgan at jmorgan97@bloomberg.net; Michael Hytha at mhytha@bloomberg.net



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The immigration bill is going to say there are not enough skilled workers and especially STEM workers domestically so quotas in the hundreds of thousands of high-end immigrants are going to flood an already high-employment market.  They pronounce unemployment numbers at 7.6% because they expect to say.....look, unemployment is low enough for need of foreign workers!
MEANWHILE----

Why Are So Many College Graduates Driving Taxis?
By Peter Orszag Jun 25, 2013 6:00 PM ET Bloomberg Financial

It’s a parent’s nightmare: shelling out big money for college, then seeing the graduate unable to land a job that requires high-level skills. This situation may be growing more common, unfortunately, because the demand for cognitive skills associated with higher education, after rising sharply until 2000, has since been in decline.

So concludes new research by economists Paul Beaudry and David Green of the University of British Columbia and Benjamin Sand of York University in Toronto. This reversal in demand has caused high-skilled workers to accept lower-level jobs, pushing lower-skilled people even further down the occupational ladder or out of work altogether. If the researchers are right (which is not yet clear), the consequences are huge and troubling -- and not just for college grads and their parents.

About Peter R Orszag» Peter R. Orszag, vice chairman of corporate and investment banking at Citigroup and an adjunct senior fellow at ... MORE

Let’s start with some basic facts. There have always been some graduates who wind up in jobs that don’t require a college degree. But the share seems to be growing. In 1970, only 1 in 100 taxi drivers and chauffeurs in the U.S. had a college degree, according to an analysis of labor statistics by Ohio University’s Richard Vedder, Christopher Denhart and Jonathan Robe. Today, 15 of 100 do.

It’s hard to believe this is because the skill required to drive a taxi has risen substantially since 1970. If anything, GPS technology may have had the opposite effect. (Acquiring “the knowledge” of London streets, as taxi drivers there are required to do, is cognitively challenging, but it may no longer be necessary.)

Educated Firefighters Similarly, in 1970, only about 2 percent of firefighters had a college degree, compared with more than 15 percent now, Vedder and his colleagues found. And, according to research by economists Paul Harrington and Andrew Sum of Northeastern University, about 1 in 4 bartenders has some sort of degree.

Beaudry and his colleagues say that such change has been driven by a decline in the demand for highly skilled work -- the opposite of the conventional wisdom about such demand. The employment rate in “cognitive” occupations -- managerial, professional and technical jobs -- increased markedly from 1980 to 2000, their research found, but it has since stagnated, even as the supply of skilled workers has continued to grow.

What has changed? One possibility, as I’ve previously written, is that the effects of a globalizing workforce are creeping up the income scale. Many jobs that once required cognitive skill can be automated. Anything that can be digitized can be done either by computer or by workers abroad. While the “winner take all” phenomenon may still mean extremely high returns for workers at the very top, that may be relevant for a shrinking share of college graduates.

Whatever the explanation, the Beaudry team argues that an excess of skilled workers has led them into the “routine” job market -- such as sales and clerical jobs -- reducing wages there and pushing less skilled workers into “manual” jobs in construction, farming and so on.

What’s puzzling here is that it seems inconsistent with evidence that the wage premium enjoyed by college graduates has persisted. For example, a recent paper by Philip Oreopoulos and Uros Petronijevic of the University of Toronto (yes, Canadian economists seem to dominate this aspect of the U.S. labor market) found that the earnings premium for college graduates has risen substantially over the past several decades and that investment in college “appears to pay off for both the average and marginal student.”

The still-strong earnings premium strongly suggests that the demand for skill has not collapsed. After all, if cognitive skills became less valuable in the labor market, wouldn’t one expect wages to fall more for college graduates than for others?

Falling Wages Not necessarily, Beaudry and his colleagues argue. They find that while wages for jobs requiring cognitive skills have declined, the shift of high-skilled workers into those jobs has depressed wages for manual workers even more.

That’s a provocative argument. Still, it may be that the Beaudry team’s results are sensitive to the way they define “cognitive” jobs and “manual” ones. Also, it’s not entirely clear how much the recent recession has influenced their results.

In any case, the findings will do little to calm the nerves of graduates who are anxious to find jobs.

The cold comfort I can offer is this: Going to college may still be worthwhile -- if not to be sure of qualifying for skilled jobs, then at least to avoid the even worse prospects of those who don’t get a degree.

(Peter Orszag is vice chairman of corporate and investment banking and chairman of the financial strategy and solutions group at Citigroup Inc. and a former director of the Office of Management and Budget in the Obama administration.)


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Comment from an Illinois resident...note Illinois is heavily democratic.....THIRD WAY CORPORATE NEO-LIBERALS THAT IS! 

REMEMBER, WE HAVE HIGH UNEMPLOYMENT BECAUSE OF FED POLICY, WALL STREET BUBBLES AND FRAUD, AND GLOBAL MARKETS.  IF WE REVERSE CORPORATE RULE BY DOWNSIZING CORPORATIONS SIMPLY BY RECOVERING TENS OF TRILLIONS IN CORPORATE FRAUD,,....DOMESTIC EMPLOYMENT WOULD RECOVER!

All Employment offices are going to be closed, with the state plan to turn them into call centers. You will only see a few walk in offices remain behind. Good luck deciphering their correspondence. Often the beginning of a letter contradicts the conclusion portion of a notification. Think of the IRS on steroids.
The IL Dept of Employment isn't meant to just hand out earned unemployment benefits. They are to fulfill the responsibilities to the WIA law. They are supposed to be assisting in building community bridges for economic development. Now the state takes our money, and is turning its back on our communities. SHAME ON YOU, Madigan, Gov Quinn and the rest of you boondogglers!


Peoria IDES Office Overloaded With Unemployed



PEORIA - Hundreds of unemployed people in central Illinois wait in line every day, hoping to get the service they need in order to receive benefits. But, it often takes hours, and sometimes, multiple days to get answers. This Peoria building looks more like a revolving door.

Bruce Weirauch shares his experience. He said, "It takes an hour to get through the initial line and then I was here yesterday for five hours and didn't even get to talk to anybody."

Clayton Phelps said, "Probably 80 deep just to get to number to see a person."

Employees said more than 100 people line up outside Peoria's Illinois Department of Employment Security building on most days. Weirauch said, "The people that are working inside they're good people they're trying to do the best they can but they're just totally overwhelmed."

The Peoria office lost two-thirds of its staff last fall. On top of that, it's covering for ten other counties.


Weirauch said, "I come to Peoria because they closed all the other offices."

The state won't allow us to get inside, but you can tell by the packed parking lot, how many hundreds of people are inside waiting in line.

Phelps said, "It's a disaster. If you go inside, you have people irritated."

The top communications manager for the IDES said the offices are federally funded. He said in 2010, the department's budget was $275 million dollars. Now, it's nearly cut by a third, it's $190 million.

He said across the state, people are feeling the effects.

For local people looking for some help, it's a tough road with no end in sight. Phelps said, "They laid people off at these offices, closed offices and the unemployment is still high and a lot of people probably just get frustrated and give up.


The Galesburg unemployment office was shut down in March. Pekin lost its office last fall. Peoria employees said they, too, are frustrated like the citizens they work to serve.


_______________________________________________

DO NOT FORGET......ALL OF THE GOVERNMENT DEBT, ALL OF THE UNEMPLOYMENT, ALL OF PEOPLE'S LOST WEALTH WAS PLANNED AND WAS CAUSED BY SYSTEMIC FRAUD!!!!!  YOUR THIRD WAY CORPORATE DEMOCRAT KNEW IT WAS HAPPENING AND THEY ARE FIGHTING TO PROTECT THE FRAUDSTERS......THE IS THE PROBLEM WITH UNEMPLOYMENT AND THE SOLUTION!




This global financial fraud and its gatekeepers The media's 'bad apple' thesis no longer works. We're seeing systemic corruption in banking – and systemic collusion


Protesters outside a Bank of America annual shareholders' meeting in Charlotte, North Carolina. Photograph: Jason Miczek/Reuters Last fall, I argued that the violent reaction to Occupy and other protests around the world had to do with the 1%ers' fear of the rank and file exposing massive fraud if they ever managed get their hands on the books. At that time, I had no evidence of this motivation beyond the fact that financial system reform and increased transparency were at the top of many protesters' list of demands.

But this week presents a sick-making trove of new data that abundantly fills in this hypothesis and confirms this picture. The notion that the entire global financial system is riddled with systemic fraud – and that key players in the gatekeeper roles, both in finance and in government, including regulatory bodies, know it and choose to quietly sustain this reality – is one that would have only recently seemed like the frenzied hypothesis of tinhat-wearers, but this week's headlines make such a conclusion, sadly, inevitable.

The New York Times business section on 12 July shows multiple exposes of systemic fraud throughout banks: banks colluding with other banks in manipulation of interest rates, regulators aware of systemic fraud, and key government officials (at least one banker who became the most key government official) aware of it and colluding as well. Fraud in banks has been understood conventionally and, I would say, messaged as a glitch. As in London Mayor Boris Johnson's full-throated defense of Barclay's leadership last week, bank fraud is portrayed as a case, when it surfaces, of a few "bad apples" gone astray.

In the New York Times business section, we read that the HSBC banking group is being fined up to $1bn, for not preventing money-laundering (a highly profitable activity not to prevent) between 2004 and 2010 – a six years' long "oops". In another article that day, Republican Senator Charles Grassley says of the financial group Peregrine capital: "This is a company that is on top of things." The article goes onto explain that at Peregrine Financial, "regulators discovered about $215m in customer money was missing." Its founder now faces criminal charges. Later, the article mentions that this revelation comes a few months after MF Global "lost" more than $1bn in clients' money.

What is weird is how these reports so consistently describe the activity that led to all this vanishing cash as simple bumbling: "regulators missed the red flag for years." They note that a Peregrine client alerted the firm's primary regulator in 2004 and another raised issues with the regulator five years later – yet "signs of trouble seemingly missed for years", muses the Times headline.

A page later, "Wells Fargo will Settle Mortgage Bias Charges" as that bank agrees to pay $175m in fines resulting from its having – again, very lucratively – charged African-American and Hispanic mortgagees costlier rates on their subprime mortgages than their counterparts who were white and had the same credit scores. Remember, this was a time when "Wall Street firms developed a huge demand for subprime loans that they purchased and bundled into securities for investors, creating financial incentives for lenders to make such loans." So, Wells Fargo was profiting from overcharging minority clients and profiting from products based on the higher-than-average bad loan rate expected. The piece discreetly ends mentioning that a Bank of America lawsuit of $335m and a Sun Trust mortgage settlement of $21m for having engaged is similar kinds of discrimination.

Are all these examples of oversight failure and banking fraud just big ol' mistakes? Are the regulators simply distracted?

The top headline of the day's news sums up why it is not that simple: "Geithner Tried to Curb Bank's Rate Rigging in 2008". The story reports that when Timothy Geithner, at the time he ran the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, learned of "problems" with how interest rates were fixed in London, the financial center at the heart of the Libor Barclays scandal. He let "top British authorities" know of the issues and wrote an email to his counterparts suggesting reforms. Were his actions ethical, or prudent? A possible interpretation of Geithner's action is that he was "covering his ass", without serious expectation of effecting reform of what he knew to be systemic abuse.

And what, in fact, happened? Barclays kept reporting false rates, seeking to boost its profit. Last month, the bank agreed to pay $450m to US and UK authorities for manipulating the Libor and other key benchmarks, upon which great swaths of the economy depended. This manipulation is alleged in numerous lawsuits to have defrauded thousands of bank clients. So Geithner's "warnings came too late, and his efforts did not stop the illegal activity".

And then what happened? Did Geithner, presumably frustrated that his warnings had gone unheeded, call a press conference? No. He stayed silent, as a practice that now looks as if several major banks also perpetrated, continued.

And then what happened? Tim Geithner became Treasury Secretary. At which point, he still did nothing.

It is very hard, looking at the elaborate edifices of fraud that are emerging across the financial system, to ignore the possibility that this kind of silence – "the willingness to not rock the boat" – is simply rewarded by promotion to ever higher positions, ever greater authority. If you learn that rate-rigging and regulatory failures are systemic, but stay quiet, well, perhaps you have shown that you are genuinely reliable and deserve membership of the club.

Whatever motivated Geithner's silence, or that of the "government official" in the emails to Barclays, this much is obvious: the mainstream media need to drop their narratives of "Gosh, another oversight". The financial sector's corruption must be recognized as systemic.

Meanwhile, Britain is sleepwalking in a march toward total email surveillance, even as the US brings forward new proposals to punish whistleblowers by extending the Espionage Act. In an electronic world, evidence of these crimes lasts forever – if people get their hands on the books. In the Libor case, notably, a major crime has not been greeted by much demand at the top for criminal prosecutions. That asymmetry is one of the insurance policies of power. Another is to crack down on citizens' protest.




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June 26th, 2013

6/26/2013

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Twenty years ago before Clinton and small government took over the democratic party we used to have a public sector that was filled with inspectors and investigative units charged with oversight routine that made it impossible for business to break or ignore law.  Now we are at the height of neo-liberalism that says anything that causes business cost or limits profit needs to be eliminated and so these inconvenient systems of oversight were defunded and staff fired.


Let's take a look at the status of Rule of Law locally and then look abroad.  We know here in Baltimore poverty, crime, and violence is caused by corporate crime and government corruption and plays out through public policy.  So when City Hall shouts out that they are committed to addressing crime and they only talk tough on enforcement, they are simply giving you and I a line. 
Here are the problems again: 

Unemployment is at 50% for the black community with those working mostly earning poverty wages.  People are forced to commit crime in order to survive.

City Hall from O'Malley to Rawlings-Blake recruited nationally to bring Hispanics to the city and state to exploit as labor and circumvent all labor laws of wage, workplace protections, and payroll/insurance payments.  We love immigrants but we want equal protection for immigrants so the hiring playing field is level and we have revenue coming to government coffers.

City Hall has allowed national development/investment companies control all public policy from what taxes they won't pay, ignoring contract agreements centered on wages and hiring, and allowing out of state workers from Right to Work states fill all private contracting jobs.  City Hall has made private non-profits in Baltimore the growth industry because they are the shadow government writing policy and routing revenue but they replace public sector jobs with volunteers and student VISTAS taking away ever more jobs from locals.

IS THERE ANY OTHER WAY A CITY COULD WORK TO MAKE ALL OF ITS LABOR DISCONNECTED FROM THE CITY ITSELF?  THIS IS WHAT A THIRD WORLD ECONOMY LOOKS LIKE AND IT IS TOWARDS WHAT THIRD WAY CORPORATE DEMOCRATS AND THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTE/JOHNS HOPKINS IS WORKING!

All labor in Baltimore is becoming transient at the lower/middle class sector.  How do corporations keep workers from organizing and building seniority and higher wages?  MAKING THEM TRANSIENT.  WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A SOCIETY IS FILLED WITH TRANSIENT AND IMPOVERISHED PEOPLE?  IT BECOMES THIRD WORLD AS REGARDS QUALITY OF LIFE, CRIME, CORRUPTION.....

      IT BECOMES       BALTIMORE!

Baltimore and New York City is ground zero for where Wall Street wants to take the nation in what is called the New Economy.  The Immigration Reform bill will extend this by bringing green card workers to the higher end jobs and exploiting and being exploited. It will be coming to your neck of the woods if not already there.  IT IS NOT A DONE DEAL....ALL OF THIS CAN BE REVERSED FAR FASTER THAN IT TOOK TO INSTATE.  Let's look at how they are trying their hardest to keep this on track.  Remember, media must be captured because you do not want any of this getting to the public!  WYPR IS JOHNS HOPKINS AND YOU CAPTURE THE 'PUBLIC' MEDIA THAT WOULD BE THE PEOPLE'S VOICE FOR EXAMPLE!


Locally we can see these New Economy types at play with the City State's Attorney race.


Duties of State's Attorney


The principal duties of the State's Attorneys are usually mandated by law and include
representing the State in all criminal trials for crimes which occurred in the State's Attorneys geographical jurisdiction. The geographical jurisdiction of a State's Attorney may be delineated by the boundaries of a county, judicial circuit, or judicial district.

Their duties generally include charging crimes through informations and/or grand jury indictments. After levying criminal charges, the State's Attorney will then prosecute those charged with a crime. This includes conducting discovery, plea bargaining, and trial.


In some jurisdictions, the State's Attorney may act as chief counsel for city police, county police, state police and all state law enforcement agencies within the State's Attorney's jurisdiction.

Assistant or Deputy State's Attorneys


Assistant State's Attorney (ASA) (or, Deputy State's Attorneys) is the title applied to all attorneys working in a State's Attorney's office, with the exception of the State's Attorney. An ASA is hired or appointed to the position by the elected State's Attorney and derives the power to act on behalf of the State in criminal prosecutions through the State's Attorney. The duties of an ASA include those of the State's Attorney—representing the State (prosecution) in criminal proceedings. The caseload of an ASA is generally regarded as being high in volume, with an ASA having anywhere from a few dozen to several hundred active cases at any given time.


Mosby is endorsed by Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake — which Conaway says is evidence he's a "front man" for the mayor's political machine. Mosby says that's not true.


Marilyn Mosby Makes Baltimore State’s Attorney Bid Official


Posted by Adam Bednar (Editor), June 24, 2013 at 02:50 pm

Marilyn Mosby makes her campaign for Baltimore City State's Attorney official. Marilyn Mosby accused Baltimore City State’s Attorney Gregg Bernstein of being ineffective, and said his office’s failure to keep violent criminals off the street were the motivation behind her candidacy.

Mosby, a former prosecutor, will challenge Bernstein in the Democratic primary. She’s the wife of Councilman Nick Mosby, who represents Woodberry, Medfield and parts of Hampden. 

"I’m horrified by the crimes that still plague this city, the robberies, the rapes, the burglaries, the murders. This weekend alone… eight people killed, 18 shot in 11 separate incidents," Mosby said. "I’m horrified, and I’m even more horrified by the repeat violent offenders who keep getting off."

Bernstein narrowly defeated former Baltimore State’s Attorney Patricia Jessamy by 1,167 votes in the 2010 primary.

The Democratic primary is scheduled for June 24, 2014. 



District 7: Nick Mosby
410-396-4810
410-347-0537 (fax)
Room 513, City Hall
Nick.Mosby@baltimorecity.gov

Committees: Vice Chair, Labor * Education * Executive Appointments * Housing and Community Development * Public Safety.


2500 Block McCulloh Street Neighborhood Club
Alba Neighborhood Association
Alliance of Rosemont Community Organizations, Inc.-(ARCO)
Ashburton and Presbury Better Neigborhood Association
Ashburton Community Association
Ash-Co-East/Coppin Heights Neighborhood Association, Inc.
Brick Hill Community Group
Charles Village Civic Association-(CVCA)
Charles Village Community Benefits District
Charles-North Community Association
Citizens Concerned For The Hanlon Community
Citizens For Community Improvement-(CCI)
Clergy United to Transform Sandtown-(CUTS)
Cloverdale-Druid Hill-Francis-Retreat Neighborhood Association
Communities Organized To Improve Life-(COIL)
Community Survival Center/The Community School
Concerned Citizens of Grayson Street
Concerned Citizens of Woodberry Association
Coppin Heights Neighborhood Housing Services-(NHS)
Druid Heights Community Development Corporation, Inc.
Easterwood Neighborhood Improvement Association
Ellamont Christian Community Neighborhood Association
Fairmount Neighborhood Association, Inc.
Falls North Homeowners Association Inc.
Friends of Gwynns Falls/Leakin Park
Friends of Wyman Park Dell
Fulton Community Association, Inc.
Fulton Heights Community Organization
Greater Remington Improvement Association
Hampden Community Council
Hampden Community Services, Inc.
Hampden Village Main Street
Hampden Village Merchants Association
Heathbrook Community Organization, Inc.
Hilton/North Merchants Association
Hoes' Heights Improvement Association, Inc.
Laurens House
Liberty Square Neighborhood Association
Matthew A. Henson Community Association
Medfield Community Association
Mondawmin Merchants Association, Inc.
Mondawmin Neighborhood Improvement Association, Inc.
Nehemiah Homeowners' Association of Sandtown-Winchester
New Auchentoroly Terrace Association
Old Goucher Business Alliance
Old Goucher Community Association, Inc.
Old Mill Town Association
Panway Neighborhood Improvement Association
Parkview Improvement Association, Inc.
Parkway Community Association
Penn-North Nehemiah Homeowners' Association
Penn-North Revitalization Corporation
Pennsylvania Avenue Merchants Association
Pennsylvania Avenue Redevelopment Collaborative
People's Homesteading Group, Inc.
Remington Neighborhood Alliance
Reservoir Hill Improvement Council, Inc.
Robert W. Coleman Community Organization
Rosemont/Dukeland Tenant Council
Sandtown Habitat Homeowners' Association
Sandtown-Winchester Community Building In Partnership
Sandtown-Winchester Improvement Association
Sanford-Cumberland Task Force Association
Save Lake Drive Association
Stone Hill Residents' Association
Upton Planning Committee, Inc.
Walbrook Community Association
Walbrook Neighborhood Community Council
Walker Mews Residents Association
Western Human Services Center
Westwood Avenue Neighborhood Association
Windsor Residential Improvement Association
Winston-Govans Neighborhood Improvement Association
Woodbrook Avenue Neighborhood Association
Woodyear Neighborhood Association
Wyman Park Community Association



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Below you see that there is no politics in the city and that the entire system is captured and crony.  It is ridiculous to watch if you have lived in cities where democracy actually exists.
The Baltimore City Democratic State Central Committee is simply a farm team development of this cronyism full of crime and corruption.  You will notice this is the Hopkins East development.


A sorry spectacle in the 45th DistrictProcess to replace Delegate Harrison was rife with conflicts of interest, procedural glitches

February 25, 2013|By Brenda Pridgen

On Feb. 15, the Baltimore City Democratic State Central Committee-45th District convened at the Oliver Community Center to select a candidate to assume the seat once held by Del. Hattie Harrison, a longtime political stalwart in East Baltimore who died last month. Ten candidates interviewed for the position, three of whom were also members of the committee conducting the interviews, before Nina Harper, director of the Oliver Community Association, was chosen for the position.

At no time did the chair or committee members appear to think it was inappropriate for them to participate as final arbiters of the decision as to who should succeed Delegate Harrison. On several occasions, committee Chairman Scherod Barnes was questioned about the obvious conflicts of interests to which he responded that he had no qualms about the process. Those with the temerity to question the process were told the Maryland Constitution allows such a vote and that the candidates were all known to the district and have done good work — followed by another two minutes of complete obfuscation.

Yet several issues remain unaddressed. It is unclear why the committee would not utilize its two at-large members to replace those seeking the position; although this would not have changed the outcome of the vote, it would have given the appearance that the proceedings were above board. It is also unclear why committee members who were also candidates — and who had just finished telling those in attendance what strong leaders they were, and why they deserved to be sent to Annapolis to represent the 45th District — would not recuse themselves from the vote.

It appears that ethics is an overlooked area when seeking a legislative replacement. Here was a unique opportunity for the three candidates/committee members to rise to the occasion and show leadership and honor — and they failed the test miserably, opting for typical East Baltimore politics instead. A huge disappointment.

Finally, why did one committee member consistently submit an ineligible ballot by selecting two persons when the instructions specifically asked panel members to vote for only one? Is the work of the central committee so unimportant that abrogation of duty is thought to be comical? Unfortunately, this was not the most bizarre act of the evening.

Then there were the candidate questions. It is unclear why the interview questions were so pedestrian in nature. They included: Who are the city and state legislators in the 45th District? What do you believe is the role of a state legislator? Tell us about a situation when you had to deal with a very upset person; what was your approach and how did you deal with it? Why do you believe you are the best qualified person for the position?

Yes, it is important for the potential candidate to know basic civics; however, the 45th District needs a person who can think critically and offer policy and position statements on the myriad of challenges facing the district, such as state budget, education, jobs, housing, health care, the environment, gun crime and other public safety issues, taxes and fees, gambling, etc. None of these questions was asked of the candidates.

It is unclear what skill sets the committee was seeking in this temporary appointment, which has the capacity to extend into a four-year term. Are the difficulties of the 45th so unremarkable that we have no need to set a high bar in terms of requiring candidates to be deep thinkers with some degree of mental dexterity?

If the politics, ethics, leadership and questions asked on the 15th are any indication of the 45th's capacity, then the trajectory of this district will continue to be in serious trouble economically, politically and otherwise.

Brenda Pridgen, a resident and voter in the 45th Legislative District, is a health care analyst. Her email is concentric1@verizon.net.


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This is an example of how bad oversight and law enforcement in Baltimore has become. We went for decades unable to call police because they would not come for anything other than violent crimes.  See how the crime stats go down?  The same with these pedestrian law and order enforcements that hold business accountable to community concerns.  We have police ticketing the homeless for loitering but we cannot get a public agency fully staffed to perform oversight that is preventative and not reactive.....and in this case they don't even react!  In Third World countries businesses operating illegally simply pay protection money to these inspectors and oversight agencies .......AND THAT IS WHAT BALTIMORE EMULATES!

Twenty years ago before Clinton and small government took over the democratic party we used to have a public sector that was filled with inspectors and investigative units charged with oversight routine that made it impossible for business to break or ignore law.  Now we are at the height of neo-liberalism that says anything that causes business cost or profit needs to be eliminated and so these inconvenient systems of oversight were defunded and staff fired.


311 complaints ignored, communities fight bars themselves Audit finds liquor inspectors not up to scratch, something community leaders had suspected



By Ian Duncan and Alison Matas, The Baltimore Sun 7:05 p.m. EDT, April 6, 2013

Black scuff marks line the staircase at 922 N. Charles St., left there by frustrated tenants kicking the wall in a vain attempt to make their neighbor, the Museum Restaurant and Lounge, quiet down. Most nights, tenants say, the sound of DJs hyping up the crowd rattles china cabinets and nerves alike.

"It's thump, thump, thump from the music," said Will Penn, 48, who lives in one of the apartments next door. Penn, like many other Baltimoreans who live near bars, said he has filed complaints using the city's 311 system but has seen nothing change.

"Next day I'd get an email saying, 'Your issue has been resolved,' " he said. Exasperated, he plans to move in with his girlfriend at the end of May.

Walter Webb, who runs the Museum, denied that it had a noise problem and said he has been targeted unfairly because he is one of the few black business owners in the neighborhood.

But complaints about the authorities' response highlight larger problems at the Baltimore Board of Liquor License Commissioners. State auditors reported last week that half the complaints made to the board via the 311 system were closed with no evidence of any investigation — something the agency's executive secretary acknowledged is "lazy and wrong."

The scathing report confirmed what many community leaders say they have long suspected: that the state agency is either unable or unwilling to respond to concerns. The audit also said liquor inspectors failed to carry out routine reviews, and closed some complaints before starting an investigation because they did not want city statistics on open issues to reflect poorly on them.

"Usually [I would] not speak out against an organization that's there to help us, but the liquor board inspectors don't help us," said Kevin Bernhard, president of the Highlandtown Community Association. "I've never seen one in my seven years in Baltimore City."

Close to 1,400 Baltimore businesses hold liquor licenses — including stores, bars and restaurants. Each must comply with a long list of regulations covering who can buy alcohol and when, along with restrictions on noise levels and crowd control.

The liquor board is a state agency and not directly controlled by city authorities, but it gives revenues from fees and fines to the city, and the city's budget funds its operations.

The board employs a squadron of 10 inspectors to check on problems; several inspectors have been laid off since the audit because of budget cuts. Webb said they have been out to the Museum numerous times in recent months and deemed the complaints unfounded.

"They're not playing with me," he said. "I think they're doing their job."

He acknowledged some problems with an older music system at the Museum but said it was replaced more than two months ago.

"We're willing to work with anyone to correct any problems," he said.

But in general, the audit found that in the inspectors' work is often not documented and that routine inspections are carried out only spottily. Two inspectors made just 41 visits in an entire year reviewed by auditors, who calculated that each inspector should be able to handle 872 inspections a year.

Samuel T. Daniels Jr., the executive secretary of the licensing agency, acknowledged many of the problems and said he was happy to talk about them because he has been "inspired to retire" sometime this year.

"It's lazy and wrong," he said of inspectors not properly investigating 311 complaints. He said the problems could be remedied by replacing a few of the inspectors.

The average salary for an inspector is $43,875, according to city data.

If the inspectors find that establishments are violating liquor laws, the board can levy fines and even take away licenses. But community leaders say they must do the work of inspectors themselves. A group of 10 neighbors can protest the transfer of a license or its annual renewal.

Mount Vernon residents have followed that path with the Museum, campaigning to have its license revoked when it comes up for renewal this year and filing pages of signed petitions with the liquor board. A hearing is set for April 18.

The Baltimore Sun was unable to review the Museum's liquor board file, which is supposed to include records of complaints and inspections, because it had been removed to City Hall in advance of the hearing.


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Remember, these guys are saying if we are going to have a majority of 'minorities' and immigrants we need to impoverish them to a point they are subservient and take away all contact to Rule of Law....like other third world countries. That is what has happened these few decades.


Two Hours After The Supreme Court Gutted The Voting Rights Act, Texas AG Suppresses Minority Voters

By Aviva Shen on Jun 25, 2013 at 3:30 pm




Let’s be Brazil
June 25, 2013by Marty Kaplan   Moyers and Company

I have outrage envy.

For nearly two weeks, more than a million citizens across Brazil have taken to the streets to protest political corruption, economic injustice, poor health care, inadequate schools, lousy mass transit, a crumbling infrastructure and — yes, in the land of Pelé — billions blown on sports.

“Brazil, wake up, any good teacher is worth more than Neymar!”  That’s what the crowds have been shouting. Neymar da Silva Santos, Jr. is the 21-year-old Brazilian star who’s getting nearly $90 million to play for Futbol Club Barcelona. “When your son is ill, take him to the stadium,” read one protester’s sign, razzing the $13.3 billion Brazil is spending to host the 2014 FIFA World Cup and the $18 billion it will cost the country to host the 2016 Summer Olympics. Even this soccer-mad nation is saying there’s something out of whack with public priorities, and it’s time to set things right.

The massive demonstrations have stunned Brazilians themselves, for their size, their spontaneity and their civic fury. “If you’re not outraged,” an American bumper sticker goes, “you’re not paying attention.” Brazilians are paying attention to their problems, and they’re mad as hell. So why aren’t we?

The Brazilian protests were sparked by a bus fare increase in São Paulo. It’s grimly comical to see American news media explain why a 9-cent hike is such a big deal by resorting to the usual trope for covering social unrest in the developing world, like when the price of wheat goes up a few pennies. To help us understand why this matters so much, our press relates the cost of bread or buses to the minimum wage in distant lands and points out the dependency of their diets on staples and of their jobs on public transportation. Even though millions of Americans below the poverty line can’t make a living wage, and millions more are barely hanging on by their fingernails, the infotainment narrative of life in America is so divorced from the pervasive reality of struggling to survive that journalists assume we’d be bewildered that bus fares could start such a fire.

There are, of course, plenty of dissimilarities between the U.S. and Brazil, a developing nation ruled by military dictatorship until 1985, but there are also plenty of all-too-close analogies between what’s pissing off Brazilians and what ought to piss off Americans.

Income inequality. Brazil is in the world’s bottom 10 percent on income inequality, ranking 121st out of 133 countries. But the U.S. ranks 80th, just below Sri Lanka, Mauritania and Nicaragua.

Wealth distribution. There are only six countries in the world whose wealth distribution – accumulated holdings, not annual funds earned — is more unequal than Brazil. But the U.S. is one of those six.

Education. The annual rate of growth in student achievement in math, reading and science in Brazil is four percent of a standard deviation. But U.S. educational achievement is growing at less than half that rate: 1.6 percent, just below Iran.

Corruption. Brazil ranks 121 in public trust in the ethical standards of politicians, out of 144 countries. But the U.S. comes in only at 54, just above Gabon.

Infrastructure. The quality of Brazil’s infrastructure puts it at a dismal 107, out of 144 countries. But the U.S. ranks 25th – below most other advanced industrial countries and even behind some developing nations, like Oman and Barbados.

Health care. Brazil’s health care system ranks 125th out of 190 countries. But the U.S., jingoistic rhetoric notwithstanding, is only 38th. Among our peer nations – wealthy democracies – we’re dead last, and it’s only gotten worse over the past several decades.

So why aren’t Americans at the barricades?

Our spirits have been sickened by the toxins baked into our political system, which legalizes graft and is held hostage by special interests and a gerrymandered minority. As a result, we are legislatively incapable of dealing with big problems like joblessness, climate change, gun safety, infrastructure, hunger or – based on recent House Republican chaos – immigration. The public investments we’re not making – in schools, teachers, roads, bridges, clean energy – are killing us. Our tax code is the least progressive in the industrial world. The most massive transfer of wealth in history, plus a cult of fiscal austerity, is destroying our middle class. Tuition is increasingly unaffordable, and retirement is increasingly unavailable. The banks that stole trillions of dollars of Americans’ worth have not only gone unpunished; they’re still at it.

For a moment, it looked like the Occupy movement might change some of that. It’s striking how closely the complaints within Brazil about their protesters are already tracking the criticism of Occupy made in the U.S.:  The only thing keeping them going is the police’s overreaction. They have too many demands. Their demands are incoherent. Their demands lack focus. They’re leaderless. They’re young and naïve. They’re drunk. They’re violent. They’re vandals, delinquents, drunks, druggies, terrorists.

Here at home, those charges, and the advent of cold weather, proved fatal. So oligarchs rock, plutocrats roll and Occupy rolled over. Today, with both political parties hooked on special interest money, with demagogues given veto power and media power, hope feels naïve.  You’d have to have just fallen off the turnip truck to look at our corrupt and dysfunctional government and believe that we are the change we’ve been waiting for.

That learned helplessness is what democracy’s vampires drink. Wouldn’t it be sweet if Brazil’s protest movement turned out to be the garlic we’ve been waiting for?

0 Comments

June 25th, 2013

6/25/2013

0 Comments

 
Below I look at the state of the nation from a local level but the feeling is just the same all across the country and whether you are poor, working class, or middle class.......THERE IS OUTRAGE OVER LOSS OF PERSONAL WEALTH, RETIREMENTS, SAVINGS, AND ABILITY TO EARN MONEY and it is all tied to global corporations, free market and free trade policies that allow corporate rule with no oversight and accountability.  Please stand up for the injustice that happens locally as AN INJUSTICE FOR ONE IS AN INJUSTICE FOR ALL!!



Regarding the escalating violence in the city:

This is how you know that US press is captured.....it is now a propaganda machine for US corporate interests.  As we listen to our leaders call Snowden a criminal guilty of espionage we are watching the world look at America as a Banana Republic.....we are being made to look like fools as the US identifies everyone around it a behaving criminally when it is the US government and US corporations behaving criminally.  Americans and the entire world know this to be true!  It is only the leadership in America who are complicit with all of the crime that are seeing their schemes unraveling that decry all as treachery.  The American people are charging the BOOZ corporation and the US government with espionage as we all know they were operating outside the parameters of any law that could be passed broadening the definition of surveillance and that is what the whistle blower Snowden is trying to make public.  If you have a government aiding and abetting crime you cannot go to that government for resolution, and so you take it to the international community.

So what does espionage and the War on the Poor and working class have to do with press coverage?  I stated before that I attended the Johns Hopkins symposium on gun control and talked with Daniel Webster as to the flaw in Hopkins' approach to gun control.  I made the obvious statement that it was the 'bad guys' at the top of the income ladder that were the problem and that draining the economy and government coffers of tens of trillions of dollars has deepened poverty and escalated crime and violence.....ergo.....the increased buying, trading, and using of guns.  IT IS THE BAD GUYS AT THE TOP OF THE INCOME LADDER DANIEL!  Daniel didn't see any problems at the top of the ladder and simply said 'we don't want to hear excuses'!  So, the problem and solution is now an excuse to be discarded.  What is really behind the gun control issue is the fear that the guns are going to be turned on the leaders committing the crimes.  We have had gun violence in Baltimore for decades with as high as 300 people a year being killed as poverty grew.  Weapons manufacturers were allowed to reap huge profits as long as the poor and working class were killing themselves.  Now, as wealth inequity and Rule of Law has disappeared we know that the violence will spread and plans for rebellion will grow......AND THAT IS TOWARDS WHAT THIS GUN CONTROL IS DIRECTED.  No doubt we want gun control......getting military weapons off the streets and away from the public is a good thing.  You simply do not want to do that in the middle of a government coup when American citizens are being preyed upon by corporations and their pols!  

As I watch the go to guy Webster lament that the criminalizing rules of the gun control law were not passed and that the existing laws will probably be overturned in the Supreme Court......I AM TELLING DANIEL WEBSTER THAT THE PROBLEM IS THE 'BAD GUYS AT THE TOP OF THE INCOME LADDER'!

National Press Club to Host "NEWSMAKER" Media Briefing on Reducing Gun Violence in America with Daniel Webster, Director of Center for Gun Policy and Research, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health


The Baltimore City Council is very pleased that Chief Batts will bring in the FBI and State Police to stop this violence of people simply outraged over the direction of development and plans for the city.  Never once does anyone in the police department or City Hall mention the public policy and the suspended Rule of Law that creates this mess.

CITY HALL AND THE MARYLAND ASSEMBLY TIED TO THE SUSPENSION OF RULE OF LAW IS THE PROBLEM......


Despair, resolve in Baltimore after 20 shot over the weekend Eight killed in bloody outburst; councilman calls hearing

1/7 By Justin Fenton, Justin George and Luke Broadwater, The Baltimore Sun 9:15 p.m. EDT, June 24, 2013

Surrounded by farmland at an Iowa facility for troubled youths, Gervontae Burgess' circumstances could hardly have been more different from those in his violent Baltimore neighborhood. Brad Knight, Burgess' football coach, remembers a bright young man with a broad smile and a desire to help others.

"Gervontae was one of those kids who soaked everything in. He wanted to be a great teammate and wanted to learn," said Knight, who coached Burgess at the Clarinda Academy. "My worry was always that when they went home, we were going to throw them right back to the wolves."

Burgess did come back, and he soon found himself locked up multiple times. Last weekend, the 20-year-old was one of eight people fatally shot across Baltimore. He died Saturday in a Pennsylvania Avenue shooting that also killed a 49-year-old woman.

Police scrambled Monday to stop the violence after a weekend in which 20 people were shot — the city's worst outbreak in years. Monday evening was marked with yet another shooting, this time with two men injured by gunfire in the Shipley Hill neighborhood. That shooting was reported about 8:20 p.m. near the intersection of Hollins Street and South Catherine Street in Southwest Baltimore.

As City Council members decried the bloodshed, Police Commissioner Anthony W. Batts visited the site of an East Baltimore quintuple shooting that took the life of Donyae Jones, an 18-year-old woman.

In his first public appearance since the shootings, Batts took a brief stroll through a block of Kenwood Avenue and embraced Joanna Harvell, who said she was Jones' mother-in-law.

"I'm scared to come out the door. I'm in fear for my grandkids to come out here," Harvell said. Her son, Anthony Harvell, said he was married to Jones and his life would never be the same. "She was the only girl I ever loved. I feel like I'm dead, too."

Gregory Stewart, 51, who lives one block south, said he appreciated the police visit to his neighborhood but wondered whether the violence would spur any lasting change.

"In two, three weeks when they drop back, it'll be the same situation," he said.

After the weekend, a total of 110 people had been slain in Baltimore this year, and homicides were up 10 percent compared with the same time last year. In Washington, by comparison, there have been 38 homicides in 2013.

"For us, this is a concern," Batts told reporters on Kenwood Avenue. "This is a spike. We will respond to the spike and be assertive about it."

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, who is attending a conference in Las Vegas, said in a statement that the "this weekend's senseless violence will not diminish our resolve to target repeat violent offenders, gangs and illegal guns."

Flanked by police commanders from across the city, Batts said he was working with federal and state partners to crack down, including an increased role for the city sheriff's office. He said he met with City Council members last week and that they are "very supportive, very happy with the job we're doing."

But downtown, City Council members were questioning police Monday. Councilman Brandon Scott, who represents Northeast Baltimore, called for a hearing to look into the weekend's shootings, saying he wanted to make sure the Police Department was prepared for an upward trend in summer violence.

He said he was holding the department to the standard of 2011, when Baltimore saw a 30-year low in homicides.

"If we're not at 2011 numbers, then we're failing," Scott said. "As of right now, we're failing. Why aren't we having the success we had in the past?"

City Councilman Carl Stokes said he took exception to statements by police officials who said they were generally satisfied with this year's crime statistics. He said he spoke to many residents who were also upset by those statements.

"I really have no words," Stokes said. "I am as stunned as my community."

Councilwoman Helen Holton, who represents Southwest Baltimore, said residents are fed up with the violence and the inability of city government to quell it.

"We have low morale. People don't believe in the vision of this city," she said. "The citizens aren't buying into the plans for the future. There's a sense of people throwing their hands up the in air in total frustration."


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IF YOU THINK IT IS ONLY A WAR ON THE POOR.....DON'T FORGET SENIORS.....YOU HAVE HAD ALL YOUR WEALTH STOLEN AS WELL!!!!  THEY ARE AFTER ALL ASSETS AND IT WILL NOT BE PRETTY WHAT THESE SOCIOPATHS PLAN FOR SENIORS.

40 years ago when the public policy of the day thought that consolidating the poor into high rise apartments surrounded by public services was the most efficient way to handle this social safety net program?  What you got was decades of underfunding, massive fraud and government corruption moving all funds going to these projects into the hands of connected people and a slow deterioration of the buildings, quality of life, and society surrounding these 'housing projects'.  Now they are going to do the same thing with the elderly that are coming with the baby boomers.  They have taken all the boomer's wealth through corporate fraud and handed the care of seniors to hedge funds like Carlyle and have Affordable Care Act that consolidates the health system into global corporations all leading to what will be a tremendous 'ghetto' for the seniors.

If you do not believe that politicians working for corporate interests will not defund and neglect the buildings, the people, and the quality of life for seniors then I have swampland in Florida for you!  WE KNOW THAT IS THE GOAL!  It is the same when they consolidate here in Baltimore into complexes that no one wants to be tracked into.  Seniors do not want to be isolated in senior communities....they intend on living freely in the greater communities collecting all of their wealth stolen from them through massive corporate fraud!


NOTHING MORE CONVENIENT AS MEDICARE AND MEDICAID ARE CUT AND MOST WILL NOT BE ABLE TO AFFORD CARE THEN TO NESTLE THEM IN SECLUSION

GET RID OF THIRD WAY CORPORATE NEO-LIBERALS AND RUN AND VOTE FOR LABOR AND JUSTICE CANDIDATES!

Massive Annapolis proposal spurs neighborhood battle
180-acre project would include senior care, shopping and townhousesJanet Richardson is working to develop a section of her Crystal Spring Farm into senior living and a mixed use development. The plan is controversial in Annapolis, with opponents saying the project will destroy some of the last forestland on Forest Drive. (Photo by Algerina Perna / Baltimore Sun / June 5, 2013)

By Pamela Wood, The Baltimore Sun 8:10 p.m. EDT, June 24, 2013

To its developers, Crystal Spring Annapolis represents a new wave of retirement living: Senior apartments and nursing home rooms nestled in the woods. A cluster of specialty shops a short walk or golf cart ride away. An inn and village green attracting people of all ages.

To the proposed project's detractors, Crystal Spring represents another attempt to burden congested roads with an oversized development in one of the state capital's last remaining forested areas.

Battle lines have been drawn over the project, which at 180 acres and 540 units is one of the largest Annapolis has seen in years. It's also one of the most contentious, leading to a fight featuring protests, petitions and even dueling Twitter accounts.


The developers have made a public relations push, and opponents have been pushing back just as insistently — all before the project is even under official consideration by city officials.

"This will be the largest development the city has ever seen and probably will ever see," said Ray Sullivan, who lives in the Hillsmere neighborhood just outside city limits and has been fighting the proposal as part of the Annapolis Neck Peninsula Federation. "I don't know how else there would ever be a development this big. There's no land."

Opponents of Crystal Spring Annapolis will hold a meeting Wednesday to marshal their forces and educate the public about their views.

The same night, the developers will hold the latest in a series of information sessions for potential residents of the senior community.

The landowner and a Connecticut-based development company say the opposition is limited to a couple dozen vocal critics. They say there's a large but quiet contingent of people who support Crystal Spring Annapolis for the jobs it would bring and for the alternative option for senior living. 
OH, REALLY????

"Nobody's hearing about the people who are for the project, because they don't want to fight the battles in the media," said Janet Richardson-Pearson, owner of the property.

Marshall Breines, the Connecticut developer who has a contract to buy the land and build on the site, said the city's permitting process will allow him to present the project in clearer detail and "overcome [the opposition] with facts."

Environmentalists and neighbors say they're eager for that review process, too.

"Because they haven't put in an application, it becomes kind of murky," Sullivan said. "They've been out there taking ads and they're giving the impression that it's approved and it hasn't been."

Crystal Spring Annapolis would be located on Richardson-Pearson's 180-acre Crystal Spring Farm, along the southern edge of Annapolis on busy Forest Drive, not far from Annapolis Middle School.

The project would include a "continuing care retirement community" run by National Lutheran Communities & Services. It calls for 362 apartments and single-story cottages for seniors, plus 52 beds for nursing care and assisted living, tucked away from Forest Drive on the rear of the property.

On the front half of the property, separated from the retirement community by woods and a stream, would be a shopping area anchored by a Harris Teeter grocery store. Also planned are an 80-room inn and spa, a 300-seat cultural arts center, 126 townhouses for people of all ages, a 2-acre village green and a new location for the Annapolis Wellness House, which offers services for people with cancer.

Richardson-Pearson has agreed to make water-quality improvements that she says will offset the project's impact on the Chesapeake Bay watershed. Crystal Spring has the endorsement of the South River Federation.

Richardson-Pearson says the project will marry her interests: establishing a desirable place for people to retire, helping people with cancer and providing services that people in Annapolis can use.

Richardson-Pearson said buildings will be designed to evoke a village-like feel. "I'm not the typical property owner trying to squeeze every dollar out of every square inch," she said.

Richardson-Pearson is hoping Crystal Spring will attract people such as Douglas Hole. He and his wife, Donna, live in a neighborhood a few miles away and like the idea of moving to a retirement community without having to find a new church or new doctors.

"I think for us, as we grow older, this might be a very, very good approach for us," said Hole, 71, a retired Air Force colonel. Donna Hole, 68, used to be the chief of historic preservation for the city of Annapolis. "The whole thing is right here. We're not inclined to pack up and go to Florida."



0 Comments

June 24th, 2013

6/24/2013

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Regarding the booming Maryland foreclosure business:

Remember, this entire subprime mortgage fraud was designed not only to move billions of taxpayer money to the top and trillions in personal wealth from the middle/lower class, it was designed to clear out working-class and low-income people from the city centers billed to become affluent with the movement of corporations and the rich from suburbs to a much easier defended urban center. That is why outright fraud was allowed to continue for years and it is why Rule of Law was suspended and bailouts went to those committing crimes and not to those who were victims. It was necessary that the Federal government not intercede to protect the public as the goal was to send as many homes into foreclosure as possible to give housing ownership over to a small group of investers. It is also the reason behind the Fed's policies of 0% interest and QE.....the longer the economy was stagnant the more families would lose the ability to make mortgage payments sending ever more foreclosures to these investors for development. SO, THE FACT THAT MARYLAND HAS AN EVER-GROWING FORECLOSURE RATE IS A SIGN THAT THIS SCHEME IS INDEED PLAYING OUT! Remember, the postage stamp subprime mortgage fraud settlement was to help people stay in their homes but as Maryland Consumer Rights Coalition stated earlier this year, the Attorney General's office is failing to oversee this process and it is not happening. Instead, all that money is being sent to affluent development projects padding profits for developers who are getting wide expanses of real estate in the city for next to nothing and then proceeds from fraud to fund this. They have to hurry because QE is ending soon as most of the foreclosure bundling ends and the dirt cheap price of buying and selling homes given to these investors now needs to go up so these developers can now make big profits and sell only to high-end buyers. That's how you clear a city of its residents and you do it using these same residents as the main revenue source of taxes.

This is massive fraud....we know it involves trillions of dollars to come back to these people losing their homes. It involves trillions more in damages to those losing their homes when they should have received help from a collapsed economy caused by the fraud. Selling wide tracks of city property to developers who then fail to meet equal housing requirements for mixed income is also illegal. As we heard in the NPR report today about Chicago and its attack on public housing land use, they are going to court to start the fight and Rahm Emmanuel will go back to being an investment banker next term because Chicago still has a democratic system of community activists that will see to that.

The important thing with this loss of middle/lower class income is that it is only temporary. When Rule of Law is suspended so to is Statutes of Limitation and all of this 'aiding and abetting' by justice and politicians will find justice and the amounts paid by the banks will be in the tens of trillions so as to include all the other massive frauds they have been allowed to carry out with no justice. The American people will have a bonanza of wealth in the very near future! The people losing their homes are seniors and working class who invested in these homes as their retirements. They are families made poor by long-term unemployment who supported these homes through shared used by extended families. These were people who worked hard and lived by the rules. The banks on the other hand are people who are sociopaths using lying, cheating, and stealing to get ahead. Never in history has it ended well for the sociopaths! Think of Hitler, Hussein, and Gaddafy, and now Wall Street and their pols!




Md. foreclosure activity high despite recovering market With decline in new delinquencies, officials hope foreclosures will taper off

By Steve Kilar, The Baltimore Sun 9:52 a.m. EDT, June 22, 2013

Maryland's housing market is improving, but many homeowners still face trouble.

Foreclosure activity in Maryland last month reached a 33-month high, according to RealtyTrac, which gathers real estate data nationwide. Among the states, Maryland had the largest year-over-year increase — 229 percent — in foreclosure starts in May.

"Every day, we just get a lot of struggling, hurting, scared homeowners," said Owen Jarvis, an attorney with the St. Ambrose Housing Aid Center in Baltimore. Although many homes going into foreclosure now are investments gone wrong, not owner-occupied properties, scores of homeowners are falling behind on payments, he said.

Lenders began the foreclosure process on just over 2,000 Maryland properties last month, according to RealtyTrac's figures. And last month's high foreclosure figure is not an anomaly. Maryland's foreclosure numbers have been among the highest in the country for about a year, ranking fourth last month.

Several factors are behind the state's elevated foreclosure rate.

Some lenders have dragged out the process, possibly biding their time until the market improves. The chief reason, though, is that Maryland changed its foreclosure laws after the housing bubble burst, requiring more oversight and a more drawn-out process for banks to claim property.

Maryland's extended foreclosure timeline has given many homeowners time to pursue relief, such as mortgage modifications, from lenders. At the beginning of the financial crisis, foreclosures in Maryland could be completed in a matter of days, leaving homeowners little time to react to bank actions.

The post-bubble spike in mortgage delinquencies prompted the General Assembly to rethink the state's foreclosure process. Legislators extended the amount of time required before a foreclosure auction, increased access to housing counseling services and instituted a mediation program.

"The governor early on decided that we, Maryland, did not want to be the state with the fastest foreclosure process," said Raymond Skinner, secretary of the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development. "Our approach from the beginning has been to focus on our homeowners and keep as many people as we can in their homes."

The minimum number of days a foreclosure in Maryland could be completed went from 15 to 135, Skinner said. On average, it now takes 575 days to complete a foreclosure in Maryland, said Daren Blomquist, vice president at RealtyTrac.

But the high foreclosure activity, which is expected to continue for months, also might have a chilling effect on the state's budding housing recovery.

Maryland's lengthier foreclosure process helped create the state's current flood of foreclosure activity. In comparison, states such as Virginia, where the foreclosure process is faster, have already moved a significant chunk of troubled properties through the foreclosure pipeline. Virginia law allows foreclosures to go forward without the oversight of a judge, allowing a speedier timeline.

In the first three months of the year, Maryland had 39 foreclosures per 10,000 households. Virginia had 19.

"This certainly is not good for the market," Blomquist said. "The Virginia market does appear to be experiencing a stronger recovery, and these foreclosures are weighing down the Maryland market."

In May, median home prices in Maryland were up about 5.3 percent, according to the Maryland Association of Realtors. In Virginia, prices were up 7 percent, according to the Virginia Association of Realtors.

Pricing isn't necessarily tied to the number of foreclosures; home prices are influenced by many factors, including inventory and population growth.

And while prices in Maryland are recovering more slowly, the number of sales has increased significantly. In May, 13 percent more residences sold in Maryland than a year earlier, a slightly larger increase than in Virginia, according to the Realtor groups.

Foreclosure activity is up for all stages of the process in Maryland, including the filing of a foreclosure suit, judicial orders authorizing properties to be sold and conveyance to the lender, said Blomquist.

"It appears that the pig is moving through the python," Blomquist said.

When Maryland's mediation law went into effect several years ago, the number of foreclosure filings per month dropped from about 5,700 to around 1,800, he said. Homeowners who weren't able to get help through mediation have simply seen the inevitable delayed, he said.



As you see in the article below, the city has no interest in developing as the community wants and needs....it looks for developers that will build high-end housing with the goal of gentrifying the community.  Hampden has tons of vacant buildings needing attention from investors but they want land that has a long-term co-op valuable to the community members.  Remember, the foreclosure settlement would have brought millions to many communities in Baltimore to do with the community as those defrauded wanted.  As we see with the foreclosures above, there is a direct intent to develop the working class and poor with their assets out of targeted communities and they are going about it anyway possible.  This is a Third Way corporate democratic state working hard for wealth and profit including suspension of Rule of Law to do it!

Baltimore Free Farm bids on city-owned lots But group also protests sale in Hampden as 'unnecessary'


By Larry Perl, lperl@tribune.com 11:28 a.m. EDT, June 24, 2013

Urban farmers are complaining about the city's plan to sell two lots that are part of an ambitious community garden on a working class street in Hampden.

But they are also trying to buy the lots to prevent them from being developed.

Baltimore Housing put the lots, located at 1522 and 1524 Baldwin St., out to bid last month after a developer expressed interest in building a house on each one, housing officials said. The sale is part of the city's Vacants to Value program to sell abandoned housing stock and empty lots.

The developer, whom housing officials would not identify, has since bid on the properties — but so has Baltimore Free Farm, a Hampden-based group that promotes urban farming, community gardening and environmental sustainability.

Among other projects, Baltimore Free Farm built and maintains the Ash Street Garden, a community garden with its own front gate, underground irrigation system, chicken coop and greenhouse on a steep hillside overlooking Interstate 83. The garden consumes three lots in the 3500 block of Ash Street, and borders the lots on Baldwin, around the corner.

Baltimore Free Farm has raised an unspecified amount of money to make a competitive bid on the lots, and has submitted a petition with more than 1,200 names to the city, asking for priority consideration, according to Reagan Hooton and Bill Thomas, organizing members of the group

Baltimore Free Farm should have the edge because the group has spent several years reclaiming the lots from neglect, they said.

"This whole hillside was trashed," Hooton, 33, a part-time Johns Hopkins Hospital worker said Wednesday, June 19, as she strode up a dirt path to the top of Ash Street Garden. There, Thomas, 26, and Baltimore Free Farm summer intern Jon Smeton, 20, a Hopkins University junior, shoveled a composting bin, while chickens clucked in the nearby coop and cars whizzed by on I-83.

"I feel like we've done the city all these great favors," Hooton said. "We turned (the site) into something productive."

Although Baltimore Free Farm has formed a corporation, Horizontal Housing Co., to buy the lots, it also protests the sale as "unnecessary" on its website, http://www.baltimorefreefarm.org.

The group says it has given away hundreds of pounds of free produce and vegetables to area residents, and accuses the city of shopping the lots "to those who provide the highest economic value, rather than those who provide the highest community value."

"With many other vacant houses and lots in the Hampden area, we feel like selling these two particular lots for development is unnecessary and unfortunate," the website states.

Several houses are vacant and boarded in the 3500 block of Ash, where Baltimore Free Farm has its offices across the street from the garden.

'Creative bunch'

Housing officials praise Baltimore Free Farm.

"They're a creative bunch and they've done good work," said Julie Day, deputy housing commissioner for land resources. "They've made a real difference in this community."

But Day and Baltimore Housing spokeswoman Cheron Porter said that although Baltimore Free Farm has a lease with the city to use lots on Ash Street, it does not have a lease or a license to use the lots on Baldwin. Baltimore Free Farm has tried to lease those lots under the city's Adopt A Lot initiative, which is part of Vacants to Value. But the city has turned the group down, "because there was the potential for development of these properties," Day said.

Day said it would be misleading to lease the Baldwin lots to the group, only to turn around and sell the lots later.

The problem, said Hooton and Thomas, is that the lots on Baldwin overlap several lots on Ash and have become part of the garden. The group would be losing about one sixth of the half-acre site it farms, they said.

Baltimore Free Farm has submitted several letters of support to Baltimore Housing, including a letter from City Councilman Nick Mosby, who represents the area, Hooton said.

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Time and again Baltimore has given grants and accepted Federal monies with the agreement to meet the commitment of mixed-income housing in city center .......IT STILL IGNORES ALL OF THESE REQUIREMENTS AND CONTINUES TO DEMOLISH WITH THE FUNDS DUE LOW-INCOME PEOPLE. 


TAXPAYER MONEY IS BEING USED TO PAD THE POCKETS OF WEALTHY DEVELOPERS GETTING SUBSIDIZED IN EVERY WAY WHILE THE CITY HAS 4,000 AND MORE HOMELESS.  WE HAVE ANIMALS AS POLITICIANS IN MARYLAND!  IF YOU LOOK BELOW, BALTIMORE IS GETTING SUBSIDIES FOR 3,200 HOMES THAT NO LONGER EXIST BUT THAT MANY PEOPLE ARE HOMELESS!!


We've said that we're going to create mixed-income communities. We're not looking to build 100 percent public housing back on site. The past 30 or 40 years have showed that it doesn't work.



The dismantling of Baltimore’s public housing:

Housing Authority cutting 2,400 homes for the poor from its depleted inventory A 15-year trend shows a decrease of 42 percent in occupied units. By Joan Jacobson While more than a quarter of Baltimore families are living in poverty, more than 2,400 1 homes for the poor are quietly being removed from an already depleted inventory of the Housing Authority of Baltimore City. 2 With little public input, this plan will eliminate the same number of homes removed from Baltimore’s four imploded public housing high rise projects a decade ago. 3 On its 70th anniversary, the housing authority - once on a mission to replace slums with safe homes for Baltimore’s poor - is now in the demolition business; its occupied inventory has dropped by 42 percent over the last 15 years – from 16,5254 units in 1992 to 9,625 in the spring of 2007.5 With virtually no plans to replace the deteriorated units being razed or sold, tenant representatives and housing advocates have watched with growing alarm as they wonder if the housing authority has abandoned its mission to house the poor. 2 Housing Authority officials blame their predicament, in part, on an aging housing stock, federal cutbacks and increased utility costs. The agency’s budget for operating, capital and drug elimination funds has been cut by $79 million over the last six years and its finances are far short of the hundreds of millions of dollars needed to repair its aging housing projects. 6 The agency is also diverting more than $20 million from funds usually earmarked for new public housing and rent vouchers to honor a court order to retrofit 830 units for disabled public housing tenants. Nevertheless, the Housing Authority is not in complete financial distress: * It has a $26 million reserve it can spend for operating or capital improvements.7 * It has yet to spend $18.5 million awarded six years ago to replace 1000 units lost in the demolition of Hollander Ridge in East Baltimore.8 * In a special arrangement with HUD, reserved for a select number of housing authorities, Baltimore’s Housing Authority gets to keep operating subsidies for every public housing unit it has abandoned or demolished since 2005. This year, Baltimore expects to receive $4 million for 3,201 homes that no longer exist. 9 * In 2004 it had enough funds to finance a half million dollar study analyzing the supply and demand of local low and middle income housing markets. The study – which urged creation of more homes for the very poor – was never released to the public or shown outside the housing authority.10 * The Housing Authority is razing some of its homes with money from a non-public housing fund controlled by the city. Earlier this year, for example, the city granted $4 million from the Affordable Housing Trust Fund for the demolition of 257 units at Somerset Court. 11 (The fund was created during a 2005 controversy over financing the Convention Center Hotel, when church leaders and city council members complained the 3city wasn’t addressing affordable housing needs. However, there are currently no plans to rebuild affordable housing on the site of Somerset Court (or at Westport Extension12, another project being razed with the trust’s money.)13 The downsizing of the housing authority’s inventory has occurred while Baltimore’s population has dwindled. But the number of poor residents has not. Although there were 28 percent fewer city dwellers in 2000 than there were 30 years earlier, nearly a quarter of those left behind were living in poverty.


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June 21st, 2013

6/21/2013

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Today I listened to our local Lines Between Us WYPR 'public' media report on issues of poverty in Baltimore and the topic was debtor's prison and is Maryland there with that policy.  We already know that people have been imprisoned for decades for being poor and in Baltimore that policy reigns supreme.  The Justice representative on the show for this issue was talking about a Maryland Assembly bill that protects people from being jailed for failure to pay debt and he did a good job listing the reasons that jailing does not work because of the countless issues of due process in Maryland law that do not happen that placed people in the hands of collections inappropriately.  AS HE SAID, IT HAPPENS MORE TIMES THAN NOT THAT PEOPLE WITH A DEBT PROBLEM ARE AT THAT POINT THROUGH A FAILURE IN THE SYSTEM TO PROTECT AN INDIVIDUAL.  He is right!

Maryland allows:

Pay Day loans with still too high a cap on interest.

They invited debt consolidation companies into Maryland even as it is known that they are riddled with fraud.

Banks that commit fraud openly on low-income people through fees to what is already living week to week.  Example.....M and T Bank was charged with overdraft fraud by manipulation of processing transactions a few years ago.  They paid a small fine with no admission of guilt and they are today doing the same fraud on low-income people.

Health care fraud has low-income people with ever increasing costs for unnecessary preventative care while they get no coverage for medical treatment.  All disposable income now goes to health debt.

The City of Baltimore through open neglect charge city residents hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars for water bills mistakenly and never give it back,  I know someone personally who was overcharged $1,600 for water and for two years have contacted the city every way possible to get that money back....because you lose your house if not...AND THEY WILL NOT GIVE THE MONEY BACK AND THIS HAPPENS TO THOUSANDS OF RESIDENTS.

The Police Department has a policy of ticketing people for loitering at $100 each over and over knowing the homeless have no money making it impossible for them to get out of debt.

We all know that hiring in Baltimore has policy deliberately not hiring locals and instead bringing undocumented and labor from out of state to push wages below minimum wage making people unable to earn money.

Now, we all know that the poor are targeted by banks, by businesses, and by their own government to take money through fraud. THE FACT THAT THE CITY AND STATE ALLOWS THE  COMMITTING OF FRAUD ON THE POOR IS THE PROBLEM WITH INDIVIDUALS HAVING DEBT IN BALTIMORE.  There is no Rule of Law protecting people from being defrauded by business in Maryland so people constantly lose wealth as they get it.  They are denied the right to work so they turn to crime to survive.  Meanwhile, corporations getting tax breaks and grants that include hiring the underserved DON'T MEET CONTRACTUAL AGREEMENTS IN THAT AREA....THEY IGNORE THIS.  THAT IS FRAUDULENT AS THEY ARE ACCEPTING MONEY UNDER FALSE PRETENSES. 

How many times did I say corporate fraud and preying on low-income/poor residents of Maryland?  So, we have a system where the debt is owed to society by corporations and government that steals from citizens.  They are the debtors and they should be going to prison.  The poor are the victims and they should be reimbursed.  We are listening to a show talk about keeping the poor out of jail for debt and not once does anyone talk about the fact that the problem is with the businesses and government.

I did appreciate the Justice person on this show for talking about the failure of the poor to get due process and legal representation which if they could would identify all of the above and exonerate them.....that is probably why the poor cannot get legal representation.  With billions of dollars stolen each year in Maryland in corporate fraud the State of Maryland had to cut spending on social welfare which included public defense lawyers.  So, we have a law that looks to protect the poor from going to jail from debt but we have laws and policy that prey on the poor/working class making it impossible for them to be out of debt.  Much of the money stolen from the poor is taxpayer safety net social service money and that is why the State of Maryland allows these thefts.  

The solution to justice for people in debt is simply reinstating Rule of Law in Maryland.  This means you must have an Attorney General who enforced Rule of Law and politicians who find it offensive when Rule of Law is not enforced.  Maryland's democrats would be those pols but we have Third Way corporate democrats that work for wealth an d profits so they are the ones ignoring the crime and corruption.

Why should the middle class be concerned about this cycle of predatory finance against the poor and working class?  It creates the conditions we have of crime and violence and it moves all of social service money from the people supposed to get it to the same people at the top of the income ladder refusing to hire locally and committing the fraud.

THIS IS WHAT A THIRD WORLD ECONOMY AND SOCIETY LOOKS LIKE!  CRIME AND CORRUPTION THROUGHOUT BUSINESS AND GOVERNMENT MAKING CITIZENS SO DESPERATE THEY HAVE TO COMMIT CRIMES TO SURVIVE.

Regarding the need for people in jail to pay their debts and for costs of incarceration:

This was a program that tried to justify having people who are sent to jail for committing crimes often because they could not find a job to support themselves or their families.....working for private prison contractors while in jail.  GIVING PEOPLE WHO CANNOT GET A JOB A WAY TO EARN MONEY AFTER THEY ARE SENT TO JAIL.  There is honestly no way to put lipstick on this pig.  I was in the Baltimore Board of Estimates when they passed this and shouted the above loudly and strongly and they all hung their heads in shame.  They have officially made slavery legal in Maryland!  We know it has happened for decades by simply stealing worker's wages leaving them with little actual pay.....but this makes slavery official state law.

Let's be clear....unemployment for black residents in the city is above 50% and stealing and selling drugs is the black market available for income.  WHEN A CITY MAKES ILLEGAL ACTIVITY THE ONLY WAY TO MAKE MONEY THEY HAVE FAILED.  PEOPLE DO NOT BREAK INTO HOMES, PROSTITUTE THEMSELVES OR THEIR CHILDREN, SELL DRUGS IN MOST CASES BECAUSE THEY LIKE IT.  THEY DO IT BECAUSE THEY CANNOT GET A JOB.

So, where does the city come up with the jobs for those incarcerated?  They have given all the public sector jobs that many of those unemployed lost to private contractors to do for profit.  Rather than pay a city employee to do this job, they pay a private contractor say $8 an hour to work this prisoner who gets paid $2 an hour from this contract.  Six dollars an hour goes to that business for overseeing slave labor.  Mind you, that prisoner is doing work like cleaning parks and other public works that a city employee used to do making middle-class wages with benefits. 

THIS IS BIZARRE PEOPLE!

The lady supporting this policy says it is good for the prisoner to pay his/her way.....be responsible for his debt and costs of incarceration.  IT BUILDS CHARACTER!!!  Remember the crime and corruption that is systemic in government and businesses in Maryland .......THERE IS NO CHARACTER AT THE TOP OF THE LADDER!  We hear republican states calling for all of this injustice so we want to be clear.....THE PEOPLE RUNNING AS DEMOCRATS IN MARYLAND ARE NOT DEMOCRATS ......THEY ARE THIRD WAY NEO-LIBERALS WHO USE PEOPLE TO MAKE WEALTH AND PROFIT.  If you remember, the democratic party is the party of the people!  See the difference....democrats would never have passed this kind of policy.

JUST VOTE YOUR INCUMBENT OUT OF OFFICE.  DON'T ALLOW A THIRD WAY CORPORATE DNC CHOOSE YOUR CANDIDATES AND RUN AND VOTE FOR LABOR AND JUSTICE!!!

Look at this article from a decade ago....you can bet that the democrats all said the republicans made us do it......now look below this article to see the Third Way corporate democrats doing it!


A GROWING TREND:
Fed Bill Would Allow More, and Cheaper, Prison Labor
by Carey Seal      
2003


 M AJOR NEWSPAPERS, The Sun included, have devoted much space to diatribes against Chinese industry’s use of prison labor. Coverage of prison labor in America, however, is sparse and superficial.        Yet private industries’ subcontracting of manufacturing and service work to state prison agencies has almost imperceptibly become big business in the U.S., and new proposed federal legislation, if passed, will add federal prisons to the mix.

       Wisconsin, Oregon, California, Tennessee, Kansas, Ohio, Nevada and Texas have been in the forefront of offering state prison labor to private industry. Some states are promoting their prison labor force to industry as an alternative to taking jobs overseas for cheap labor.

       Prisoners are being employed as data entry clerks, telemarketers, circuit board assemblers, furniture or clothing makers, and order-takers, among other jobs. In a report published by the National Institute of Justice, Jeff Black, TWA’s director of area reservations, is quoted as saying, “We know that [prisoners trained as ticket-reservation agents] are not going to be late for work because of a traffic jam on the freeway. That kind of dependability is important to us.”

       Prisoners do not retain all their earnings; fiscal arrangements differ from state to state. After federal and state taxes are withheld, somewhere between 41% and 80% of a prisoner’s wages is applied toward costs of incarceration; the balance may go toward support for prisoners’ families, victim compensation, prisoner “allowance,” and/or a savings account for the prisoner to access when leaving prison. The “allowance” is becoming more important as some state prison systems, strapped for cash, are requiring prisoners to make co-payments for medical care and prescriptions; in the state of Washington, prisoners are even charged a $10 UPS delivery fee to ship their belongings when they are transferred from one facility to another.

       The corporations that employ the captive labor force typically pay the prison a fee per prisoner, further defraying costs of incarceration.

       While work for private industry is usually performed inside the prison, minimum-security prisoners are being transported to factories outside the prison.

       Though the income and on-the-job training offered through prison labor jobs appeals to many, critics of the practice say there aren’t enough restrictions to prevent abuses. In California, for example, if a prisoner refuses to work, he or she is moved to disciplinary housing and loses canteen privileges and “good time” credit toward reducing the length of his or her sentence.

       Critics of the growing prison labor trend also say it has disturbing implications for workers “on the outside.” How can they compete with a captive workforce that receives no benefits and accepts low wages? The use of inmate labor, they say, is thus a question of workers’ rights as well as prisoners’ rights.

New Federal Legislation

       If some members of the House of Representatives have their way, American workers will be thrown into even more direct competition with inmate labor. H.R. 2558, sponsored by Reps. McCollum (R.), Hyde (R.), and Scott (R.), would open federal prisons to contractual arrangements with for-profit corporations and allow the products produced to be sold freely on the open market.        Under the terms of the proposed law, inmates could be paid less than the minimum wage if the industrial operation in question is deemed to be in competition with foreign rather than domestic business.

       Companies contracting work to inmates would be required to continue employing their existing non-inmate U.S. employees, unless in the judgment of the Attorney General there are “exigent circumstances.”

       Rep. Robert Ehrlich could not be reached for comment on the bill, and a member of Rep. Benjamin Cardin’s legislative staff said Mr. Cardin would not be taking a position on the bill until it emerges from the Judiciary Committee.

Prison Labor in Maryland

       The private-sector-contracted prison labor industry is flourishing in Maryland. A firm called Powercon is now subcontracting work to the Hagerstown Correctional Facility’s metal shop, according to State Use Industries project administrator Cliff Benser. Mr. Benser said in a telephone interview that he has “four or five” new Prison Industry Enhancement (PIE) Program projects in development; some may be operational as early as this month. He said he notifies the Maryland AFL-CIO about each project and said the union has never, to his recollection, raised objections. The AFL-CIO official who might have been able to confirm this statement was on vacation.       Prison labor for profit is closely connected with another trend: the increasing abundance of private prisons operated for-profit on a contractual basis. For example, U.S. Technologies, Inc., one of the largest PIE contractors, now has an “exclusive arrangement” with Wackenhut Corrections Corp., a for-profit operator of private prisons, to contract work to Wackenhut-run prisons.

       Also, building prisons and supplying their needs has become a huge U.S. growth industry. Long distance phone carriers are jockeying for contracts to install pay phones in prisons; prisoners have to call collect, and a single prison phone can gross $15,000 a year--five times more than a phone installed on the street.

History of U.S. Prison Labor

       In 1885, three-quarters of U.S. prison inmates were working at jobs of some kind, with the majority laboring under prison contract or leasing arrangements with private employers.       Protests of prisoners’ rights groups and organized labor and abuses of prison labor in the early part of this century prompted the federal government, in the 1930s, to restrict the transportation of prison-made goods across state lines and to set limits on the percentage of products federal agencies can procure from prison factories.

       In 1979, however, the Justice System Improvement Act created the PIE certification program, which allowed state corrections departments to form “partnerships” with private firms and freed “certified” products made in prison factories from the earlier federal regulations governing prison-made goods. PIE rules stipulate that inmate workers be paid “local prevailing wages,” and that the interests of other parties that could be adversely affected be protected.

       These PIE programs are now operational in prisons across the country--even in juvenile facilities such as the Gainesville State School in Texas.

       Work for outside firms is supposed to be strictly voluntary; prison officials claim that inmates are eager to work for the corporations. This enthusiasm could stem from the fact that prisoners are awarded “good time” for working on PIE projects and thus are released earlier; thus the length of an inmate’s sentence can be tied to whether or not he or she cooperates with the for-profit work program.

        Unlike the proposed new federal legislation, PIE operations are required to pay their workers minimum wage or the prevailing wage in the area for similar work, whichever is higher, and to consult with local labor organizations about the impact of the prison factory on local labor.

       Proponents of allowing for-profit companies to use prison labor claim private enterprise can make prisoners more productive, and therefore later more employable, than can government-run prison work programs. Opponents, however, counter that it is immoral and unethical for private enterprise to make a profit from prison labor, and say that any proceeds should go toward such purposes as victim compensation and prisoner rehabilitation rather than to overpaid CEOs and stockholders.

Constitutionality Issues

       The 13th amendment abolished slavery in the U.S. except for people convicted of a crime. “Legally allowing [criminals] to be subjected to slavery and involuntary servitude opened the door for mass criminalization,” wrote Julie Browne in her thesis, “The Labor of Doing Time.” Ms. Browne traces the development of the so-called “Black Codes,” known as the “Slave Codes” before the Civil War, as a way to re-enslave freed African-Americans by criminalizing behaviors more likely to be found among them than among whites.       Critics point out that much of the increase in the prison population over the past two decades has come from the disproportionate criminalization of drug practices that are more common among African-Americans. This has resulted in a corresponding disproportionate increase in the number of African-American inmates available for cheap, and increasingly for-profit, prison labor.

Carey Seal is a senior at Gilman School. He will attend Yale University in the fall. Alice Cherbonnier also contributed to this article.


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For those still believing Third Way corporate democrats who keep crying 'the republicans made us do it' we are seeing prison labor for profit in lots of 'democratic' states. You can always tell a Third Way corporate democratic state by prison labor for profit! Maryland led by O'Malley and Rawlings-Blake of Baltimore jumped on board the 'slavery' wagon!


The Hidden History of ALEC and Prison Labor Years after ALEC's Truth In Sentencing bills became the law of the land, its Prison Industries Act has quietly expanded prison labor across the country.

Mike Elk and Bob Sloan August 1, 2011  


This article is part of a Nation series exposing the American Legislative Exchange Council, in collaboration with the Center For Media and Democracy. John Nichols introduces the series.

About the Author Bob Sloan Bob Sloan is a former offender, Stop ALEC organizer and blogger who has spent the past decade researching the PIE... Mike Elk Mike Elk is a labor journalist and third-generation union organizer based in Washington, D.C.

Dave Zirin and Mike Elk The breaded chicken patty your child bites into at school may have been made by a worker earning twenty cents an hour, not in a faraway country, but by a member of an invisible American workforce: prisoners. At the Union Correctional Facility, a maximum security prison in Florida, inmates from a nearby lower-security prison manufacture tons of processed beef, chicken and pork for Prison Rehabilitative Industries and Diversified Enterprises (PRIDE), a privately held non-profit corporation that operates the state’s forty-one work programs. In addition to processed food, PRIDE’s website reveals an array of products for sale through contracts with private companies, from eyeglasses to office furniture, to be shipped from a distribution center in Florida to businesses across the US. PRIDE boasts that its work programs are “designed to provide vocational training, to improve prison security, to reduce the cost of state government, and to promote the rehabilitation of the state inmates.”

Although a wide variety of goods have long been produced by state and federal prisoners for the US government—license plates are the classic example, with more recent contracts including everything from guided missile parts to the solar panels powering government buildings—prison labor for the private sector was legally barred for years, to avoid unfair competition with private companies. But this has changed thanks to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), its Prison Industries Act, and a little-known federal program known as PIE (the Prison Industries Enhancement Certification Program). While much has been written about prison labor in the past several years, these forces, which have driven its expansion, remain largely unknown.

Somewhat more familiar is ALEC’s instrumental role in the explosion of the US prison population in the past few decades. ALEC helped pioneer some of the toughest sentencing laws on the books today, like mandatory minimums for non-violent drug offenders, “three strikes” laws, and “truth in sentencing” laws. In 1995 alone, ALEC’s Truth in Sentencing Act was signed into law in twenty-five states. (Then State Rep. Scott Walker was an ALEC member when he sponsored Wisconsin's truth-in-sentencing laws and, according to PR Watch, used its statistics to make the case for the law.) More recently, ALEC has proposed innovative “solutions” to the overcrowding it helped create, such as privatizing the parole process through “the proven success of the private bail bond industry,” as it recommended in 2007. (The American Bail Coalition is an executive member of ALEC’s Public Safety and Elections Task Force.) ALEC has also worked to pass state laws to create private for-profit prisons, a boon to two of its major corporate sponsors: Corrections Corporation of America and Geo Group (formerly Wackenhut Corrections), the largest private prison firms in the country. An In These Times investigation last summer revealed that ALEC arranged secret meetings between Arizona’s state legislators and CCA to draft what became SB 1070, Arizona’s notorious immigration law, to keep CCA prisons flush with immigrant detainees. ALEC has proven expertly capable of devising endless ways to help private corporations benefit from the country’s massive prison population. 

That mass incarceration would create a huge captive workforce was anticipated long before the US prison population reached its peak—and at a time when the concept of “rehabilitation” was still considered part of the mission of prisons. First created by Congress in 1979, the PIE program was designed “to encourage states and units of local government to establish employment opportunities for prisoners that approximate private sector work opportunities,” according to PRIDE’s website. The benefits to big corporations were clear—a “readily available workforce” for the private sector and “a cost-effective way to occupy a portion of the ever-growing offender/inmate population” for prison officials—yet from its founding until the mid-1990s, few states participated in the program.

This started to change in 1993, when Texas State Representative and ALEC member Ray Allen crafted the Texas Prison Industries Act, which aimed to expand the PIE program. After it passed in Texas, Allen advocated that it be duplicated across the country. In 1995, ALEC’s Prison Industries Act was born.

This Prison Industries Act as printed in ALEC’s 1995 state legislation sourcebook, “provides for the employment of inmate labor in state correctional institutions and in the private manufacturing of certain products under specific conditions.” These conditions, defined by the PIE program, are supposed to include requirements that “inmates must be paid at the prevailing wage rate” and that the “any room and board deductions…are reasonable and are used to defray the costs of inmate incarceration.” (Some states charge prisoners for room and board, ostensibly to offset the cost of prisons for taxpayers. In Florida, for example, prisoners are paid minimum wage for PIE-certified labor, but 40 percent is taken out of their accounts for this purpose.) 

The Prison Industries Act sought to change this, inventing the “private sector prison industry expansion account,” to absorb such deductions, and stipulating that the money should be used to, among other things: “construct work facilities, recruit corporations to participate as private sector industries programs, and pay costs of the authority and department in implementing [these programs].” Thus, money that was taken from inmate wages to offset the costs of incarceration would increasingly go to expanding prison industries. In 2000, Florida passed a law that mirrored the Prison Industries Act and created the Prison Industries Trust Fund, its own version of the private sector prison industry expansion account, deliberately designed to help expand prison labor for private industries.

The Prison Industries Act was also written to exploit a critical PIE loophole that seemed to suggest that its rules did not apply to prisoner-made goods that were not shipped across state lines. It allowed a third-party company to set up a local address in a state that makes prison goods, buy goods from a prison factory, sell those products locally or surreptitiously ship them across state borders. It helped that by 1995 oversight of the PIE program had been effectively squashed, transferred from the Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Assistance to the National Correctional Industries Association (NCIA), a private trade organization that happened to be represented by Allen’s lobbying firm, Service House, Inc. In 2003, Allen became the Texas House Chairman of the Corrections Committee and began peddling the Prison Industries Act and other legislation beneficial to CCA and Geo Group, like the Private Correctional Facilities Act. Soon thereafter he became Chairman of ALEC’s Criminal Justice (now Public Safety and Elections) Task Force. He resigned from the state legislature in 2006 while under investigation for his unethical lobbying practices. He was hired soon after as a lobbyist for Geo Group. 

Today’s chair of ALEC’s Public Safety and Elections Task force is state Representative Jerry Madden of Texas, where the Prison Industries Act originated eighteen years ago. According to a 2010 report from NCIA, as of last summer there were "thirty jurisdictions with active [PIE] operations." These included such states as Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, and twelve more. Four more states are now looking to get involved as well; Kentucky, Michigan and Pennsylvania have introduced legislation and New Hampshire is in the process of applying for PIE certification. Today these state’s legislation are based upon an updated version of the Prison Industries Act, which ALEC amended in 2004. 

Prison labor has already started to undercut the business of corporations that don’t use it. In Florida, PRIDE has become one of the largest printing corporations in the state, its cheap labor having a significant impact upon smaller local printers. This scenario is playing out in states across the country. In addition to Florida's forty-one prison industries, California alone has sixty. Another 100 or so are scattered throughout other states. What's more, several states are looking to replace public sector workers with prison labor. In Wisconsin Governor Walker’s recent assault on collective bargaining opened the door to the use of prisoners in public sector jobs in Racine, where inmates are now doing landscaping, painting, and other maintenance work. According to the Capitol Times, “inmates are not paid for their work, but receive time off their sentences.” The same is occurring in Virginia, Ohio, New Jersey, Florida and Georgia, all states with GOP Assembly majorities and Republican governors. Much of ALEC’s proposed labor legislation, implemented state by state is allowing replacement of public workers with prisoners. 

“It’s bad enough that our companies have to compete with exploited and forced labor in China,” says Scott Paul Executive Director of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, a coalition of business and unions. “They shouldn’t have to compete against prison labor here at home. The goal should be for other nations to aspire to the quality of life that Americans enjoy, not to discard our efforts through a downward competitive spiral.”

Alex Friedmann, associate editor of Prison Legal News, says prison labor is part of a “confluence of similar interests” among politicians and corporations, long referred to as the “prison industrial complex.” As decades of model legislation reveals, ALEC has been at the center of this confluence. “This has been ongoing for decades, with prison privatization contributing to the escalation of incarceration rates in the US,” Friedmann says. Just as mass incarceration has burdened American taxpayers in major prison states, so is the use of inmate labor contributing to lost jobs, unemployment and decreased wages among workers—while corporate profits soar.


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All these are WELCOME in Maryland.  How do you create a pipeline to prison and prison labor?  You allow people to be preyed upon for all they have.  Think gambling is a good revenue source?  Who will end up in prison from gambling addiction?     

Direct Payday Loans Lenders

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Visit the PaydayMax — Official Website


WHAT KIND OF SOCIETY ALLOWS PEOPLE TO BECOME PREY FOR PROFITS?  EACH STATE HAS THE POWER TO STOP THIS PRACTICE OR TO NOT ALLOW BUSINESSES IN THE STATE THAT DO THIS, BUT IN THIRD WAY CORPORATE DEMOCRATIC STATES......THE WELCOME SHINGLE IS OUT TO PREDATION.

VOTE YOUR INCUMBENT OUT OF OFFICE AND RUN AND VOTE FOR LABOR AND JUSTICE!


Eight states do not have specific payday lending statutory provisions and/or require lenders to comply with interest rate caps on consumer loans:  Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont and West Virginia.


Predatory lending
From Wikipedia,

Predatory lending is the unfair, deceptive, or fraudulent practices of some lenders during the loan origination process. While there are no legal definitions in the United States for predatory lending, an audit report on predatory lending from the office of inspector general of the FDIC broadly defines predatory lending as "imposing unfair and abusive loan terms on borrowers."[1] Though there are laws against many of the specific practices commonly identified as predatory, various federal agencies use the phrase as a catch-all term for many specific illegal activities in the loan industry. Predatory lending should not be confused with predatory mortgage servicing which is the unfair, deceptive, or fraudulent practices of lenders and servicing agents during the loan or mortgage servicing process, post loan origination.

One less contentious definition of the term is "the practice of a lender deceptively convincing borrowers to agree to unfair and abusive loan terms, or systematically violating those terms in ways that make it difficult for the borrower to defend against."[2][3] Other types of lending sometimes also referred to as predatory include payday loans, certain types of credit cards, mainly subprime, or other forms of (again, often subprime) consumer debt, and overdraft loans, when the interest rates are considered unreasonably high.[4] Although predatory lenders are most likely to target the less educated, the poor, racial minorities, and the elderly, victims of predatory lending are represented across all demographics.[5][6]

Predatory lending typically occurs on loans backed by some kind of collateral, such as a car or house, so that if the borrower defaults on the loan, the lender can repossess or foreclose and profit by selling the repossessed or foreclosed property. Lenders may be accused of tricking a borrower into believing that an interest rate is lower than it actually is, or that the borrower's ability to pay is greater than it actually is. The lender, or others as agents of the lender, may well profit from repossession or foreclosure upon the collateral.

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'Wage theft' prevails in post-recession economy Employers sidestep wage and labor laws to pay workers less than owed


Elvira Orellana, 41, from El Salvador, sits on the couch at her home in Salisbury, Md. Orellana sued her former boss at a convenient store in Princess Anne, Md., for violations of fair act wages and labor laws, later winning a judgement of $18,000. (Gabriella Demczuk, Baltimore Sun / July 10, 2012)

By Yvonne Wenger, The Baltimore Sun 7:44 p.m. EST, February 2, 2013

Behind the counter at a convenience store in Princess Anne, Elvira Orellana worked 72 hours a week, making sandwiches, cleaning the kitchen and ordering the ingredients to prepare oxtail, curry chicken and cheese steaks.

Her employer paid her $648 a week — $324 less than she was owed under laws that require that workers earn time and a half for clocking more than 40 hours a week. When she complained, Orellana said, her boss threatened to cut her wages and then fired her.

Orellana's case, which she won in federal court, illustrates a problem that historically has been more pronounced in the wake of recessions. Since the most recent downturn, worker advocates and law enforcement officials say, a growing number of employers have violated wage and labor laws enacted 75 years ago in response to worker mistreatment prevalent during the Depression.

Employers in this floundering economy have increasingly denied workers benefits and mandatory overtime pay, according to worker advocates. Some have doctored time sheets and even failed to pay minimum wage. The practice is widespread in low-wage jobs such as waiting tables or cleaning hotel rooms but has been bleeding into middle-class professions, they say.

And studies show that victims can lose up to 20 percent of their earnings due to what those advocates call "wage theft."

Lawsuits alleging wage and labor law violations have skyrocketed, and state and federal officials have beefed up scrutiny. The U.S. Department of Labor has hired 300 more investigators. Maryland's labor department formed a new unit dedicated to wage law enforcement. And state lawmakers are drafting legislation to provide new protections to cheated workers.

The business community has opposed some legislative measures but contends that it supports strong enforcement of the laws because by underpaying employees scofflaws introduce false competition into the market. Business groups also say recession and its lingering effects left many employers, especially mom-and-pop operations, cutting back while struggling to stay in business.

Tallying the extent of wage law violations is difficult. Many workers are grateful to have work in a tight job market and too scared to speak up, said Catherine Ruckelshaus, legal co-director of the National Employment Law Project.

Speaking up can be "job suicide," Ruckelshaus said. "There are 10 people waiting in line to take your job. Oftentimes, workers grin and bear it."

Orellana, a native of El Salvador, said she didn't speak up for months, wary of someone taking advantage of her as an immigrant. But then she learned about her rights by asking questions of a fellow churchgoer with connections to the Baltimore-based Legal Aid Bureau, which eventually represented her.

"I felt completely desperate," Orellana, 41, said through a translator. She recalled that a friend encouraged her to fight. "She told me not to be quiet, to learn to defend myself, to keep going forward, to not be afraid."

The Salisbury woman won an $18,000 civil judgment for unpaid overtime in U.S. District Court, but the judge found that she had failed to prove a claim of retaliation.

Representatives of her former employer, Cienna Properties LLC, did not respond to requests for comment.

Cracking down

Aggrieved workers can take their cases either to law enforcement or to civil court.

The number of lawsuits alleging employer violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act has more than tripled in the past decade, according to an annual study released by Seyfarth Shaw, a law firm that specializes in labor and employment law. More than 7,000 lawsuits were filed from March 2011 to March 2012, up from 2,035 for the same period in 2002.

Meanwhile, U.S. Labor Department investigators collected more than $280 million in back wages last year, nearly $100million more than investigators recovered four years earlier as the recession was getting under way. More than two dozen federal investigators based in Baltimore, who oversee a multistate region, recovered $8.7million in wages last year, compared with $7.1million in 2008.

"We're here to make sure the people in the states of Maryland, Northern Virginia and the District of Columbia are getting paid, getting paid properly, legally and on time — when it's payday," said Mark Lara, district director for the Baltimore office. "That's an extremely important job in my opinion, and my staff understands that."

Maryland investigators, who have lesser enforcement powers than federal counterparts, recovered nearly $3.7 million in lost wages over the past five years, including a high of more than $884,000 in 2011. The state has also teamed up with the federal government, coordinating efforts and sharing information to take a more active role in uncovering wage and labor law violations.

The U.S. Labor Department has launched an initiative to crack down on businesses that wrongly classify employees as independent contractors to avoid paying overtime and benefits, and has signed an agreement with the Internal Revenue Service to share information to stop worker misclassification.


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Economy in Baltimore, Maryland - Best Places to Live ...www.bestplaces.net/economy/city/maryland/baltimore

The unemployment rate in Baltimore, MD, is 9.30%, with job growth of 0.47%. Future job growth over the next ten years is predicted to be 31.64%.

Look at how Maryland falsifies its unemployment figures and just prints what it wants to print.  No one believes unemployment is 9.3% in Baltimore!  Below you see that these unemployment figures, which come from DLLR and the number of people getting benefits..... 

SEE WHY MARYLAND'S DLLR HEAD IS NOW SECRETARY OF LABOR......PEREZ.




ONLY 34% OF UNEMPLOYED GET BENEFITS:

State’s Unemployment Benefits Among Lowest

Special to The Chronicle
Maryland’s unemployment insurance benefits, a safety net for workers who have been fired or laid off, rank in the bottom third of the nation—between Alabama and Mississippi—according to a new report released by the Maryland Budget and Tax Policy Institute on Feb. 27.

“Maryland is generally perceived as this high-tax, high-spending state that supports government social programs in spades,” says Patrick Lester, senior policy analyst for the institute, a nonprofit research group that analyzes the state budget and tax issues. “But it’s not true. When it comes to unemployment insurance—who gets it and how much they get—we’re well behind the rest of the country.”

The report, “Maryland Unemployment Insurance: Underfunded and Out of Date,” was prepared with financial support from the Open Society Institute-Baltimore.

Unemployment insurance, enacted by Congress during the Great Depression, provides temporary relief to workers who have been laid off, fired or quit for good cause as defined by a state’s rules. Employers pay program “premiums’’ or “unemployment insurance,” and each state determines who is eligible and how much each applicant receives.

Among the report’s findings:

  • While 43 percent of the nation’s unemployed receive benefits, the rate is just 34 percent in Maryland.
  • Maryland’s average unemployment benefit is $241.57 per week, falling near the bottom of benefits nationwide, which range from $205 per week in Arizona to $496 per week in Washington State.
  • Maryland provides additional benefits to unemployed workers with children, but this is capped at just $8 per child per week.
  • Twenty-four states provide at least partial benefits to part-time workers. Maryland provides none.
Researchers found that benefits were so low because the program is under-funded. Further, there is no pressure for change because “the temporarily unemployed community” is not organized, according to Lester.

“Unemployment is considered a badge of shame for most people,” said Deborah Povich, executive director of the Jobs Opportunities Task Force. “Nobody announces they’re ‘unemployed.’ They say they’re ‘between jobs.’ Consequently, advocacy groups are not doing enough to represent their interests.”

The institute supports policies that would:

  • Extend benefits to part-time workers, currently deemed ineligible in Maryland;
  • Raise the additional benefits per child from $8 to $25 per week;
  • Extend benefits to workers who have been on the job at least three months, rather than the current six- to nine-month requirement.
“Just about everyone has been unemployed and understands the pain and how it batters your feelings of self-worth,” Lester says. “Most of the time, you don’t need unemployment insurance. But when you do, you really do.”

The Maryland General Assembly shares the concerns enumerated in the report. It is currently considering several bills that would make unemployment benefits more broadly available and extend them to part-time workers. It also is considering an increase in the weekly benefit for unemployed workers with children to $25 per child.




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June 20th, 2013

6/20/2013

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I can't write much today as I have meetings all day but I wanted to get out the importance of labor and unions along with communities supporting them in returning this country to first world status.  We are seeing citizens completely ignored and policy that is killing people....regulations disappearing and dismantled that have protected families and communities.

DO NOT ALLOW THIRD WAY CORPORATE NEO-LIBERALS TEAR DOWN OUR NEW DEAL AND WAR ON POVERTY PROGRAMS AND HAND ALL CONTROL OF GOVERNMENT TO CORPORATIONS.....



Philadelphia Parents, Lunchroom Staff Begin Fast for Safe Schools

Posted by Kyle Schafer on June 17, 2013 Fasters encamp on steps of Governor’s Philadelphia office; call for Commonwealth and City act.  Unite Here

A group of Philadelphia public school parents and lunchroom staff today launched a fast for safe schools. The elimination of more than 1,200 student safety staff from schools across the district, including those on the federal “persistently dangerous” schools list, places Philadelphia’s students in danger. The group has encamped on the steps of Governor Tom Cobertt’s Philadelphia office, where the fast will continue without food or juice until the Commonwealth and City act to prioritize school safety.

“I care about my daughter and grandson,” said faster Earlene Bly, mother of a 9th grade student and grandmother of a soon-to-be 1st grader in PSD. “I am making this sacrifice to make sure they have safe schools.  I am fasting to show my family and the city how serious this situation really is.”

SUPPORT THE FAST, SEND AN EMAIL TO GOVERNOR CORBETT!

The School District of Philadelphia announced the layoff of over 3,700 employees on June 7th. Student safety staff make up the largest group slated to be cut. Employed in school hallways and lunchrooms across the district, they are often the first workers to defuse tensions, maintain order and deescalate conflicts between students.

In the next two weeks, the Pennsylvania state legislature and Philadelphia City Council will decide whether to supplement school funding, which could allow student safety staff and other school employees to return in the Fall.

“I am fasting for the children,” said faster Patricia Norris, a food service worker at Cayuga Elementary.  “When the children won’t go to the principal, when they won’t go to their teacher, they go to the student safety staff.  They give them love and knowledge.  Without them, school would be a disaster waiting to happen.”

“They want us to succeed, because we are the future,” said Shakur Miller, 17, a Junior at Mastbaum High School. “I support the fast because our student safety staff talk to us, which is something we need to be safe and to succeed.”

- See more at: http://www.realfoodrealjobs.org/2013/06/phillyfastlaunch/#sthash.mGmHd8qB.dpuf
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What we are seeing in both of these articles from Philadelphia are simple examples of what are happening in cities all across America, especially in Baltimore. Large chunks of the cities are being bought and handed to these Wall Street investment firms and then allowed to sit until the area is blighted all the while filled with dangerous housing and and lost services.  SOUND FAMILIAR?  YOU CAN BET BALTIMORE IS IN THE SAME SHAPE!

Met this guy across from Philly City Hall. Think his name is Greg. Said he's outraged the only person being prosecuted by the city is the African American worker who was operating the equipment. Says he's going to be in front of the courthouse with his sign on Wednesday, June 26 at 9am, when Sean Benschop appears before a judge. Benschop was just following orders as a worker. The Contractor Griffin Campbell was clearly unqualified to do this type of demolition. Government officials reluctant to regulate business and enforce safety standards must be considered as a contributing factor. But the the wealthy property owners are ultimately responsible for the disaster: STB Investments Corps. The properties being demolished next to the crushed building were owned by STB, whose officers are Richard Basciano, Scott Wexler, Frank Cresci Jr. and Anthony Trumbetta, based in New York City at 300 W. 43rd St.

Who wants to join Greg and me on June 26th?



Philly: Inspector said collapse 'wasn't my fault


By MARYCLAIRE DALE Associated PressPosted:   06/14/2013 03:26:31 PM MDT

PHILADELPHIA—A building inspector who had visited a demolition site before a brick wall collapsed onto an adjacent thrift store, killing six people, left a cellphone video message before his apparent suicide this week saying the collapse "wasn't my fault," the mayor's spokesman said. However, inspector Ronald Wagenhoffer also said he wished he'd been more diligent, spokesman Mark McDonald told The Associated Press on Friday.

Wagenhoffer inspected the downtown site before and after demolition work began in February and visited an attached, related job site on May 14 following a complaint.

A four-story brick wall collapsed at the site June 5, burying 19 people inside a one-story Salvation Army thrift shop next door. Besides the six people who died, 13 were injured.

Wagenhoffer, a veteran inspector, was found dead in his truck Wednesday night, hours after finishing his last shift. Police said they believe he shot himself in the chest.

According to McDonald, Wagenhoffer first secured his cellphone on the dashboard and made two brief videos, each 20 to 30 seconds long. The first was for his wife and young son, McDonald said, and the second described his thoughts on the collapse.

"He says that he can't sleep," said McDonald, who said he viewed both videos Friday afternoon. "He says that he was devastated by the deaths and injuries at the scene."

McDonald said Wagenhoffer then says briefly on the videos he "wished that he'd been; more diligent." "He wished that he'd gotten out of a truck at some point in time," he said, "but it's not connected to any particular event. There's no mention of May 14. And he never says that he never inspected the site."

McDonald said Wagenhoffer used the words: "It wasn't my fault."

The demolition site included three attached storefront buildings, all owned by Richard Basciano, once dubbed the pornography king of Times Square.

Records from the Department of Licenses and Inspections state that Wagenhoffer visited the site on May 14 over a complaint that the contractor's permit wasn't visible.

However, a resident has said his complaint alleged far more serious problems about the safety of the demolition work underway. And another person took a video on June 2, a Sunday, that shows workers using equipment to pull down the facade and bricks spilling down on the sidewalk, which remained open and has a staircase to an underground transit stop.

Demolition subcontractor Sean Benschop, accused of being impaired by marijuana and painkillers while operating heavy equipment just before the collapse, has been charged with six counts of involuntary manslaughter. He also had his right hand in a cast, but his lawyer has said he was fit to work.

Demolition contractor Griffin Campbell also was onsite, and Basciano was believed to be there. Basciano's lawyer has declined to comment. Campbell's lawyer has said Benschop was supposed to be taking the wall down by hand, to protect the Salvation Army store.

Wagenhoffer started working for the city as a carpenter in 1997 and worked his way up to his post as an inspector, earning just over $60,000 a year, city records show. He was nominated for a top safety award in the Department of Licenses and Inspections in 2011.

His family did not immediately return a message seeking comment Friday.


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We are glad for the energizing but what we are seeing are unions backing different candidates.  This same thing happened in Los Angeles and all they had running were Third Way corporate democrats......

GET LABOR AND JUSTICE CANDIDATES IN THESE PRIMARY RACES AND NOT THE SAME FACES!


Energized by Bloomberg's Exit, Labor Chiefs Try to Sway Race:
[Metropolitan Desk]HernÁNdez, Javier C. New York Times, Late Edition (East Coast) [New York, N.Y] 19 June 2013: A.1. Turn on hit highlighting for speaking browsersAbstract (summary)Translate Abstract

Unions across the city, after years of low morale and stalled contract negotiations, are roaring back to life this election season, excited by the prospect of installing a friend of labor in City Hall when Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg leaves office at the end of the year. Public officials across the country, including Mr. Bloomberg, a political independent, have cast doubt on their motives, and pushed back against demands from municipal workers for retroactive raises and more generous health benefits.

After more than a decade of sitting out the fiercest race in town, leaders of the United Federation of Teachers are plotting a comeback.

They have so much polling data that they can pinpoint the views of Puerto Ricans and Chinese immigrants alike. They can tailor messages based on brands of toilet paper voters buy. Normally busy handling complaints from teachers, they are now scouring financial records and questioning candidates about $4,000 restaurant bills.

And on Wednesday, the union will throw its sophisticated political machine behind a candidate for mayor of New York City.

Unions across the city, after years of low morale and stalled contract negotiations, are roaring back to life this election season, excited by the prospect of installing a friend of labor in City Hall when Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg leaves office at the end of the year.

Some groups, like the teachers' union, are expected to spend several million dollars on the race. Several labor leaders are weighing advertising blitzes aimed at the broader public. Political organizers are training callers, social media activists and door-to-door canvassers.

"Politics in the city are shifting," Michael Mulgrew, president of the teachers' union, said. "It's not a pipe dream. We're going to be a force."

Labor leaders face several challenges as they seek to reassert themselves as political heavyweights in a city that has not elected a Democrat for mayor since 1989. In a crowded field, they are split over whom to endorse, causing concern that they might cancel one another out.

At a time of declining union membership and lingering economic turmoil, the strength of organized labor is unclear. Public officials across the country, including Mr. Bloomberg, a political independent, have cast doubt on their motives, and pushed back against demands from municipal workers for retroactive raises and more generous health benefits. And a new pro-business group in New York is preparing to spend millions on City Council races.

Still, political experts say there is potential for organized labor to sway the mayoral election. Analysts expect only modest turnout -- around 650,000 voters, or about one-fifth of registered Democrats -- in the Democratic primary in September. A runoff election is widely expected, raising the stakes.

Each of the city's large unions can be valuable to different candidates. Unions representing lower-paid service workers might be able to deliver black and Latino voters for candidates who will rely more heavily on them, like William C. Thompson Jr., a former comptroller, and Bill de Blasio, the public advocate. The teachers' union, whose membership is more middle-class, says it has a database of 171,000 teachers, retirees and their relatives.

"Unions know their membership and can motivate them," said Edward F. Ott, a lecturer at the Joseph S. Murphy Institute for Worker Education and Labor Studies at the City University of New York. "The impact may be reduced and spread across a lot of candidates, but they'll definitely have an impact."

Exactly how much the unions will spend in the mayoral race depends on several factors, including whether they face competition from other unions or from political action groups seeking to dampen the influence of organized labor.

"It could be the wild, wild West," said Neal Kwatra, a Democratic strategist whose clients include unions, "or it could be business as usual."

The teachers' union endorsement is considered a prize because of its politically engaged work force, a treasury of at least $2.5 million and a team that has refined its political operations after years of bitter feuds with Mr. Bloomberg.

The seven leading Democratic candidates for mayor are mostly in line with the union's ideology, backing its calls to reduce testing and offer more support to failing schools. In recent days, some have stepped up their efforts to court the union's leaders.

Mr. Thompson, a former president of the city's Board of Education, recently announced a plan to give each teacher a $200 budget for classroom supplies. On Tuesday, he picked up the support of the principals' union, the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators.

Mr. de Blasio, another leading candidate for the teachers' union's endorsement, stood with Mr. Mulgrew last week to denounce high-stakes testing.

The union last made an endorsement for mayor in 2001, when it selected Mark Green, a Democrat, over Mr. Bloomberg, then a Republican. It did not enter the contests in 2005 and 2009, wary of Mr. Bloomberg's vast financial resources. Some union officials regretted the decision to skip the 2009 race, after Mr. Thompson, then the Democratic nominee, came within striking distance of Mr. Bloomberg, who spent more than $100 million of his fortune on that race alone.

When Mr. Mulgrew became the union's president in 2009, he set out to modernize its political operations. In the past, he said, candidates were chosen based on personal relationships. Now union officials look to polls and focus groups, tossing around terms like "burn rates" and "propensity models."

The union has become adroit in scrutinizing public spending records to gauge which candidates are more efficient stewards of campaign money. It can examine, for instance, how much a candidate earns at a fund-raiser relative to how much he or she spends on catering, entertainment and facilities.

With a trove of data on the table, conversations between the candidates and Mr. Mulgrew have turned into cross-examinations. He has set benchmarks for each of them, asking them to prove they could build support among crucial demographic groups, like Hispanic voters in Upper Manhattan.

"It's all about a path to victory," he said.

On Wednesday, Mr. Mulgrew will recommend a candidate to union delegates, who are expected to approve the choice that day. He is said to be focusing on two candidates -- Mr. de Blasio and Mr. Thompson -- though he has also expressed admiration for Christine C. Quinn, the Council speaker. He faces pressure from Local 1199 of the Service Employees International Union, the city's largest union, which has lobbied him to create a broad labor coalition by following its lead and endorsing Mr. de Blasio. Another influential union, District Council 37, has endorsed John C. Liu, the city comptroller.

A central part of the union's strategy for this election is to use tools more common in national campaigns. It has put together a database of its members, and bought access to information like the purchasing history of people who use chain-store rewards cards. For example, the union might focus calls and mailings on people who buy top-shelf brands of toilet paper or other products, which typically suggest that a person has a higher income and is more likely to vote. It could also use the information to tailor advertisements to certain groups of voters, like placing a container of Cherry Garcia in an ad directed at people who buy Ben & Jerry's ice cream.

This year, public sector unions are bolstering their political operations after several years of failed negotiations. More than 282,000 unionized workers are without a contract, representing 95 percent of the city's work force. Workers are seeking as much as $7.8 billion in retroactive raises for the time they have been without a contract. Mr. Bloomberg has said the city does not have the money.

In response, union leaders representing those workers are letting the clock tick as they build political support. Several unions joined together to produce a $200,000 advertising campaign recently. A radio ad said in part: "The people who keep this city running: hard-working, middle-class New Yorkers. They count. They vote."

Harry Nespoli, leader of a committee of unions representing municipal workers, said they wanted a mayor who would work with unions to find savings in the city budget to pay for wage increases.

"We don't expect the new mayor to give away the store," he said. "We expect the new mayor to recognize the fact that we are the city and that we should have negotiations in good faith."

Even if the city's labor leaders do not coalesce around one candidate, Mr. Nespoli said, they are united in their frustration with Mr. Bloomberg, who on Monday compared the endorsement of the teachers' union to the "kiss of death."

Union officials now have their own retort. They have taken to repeating three numbers, 12-31-13, a reference to the mayor's final day in office.


_____________________________________________

WHILE THEY PRETEND THE DOMESTIC ECONOMY IS STAGNANT THEY ARE EXPANDING OVERSEAS LIKE CRAZY AND IT IS ALL CAUSED BY PUBLIC POLICY WRITTEN AND ENFORCED BY THIRD WAY CORPORATE DEMOCRATS!


The US is struggling economically because we have had tens of trillions of dollars in corporate fraud moved offshore out of our economy and that is enough to stall any economic growth.  We have waited for 4 years for the Justice Department to bring back these tens of trillions but we are dealing with suspended Rule of Law in America..that's right, a former first world allowing it Treasury be looted!

Add to that the Fed policy that gives away free money to corporations so they can make billions playing the market rather than actually working/hiring and you have stagnation.  Public policy could not have been implemented to stagnate the economy more!  The objective is to simply hold the domestic economy captive to high unemployment and low wages for the long term as corporations use all that money from the Fed on expanding globally as this article says.  Now, if you are going to keep American workers poor to maximize profits then they cannot be the consumers needed to grow the economy..we all know that.  It is the policy of impoverishing workers and feeding free money to corporations allowing them to expand globally that is creating the mess we have in America today.  It is all policy and it is now being dealt out by Third Way corporate democrats.  Thought it would go away went you voted democrat?  Not with these neo-liberals..



RUN AND VOTE FOR LABOR AND JUSTICE NEXT ELECTIONS!


Retailers expanding globally turn to developing markets


Lorraine Mirabella 7:30 a.m. EDT, June 17, 2013

Retailers plagued by slow sales might want to seek customers outside the U.S. -- places, for instance, such as Brazil, Chile and Uruguay.

Those countries top a 2013 ranking of developing countries for retail investment by consultant A.T. Kearney.

"South America is blossoming," the report says, thanks to increased consumer confidence amid a strong and growing middle class, controlled inflation, sustained economic growth and continued economic and political stability.

Louis Vuitton, Cartier, Yves Saint Laurent, Emporio Armani and Calvin Klein opened or have plans to open stores in Uruguay. Gap opened its first store in Uruguay in December, the report says.

The global retail development index, published each year since 2002, ranks the top 30 developing countries based on 25 macroeconomic and retail-specific variables. The study found that while developed markets have weak or stagnant growth potential, opportunities lie in developing markets.

Turkey, the sixth-ranked country, is luring international retailers with a growing economy and favorable consumer demographics. Apple is opening its first store in Istanbul this year.

In Mexico, which rose by seven rankings to land at 21st, Payless ShoeSource will open 41 stores though a Mexican franchiser in the next three years. Apparel chain H&M has opened its first Mexico City store.

And sub-Saharan Africa continues to build momentum, with Botswana and Namibia in the rankings.

Because five of the 12 most populous countries will be in Africa by 2100, "there is no doubt that this continent is a dramatic retail opportunity for those that can navigate the business and political risks," the report says.

For luxury retailers, some up-and-coming hubs are on the horizon. Small-population countries with wealth and a focus on consumers were ranked highly, among them Uruguay; ranked third, Mongolia, seventh; Georgia, eighth, and Armenia, 10th.

The index also found examples of global retailers reversing course after aggressive expansions, including in China, where "many are scaling back plans for new stores and choosing sites more carefully," the report says.

Meanwhile, in Latin America and Central Asia, more retailers are opening in smaller countries before deciding whether to enter larger markets.

lorraine.mirabella@baltsun.com


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June 19th, 2013

6/19/2013

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DO NOT THINK IT ALRIGHT FOR ONE GROUP TO BE OPPRESSED BECAUSE INJUSTICE FOR ONE WILL BECOME INJUSTICE FOR ALL!

I want to stay with the TPP and world protest today as we look more closely at massive protest and the mainstream media working to minimize this massive movement.  I told you about how for just a small gathering at the Capitol against NSA the police told media cameras to shut down.  I listened to NPR/APM give an account of this Brazil protest and they painted a picture of thousands out to protest high transportation costs one day but the next things were more quiet as people were overall satisfied with Brazil's economic success.

That of course is not true.  We see here just as we see in the next article that has London building skyscrapers trying to look like Shanghai that the 1% are again using development as a means to move taxpayer money into projects that will be owned by the 1% and it is all directed at making major cities into fiefdoms that they are trying to make too expensive for most people to afford.  THE OLD CASTLE WITH THE GENTRY INSIDE AND THE MASSES SURROUNDING SCRAPING AN EXISTENCE AND HANDING MOST OF THEIR EARNINGS AS TAX TO THE GENTRY. 


THAT IS TOWARDS WHERE THEY ARE GOING FOLKS!!!!!!  YOU NEED TO SHOUT LOUDLY AND STRONGLY AND BECOME ENGAGED IN BUILDING YOUR COMMUNITY NETWORK OF POLITICAL ACTIONS!!!!

The Brazilian government is doing just what the Greek and southern European governments did in spending hundreds of billions of taxpayer money on huge development projects. Development projects are investment firms so the bank lends money to a taxpayer funded project and then owns the management of the project.....think M and T Bank stadium. Billions go directly to the developer in construction costs and billions go to the developer in management costs. The taxpayers foot the bill for operations, infrastructure, AND ALL LOSSES.

THIS IS WHAT PUBLIC PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS ARE ALL ABOUT!!!!

Brazil World Cup Website Hacked, Replaced with Protest Footage

Create! Brazil
By Natasha Lennard, www.salon.com
June 18th, 2013
37Protestors march in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Monday(Credit: AP)

The cyberattack symbolized growing rage against a status quo crystallized in World Cup, Olympics spending Evidencing (as if it were really necessary) that the ongoing mass protests and riots in Brazil are about much more than the latest public transport fare hike, hackers have attacked the Brazil 2014 World Cup website with protest footage. While the World Cup and the Olympics are lauded as emblems of sporting prowess and global unity, they are understood to be working vectors and reproducers of neoliberal hegemony, with concomitant city-restructuring, government spending and displacement of the poor in favor of massive stadiums and tourist facilities.

The FIFA website was (and, stunningly, remains) replaced with footage of protesters marching then meeting a vicious police response:

Natasha Lennard is an assistant news editor at Salon, covering non-electoral politics, general news and rabble-rousing. Follow her on Twitter @natashalennard, email nlennard@salon.com.


Below you see what these protests are really about yet 'public' media make no comment on corporate/government crime and corruption.


More protests expected as Brazilians decry corruption NBC Evening News

  Tension in Brazil finally erupted when an estimated 250,000 took to the streets in more than a dozen cities, complaining about rampant corruption, crime, low wages and a lack of social services.


____________________________________________


Look locally to see the same in your states and communities.....all development is being controlled by investment firms and developers who were enriched from the massive corporate fraud and are now using that money to build fiefdoms that most will be priced out of....that is to what these people are protesting whether it is Turkey, London, Japan, or Brazil. WHY NOT IN AMERICA WHERE IT IS HAPPENING AS WELL? If you can't afford to live in the city they say move to the mid-west!



As Patterson Park residents fight to keep their park intact rather than become a health facility.....you see money being plowed into a community using funds that are meant to provide justice to underserved communities and families victim of mortgage fraud.  The development of the city is not a bad thing.  Everyone has wanted to see the city revitalized.  What is bad, and what equates to the article above with Brazilians sick and tired of crime and corruption in government and development and the use of funds that should be building communities slated for underserved/working class being instead used to build affluent communities that are costing too much for those very underserved/working class.  THESE FUNDS THAT SHOULD BE HELPING LOW-INCOME HAVE A HEALTHY COMMUNITY ARE INSTEAD SIMPLY BEING USED TO GENTRIFY PEOPLE OUT OF CITY CENTER.

That is what Brazilians and Greeks and Londoners are all shouting about as cities around the world are being turned into fiefdoms increasingly using economic status as a requirement for residency.  THERE IS NO LOW-INCOME HOUSING IN CITY CENTER AND DEVELOPMENT IS BEING PAID FOR THROUGH GRANTS FOR AND TAX REVENUE PAID BY THE WORKING CLASS.

Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle (LBS) is a great justice organization in Baltimore that speaks to all of this.  Below you see a schedule of events that shout out....WHAT ARE ALL THESE PRIVATE NON-PROFITS DOING TELLING BLACK CHILDREN AND COMMUNITIES WHAT THEY NEED?

AMEN!!!!  You don't have to be black to feel that way.


What they are outing is the SHADOW GOVERNMENT OF NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS AS PRIVATE NON-PROFITS.  I spoke at length about this but want to remind people that Baltimore is ONE BIG SHADOW GOVERNMENT THAT HAS THE RICH FUNNELING MONEY AROUND LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND WRITING ALL PUBLIC POLICY.  That is towards what the Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle and myself work to change and that is what people around the world are protesting.  They are all sick and tired of having money stolen from them and government coffers and then spent to develop in ways they have no say and know they will not be able to live.   So, you have money moving to development but it has no connection with the current community and the organization overseeing management, HUMANIM, has a black CEO but all the policy of that organization is written by rich white corporate heads working for their own development projects.  Will the residents there now saying a garden is nice be there long?  Watch as rents and taxes move them out of this nicely coiffed community asset.  Would they have wanted more children's playgrounds and small businesses to employ people?  YES.

LBS is hosting a fundraiser for the inaugural season of the Morgan State University Debate team.

We'll be debating the non-profit industrial complex against folks who are currently involved in the non-profit industry.

The dialogue promises to be engaging, interactive and controversial!

Debate participants TBA later next week.

Admission is $10 (donations are strongly encouraged)

Please come through and support!

Side note: With your help, in Fall 2013, Morgan State will have the ONLY policy debate team at an HBCU in the United States.


Now, Virgie Williams is a member of Baltimore's black elite social circle and is actively working against the interests of this community of low-income people.  Virgie knows what this development means as does the HUMANIM CEO.....they are working to gentrify the very neighborhood the church represents.  Look at City Hall from where all these policies written by rich, white developers are rubber stamped!  These black leaders are being used and they do so for their personal gain.  Meanwhile, the entire justice community in the city is silenced by this capture.  I hear all the time from the underserved that their leaders are working against them and not for them....this is the 'black ministers' that control the vote in the city and who time and again support the very politicians that are killing working class and poor communities.  THIS IS FOR WHAT PEOPLE AROUND THE WORLD ARE TAKING TO THE STREETS.

THIS IS NOT ONLY AN ATTACK ON RACE OR CREED.....IT IS AN ATTACK ON CLASS AND THE FACT THAT WE ARE ALL BEING PUSHED INTO AN EVER LOWER CLASS WITH NO VOICE.  We all know that all development in Baltimore City Center is moving all of working and even middle class families out.

A patch of green brightens Broadway East New park replacing rundown homes, easing city's storm pollution

View from the Humanim building on Gay Street of The New Broadway East Community Park taking shape in East Baltimore on 18 vacant lots. (Kim Hairston, Baltimore Sun / June 5, 2013)

By Timothy B. Wheeler, The Baltimore Sun 5:34 p.m. EDT, June 14, 2013

A new urban park is bringing a patch of green to a once-blighted corner of Broadway East, a project organizers hope can be a model for improving the quality of life and reducing pollution in other distressed Baltimore neighborhoods.

Trees are to be planted today at the corner of Gay and Federal streets, on a third of an acre where until a few years ago 18 mostly dilapidated rowhouses had stood. Community and nonprofit leaders, elected officials and others who live, worship and work in the area are expected to be on hand to help with landscaping the New Broadway East Community Park.

"We're excited about it," said Virgie Williams, who is co-chair of the "Green Space" ministry for Southern Baptist Church, across Gay Street from the project. "The park should be a great asset for the community." 

The park's development has been a joint venture coordinated by Parks & People Foundation, the nonprofit that works to promote greening of neighborhoods and outdoor recreation. Its partners included the city, the New Broadway East community association and Humanim, the social-services nonprofit whose renovation of the 19th-century American Brewery building on Gay Street has been a catalyst for efforts to revitalize the neighborhood — and for this park.

Oddly enough, for a group with "parks" in its name, this is the first one Parks & People has developed, according to Guy Hager, senior director of the foundation's "great parks, clean streams and green communities" program. The project sprang out of a retreat the foundation had at Humanim's brewery headquarters a few years ago, he said. The city had bought up the homes on the land beside the brewery, so foundation and Humanim representatives met with community leaders to find out what they'd like to see done with the open space.

"People didn't want just another tomato garden," said Cindy Plavier-Truitt, Humanim's chief development officer. With a large, well-established community garden nearby on North Duncan Street, they wanted this to be a green place where they could sit and talk and hold community events.

The city put about $800,000 into demolishing the rowhouses, repaving the sidewalks and other improvements, and Parks & People obtained a $200,000 grant from the state for the park itself.


Even the ground beneath the homes has been rehabilitated, with a fresh layer of topsoil brought in to help sustain the two dozen trees and other vegetation to be planted there.

Among the infrastructure upgrades is a buried electrical cable, to be used if the partners can realize their long-range vision of making it a "tech park," wired and equipped with flat screens where residents could come to get information and learn about events going on in the neighborhood. The feasibility of that has yet to be determined, but in the meantime, benches made from recycled paper have been donated for use in the park by Boise Inc., a Utah-based paper and packaging company. The Alliance for Community Trees, based in College Park, also is pitching in.

One of the park's novel features is its use of rain-absorbing "porous" pavement and pavers for the walking paths, plaza and parking spots. Hager said they're being used in the park to demonstrate their potential for reducing stormwater pollution that fouls the city's streams and harbor. Rainfall should soak into the ground through these porous surfaces, rather than running off into the street, washing trash, pet waste, fertilizer and other debris down storm drains that lead to the harbor.

Replacing standard asphalt or concrete with porous pavement or pavers is one of the ways the city, with so much ground hard-scaped, can reduce its stormwater pollution. But Hager said the city has been hesitant to embrace these materials because they feared they couldn't afford to maintain them. Porous pavement needs to be vacuumed periodically to keep the openings in its surface from becoming clogged with dirt. However, Humanim has agreed to maintain the park and its porous pavement.

Community members hope similar things can be done with other vacant lots in the area. Williams said having a green space where residents can gather ought to help deter crime in the neighborhood by demonstrating to potential trouble-makers that it's a tight-knit area where people care about their community and each other. The vegetation and the birds and wildlife they attract also will be welcomed, she said, by elderly residents of the church's senior housing center across the street.

"I see improvement, not only for the neighborhood, but for the city as well," said Eddie Harley, 78, a former resident of the demolished homes, who now lives across Federal Street from the park.

tim.wheeler@baltsun.com


____________________________________________________

BELOW YOU SEE LONDONERS ARE BEING MOVED OUT AS THE CITY IS MADE INTO A MANHATTAN-STYLE LUXURY LIVING.

You missed the two most important issues in this discussion......first, globalization is dead and Rule of Law is about to claw back tens of trillions of dollars in fraud from the financial industry in both US and UK/Europe.  All of this development is being fueled by and paid for by all of these fraudulent gains.  So, because our justice agencies have suspended Rule of Law and not brought back the fraud as of yet, we are seeing all this movement of fraud into this development that will simply sit idle once banks are downsized and capped.  Then, we will have massive commercial buildings littering our urban landscape much like Spain's great development of housing and commercial real estate that is just sitting, again all paid for by massive subprime mortgage fraud and sovereign debt fraud.  THESE PEOPLE ARE BUILDING WITH MONEY THAT ISN'T THEIRS AND THE COST OF REMOVING IT WILL BE A BURDEN ON THE PUBLIC! The people are shouting loudly across the world that they will not be displaced by thugs spending stolen money!


Second, this threat to historical architecture shows such hubris.  You listen to Cameron call for banking reforms in a country with so much fraud that if he were to do anything this construction frenzy would stop.  You cannot have a finance economy when the entire world thinks the industry is criminal....this is bizarre.  In the US Timothy Geithner.....AKA 'Let the fraud continue' as he and Greenspan told 50 states attorney general in 2005....spoke at a Johns Hopkins commencement and stated that people are going to call you bad, but just ignore it.
 They called these kinds of people barbarians and Visigoths back in the day.....SHAKE THE BUGS OUT OF THE RUG!



Change Is On The Horizon For London's Famous Skyline

by Christopher Werth

June 18, 2013 5:38 PM NPR



London's 122 Leadenhall Street (nicknamed the "Cheese-Grater") is shown under construction on March 5. Once complete it will be London's second-tallest building. The recent construction of numerous skyscrapers has sparked concern that views of historic landmark buildings, such as St Paul's Cathedral, are being obscured.

Matthew Lloyd/Getty Images Cities are defined by their skylines — while Paris is composed mostly of low-rise apartment buildings, New York is a city of tall office towers. But London is a city in transition. On Tuesday, Boris Johnson, the mayor of the British capital, attends a "topping out" ceremony for one of London's latest skyscrapers in a city where tall buildings cause a lot of controversy.

Until recently, London has been a low-rise city.
 Even now, a 12-story building is considered rather tall.
 But a spate of new skyscrapers is raising questions about the kind of city London should be.

The newest entrant is a building Londoners have dubbed the "Cheese-Grater." It's an unfinished, 52-story steel frame that looks, well, like a cheese grater. One entire facade of the building tapers down to the street at such a sharp angle, it just calls out for a block of English cheddar. Once complete, it will be London's second-tallest building.

Nigel Webb of British Land, the developer, says the building is designed so its smaller top doesn't obstruct the view of St. Paul's Cathedral, built by Christopher Wren in the 17th century. The church is many blocks away, but views of the building from around the city are protected by law.

"Had we designed the building so that it was like a traditional tower going straight up, it would have actually clashed with the dome of St. Paul's," says Webb.

This gets at why skyscrapers can be so difficult to build in London: The city boasts centuries of architectural history, and some observers are very worried about its changing skyline.

“ The landscape of London is completely transformed — has somehow burst into a kind of small Shanghai.

- Francesco Bandarin, UNESCO's new assistant director-general for culture

"You know nowadays, the landscape of London is completely transformed — has somehow burst into a kind of small Shanghai," says Francesco Bandarin of UNESCO, the United Nations' cultural organization for conserving world heritage. "But these changes have limits."

Bandarin says London's new skyscrapers threaten another important, London landmark, the Tower of London, which sits right in the shadow of the city's new buildings. Built by William the Conqueror in the 11th century, the tower oozes British history: A couple of Henry VIII's wives lost their heads here; it's home to the Crown Jewels. 
 


UNESCO designates the Tower of London an official World Heritage Site, and Bandarin says it has warned the British government about the new development around it.

"We see now that it's very difficult to perceive the tower as it was in its very long millenary history because of the existence of these high-rise buildings," says Bandarin.

The British government is in talks with UNESCO to preserve what's left of the area. But Paul Finch, a critic at Architects' Journal, is concerned by what he says is the implication that instead of just preserving views of the Tower of London, UNESCO is urging the city to protect what visitors see from it. 


"The idea that we're going to start protecting views from these historic monuments and places is a form of madness," says Finch. "There is a danger of ending up with great swaths of a city, which cannot accommodate taller buildings."


Heated battles have already erupted. John Penrose, a former government minister for heritage in the U.K., is in favor of development. But he says The Shard — the tall, glass, spike-shaped building that now dominates the London skyline — was nearly scrapped because of conservationists' concerns over the Tower of London. And he has his own concerns.

"In the worst case," says Penrose, "UNESCO could withdraw the designation of being a World Heritage Site." 


That's something the organization has done only once in Europe, when Dresden built a bridge UNESCO said degraded the views around the German city.
 


In London's defense, Edward Lister, the city's deputy mayor for planning, says all of the new high-rises are essential for London to maintain its status as a global financial center.

“ You cannot allow development to be stalled in a city like this. London's grown by 600,000 people in just the last five years. And we will be over 9 million people before New York. That's the pressure that the city's under.

- Edward Lister, London's deputy mayor for planning

"UNESCO is taking a very, very black-and white-position, and I'm afraid life's not like that," says Lister. "You cannot allow development to be stalled in a city like this. London's grown by 600,000 people in just the last five years. And we will be over 9 million people before New York. That's the pressure that the city's under." 


Nevertheless, London has come up with new guidelines as a result of the furor over the city's building boom. Known as "The London Plan," it protects more views across the city. But some tourists at the Tower of London look up at the surrounding walls of glass and kind of like it. 


"I think it shows how beautiful time was back in the 11th century, and just how beautiful the new creations are now in the 21st century," says Vanessa Lawson, visiting London from the nearby town of Hastings. "You know we kind of have to accept changes and go with them really."

And even more change is on the way. London has just approved proposals for tall buildings within view of another World Heritage Site, the Houses of Parliament, and UNESCO is concerned.

_________________________________________




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June 18th, 2013

6/18/2013

0 Comments

 
Green Shadow Cabinet joins critical struggle to defeat the Trans-Pacific Partnership

June 17, 2013   Green Shadow Cabinet

The Green Shadow Cabinet stands united in opposition to the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), and is committed to defeating this Obama administration effort to enrich and empower global corporations at the expense of people and planet.

For three years, the Obama administration has engaged in 16 rounds of secret negotiations to develop the TPP. Those negotiations have included hundreds of representatives of global corporations. The TPP negotiations have excluded representatives of the vast majority of the American people. It is a fact that the TPP is global economic policy for the 1%, at the expense of the 99%.

Today, all five branches and 81 members of the Green Shadow Cabinet begin to act in concert to not only defeat the TPP, but to show America that another government with another global economic agenda is possible. There is an alternative to the corrupt political establishment that produces economic terrors like the TPP. Our Cabinet is proof of that alternative.

Daily this week, the Green Shadow Cabinet will release over a dozen statements in opposition to the TPP; these statements describe the threats posed by the TPP, and offer better alternatives. This month, our Cabinet members will begin participating in the broader movement against the TPP through actions and events across the United States and urge all Americans to join this effort. We are bringing our networks and communities into this critical struggle.

THE TPP THREATENS ALL OF US

If you oppose the industrial farming practices of Monsanto, Cargill and other giant food and agribusiness corporations, with their intense use of toxic herbicides and other harmful chemicals, production of untested genetically modified food, efforts to control the seed supply and patent life, their pollution of the water, air, soil and food supply, then you must oppose the TPP.

If you oppose the actions of the big banks and financial institutions that led to the world economic crash, exploding wealth inequality, risky investments that endanger the economic future, and their ability to dominate national economies, then you must oppose the TPP.

If you are committed to protecting the rights of working people to a living wage, the right to organize, and to safe working conditions, then you must oppose the TPP.

If you favor a free and open Internet where free speech is protected and creativity and communication flourish, then you must oppose the TPP.

If you understand that healthcare is a human right and that the inflated prices of pharmaceutical drugs should not be protected by law, then you must oppose the TPP.

If you want to see the air, waters and lands protected from toxic chemicals and pollution, and know that the ecological crisis of species extinction and environmental breakdown must be reversed, then you must oppose the TPP.

If you would live in a world where local, state, and national governments are allowed to take urgent action to deal with the global climate crisis, and to implement a Green New Deal, then you must oppose the TPP.

We look forward to working with you in the coming months to defeat the Trans-Pacific Partnership and to prevent its sister trade agreement, the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, from following the same path. The first step is to stop enactment of Trade Promotion Authority legislation, also known as “Fast Track,” that would prevent Congress from holding hearings on the TPP or amending the TPP. There must be no end-run around the Constitution, or the right of the American people to petition the government for redress.

DEFENDING THE NEW WORLD

We know that another world is possible. We are building that world every day through local governments, cooperatives, community organizations, and publicly owned financial institutions.

Those who defend corporate capitalism also understand that another world is possible, and the Trans-Pacific Partnership is their attempt to foreclose our new world. The TPP gives major corporations legal personhood to sue in transnational courts dominated by judges who themselves are lawyers for major corporations. Under the TPP, corporations would be able to claim that environmental, labor, financial, health and other laws cost them profits, and to extract damages from our governments - and from us as taxpayers - if they enforce those laws.

The current administration in Washington D.C. is committed to passing the TPP and to defeating America’s grassroots movement for economic democracy. The Green Shadow Cabinet is committed to defeating the TPP, and to strengthening the U.S. democracy movement. We and our allies are the many, they are the few. Let us defend our communities and our future and stop the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Statement of the Green Shadow Cabinet of the United States of America:

  • Jill Stein, President
  • Cheri Honkala, Vice President
  • Patch Adams, Assistant Secretary of Health for Holistic Health
  • Marsha Coleman-Adebayo, Government Transparency and Accountability, Director
  • Kali Akuno, Secretary of Racial Justice
  • Kris Alman, Assistant Secretary of Health for Data Privacy
  • Gar Alperovitz, New Economy Advisor to the President
  • Marc Armstrong, Secretary of Commerce
  • Ajamu Baraka, Public Intervenor for Human Rights
  • Bill Barry, Workers Rights Administration, Administrator
  • Roshan Bliss, Assistant Secretary of Education for Higher Education
  • Leah Bolger, Secretary of Defense
  • Steve Breyman, Environmental Protection Agency, Administrator
  • Mary Bricker-Jenkins, Aid to Families and Youth, Director
  • Ellen Brown, Secretary of the Treasury
  • Richard Bruno, Assistant Secretary of Health for Medical Education and Training
  • Shahid Buttar, Civil Rights Enforcement, Director 
  • Lee Camp, Commissioner for the Comedic Arts
  • Olveen Carrasquillo, Assistant Secretary of Health for Health Equity
  • Claudia Chaufan, Assistant Secretary of Health for System Design
  • Steven Chrismer, Secretary of Transportation
  • David Cobb, Commission on Corporations and Democracy, Chair
  • Khalilah Collins, Public Intervenor for Social Justice
  • Christopher Cox, Political Ecology Advisor to the President
  • Michael Crenshaw, People's Culture Bureau, Work Progress Administration
  • Maureen Cruise, Assistant Secretary of Health for Community Wellbeing
  • Ronnie Cummins, Administrator, Food and Drug Administration
  • Tim DeChristopher, Emergency Climate Action Coordinator
  • King Downing, President's Commission on Corrections Reform, Chair
  • Mark Dunlea, White House Office of Climate and Agriculture, Director
  • Steve Early, Workers Power Administration, Administrator
  • Robert Fitrakis, Federal Elections Commission, Chair
  • Margaret Flowers, Secretary of Health
  • George Friday, Commission on Community Power, Chair
  • Bruce Gagnon, Secretary of Space
  • Jack Gerson, Assistant Secretary of Education for K-12
  • Jim Goodman, Secretary of Agriculture
  • Philip Harvey, Full Employment Council, Chair
  • Howie Hawkins, Full Employment Council, Vice Chair
  • Kimberly King, Secretary of Education
  • Charles Komanoff, Assistant Secretary for Sustainable Urban Transportation
  • Bruce Levine, Assistant Secretary of Health for Clinical Mental Health
  • Vance "Head-Roc" Levy, Poet Laureate
  • Ethel Long-Scott, Commission on Women's Power, Co-Chair
  • Sarah Manski, Small Business Administration, Administrator
  • Ben Manski, White House Chief of Staff
  • George Paz Martin, Peace Ambassador
  • Gloria Mattera, Assistant Secretary of Health for Public Health Education
  • Richard McIntyre, U.S. Trade Representative
  • David McReynolds, Peace Advisor to the President
  • Gloria Meneses Sandoval, Secretary of Immigration
  • Richard Monje, Secretary of Labor
  • Suren Moodliar, Global Democracy Programs, Director
  • Jim Moran, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Administrator
  • Carol Paris, Assistant Secretary of Health for Mental Health Systems
  • Sandy Perry, Secretary of Housing
  • Todd Price, Assistant Secretary of Education for Education Technology
  • Jesselyn Radack, National Security and Human Rights Advisor to the President
  • Jack Rasmus, Federal Reserve System, Chairman
  • Michael Ratner, Division of Civil, Social & Economic Rights, Director
  • Ray Rogers, International Labor Rights, Advisor
  • Anna Rondon, Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Indian Affairs
  • Lewis Rosenbaum, Public Media Administration, Administrator
  • Daniel Shea, Veteran's Affairs: Chemical Exposure
  • Diljeet Singh, Assistant Secretary of Health for Women's Health and Cancer
  • Kaitlin Sopoci-Belknap, Bureau of Water Preservation, Director
  • Robert Stone, Assistant Secretary of Health for Emergency and Palliative Care
  • David Swanson, Secretary of Peace
  • Sean Sweeney, Climate Change Advisor to the President
  • Clifford Thornton, Drug Policy Agency, Administrator
  • Brian Tokar, Director of the Office of Technology Assessment
  • Bruce Trigg, Assistant Secretary of Health for Drug Policy
  • Walter Tsou, Surgeon General
  • Kabzuag Vaj, Commission on Women's Power, Co-Chair
  • Harvey Wasserman, Secretary of Energy
  • Rich Whitney, Office of Management and Budget, Director
  • Richard D. Wolff, Council of Economic Advisors, Chair
  • Ann Wright, Secretary of State
  • Bruce Wright, Commission on Ending Homelessness, Chair
  • Stephen Zarlenga, Monetary Authority Board, Chair
  • Kevin Zeese, Attorney General
Click here to read other statements of the Green Shadow Cabinet and to learn more.
________________________________________________






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Vancouver Protests Demand "End to Silence" on TPP Resist! Corporatism, TPP
By Kristen Beifus and Stuart Trew, www.popularresistance.org
June 17th, 2013
North American fair trade activists put the spotlight on secretive international trade negotiations in Vancouver this weekend Vancouver, June 16, 2013 – Negotiators from 11 Pacific Rim countries met quietly in Vancouver this weekend to set new investment rules within the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). No announcement of this “intersessional” on investment was made to the public or the media.

People in Canada first learned about this TPP ‘mini’ negotiation from an article in the Peruvian media Friday. It was later confirmed by iPolitics.ca with no other details and has since been acknowledged by the federal government in a brief statement concluding the intersessional talks.

“It’s long past time to end the silence on the TPP,” says Kristen Beifus of the Washington Fair Trade Coalition. “It’s outrageous that this investor rights treaty is being developed behind closed doors. What they are negotiating will impact all of us, just as NAFTA has for 20 years, and we deserve to know what is being negotiated in our name.”

Activists from Canada, the U.S. and Mexico, under the banner of the TPPxBorder network, gathered in Vancouver this weekend to challenge the TPP investment talks. They held an emergency teach-in at Greenpeace Vancouver offices on Saturday night and projected messages about the unacceptable secrecy in the TPP negotiations on downtown buildings (see photo).

On Sunday, the same groups protested the TPP outside the offices of Pacific Rim — a Canadian mining company that is suing El Salvador for $300 million under international investment rules that say corporate profits should be protected from community opposition to mining.

“The Pacific Rim case epitomizes everything that is wrong with investment treaties and investment chapters in corporate rights deals like the TPP — and why it was important to protest the intersessional TPP meeting in Vancouver,” says Stuart Trew, trade campaigner with the Council of Canadians. “The investor-state lawsuits are not decided by the courts but by unaccountable commercial arbitrators. Canada’s had enough of that through NAFTA. The last thing we need is to expand this across the Pacific to countries that can’t afford it.”

The Trans-Pacific Partnership involves 12 countries around the Pacific (Canada, US, Mexico, Peru, Chile, Australia, New Zealand, Brunei, Malaysia, Vietnam, Singapore, Japan) and 600 international corporations which also participate in the talks. In addition to new investor rights rules, the TPP aims to extend patents for brand-name pharmaceuticals thereby driving up drug prices, put new restrictions on and even criminalize routine Internet activities such as file-sharing, and poses a threat to environmental and public health laws.

More information:
Kristen Beifus, Washington Fair Trade Coalition: 503-539-7471; kristen@washingtonfairtrade.org (in Vancouver)
Stuart Trew, Council of Canadians: 647-222-9782; strew@canadians.org (in Toronto)
For more information on TPP: TPPxBorder.org, TPPxBorder on Facebook, @tppxborder on Twitter

________________________________________________



Happening NOW in Brazil! Protesters have occupied the halls and the roof of congress! Hundred of thousands in the streets!

#Brazil #AnonymousBrasil #BrasilAcordou #OGiganteAcordou #protestobsb #changebrazil

Please watch and share:
http://www.livestream.com/anonymousBR

To learn more about the Brazilian uprising please watch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIBYEXLGdSg&feature=youtu.be

All Power to the People!

KLM

_____________________________________________

I thank Margaret for this assessment that is right on.....I only ask why as she says that progressive leaders did not start to out this in 2011 as she acknowledges the leak occurred.  One can suspect that they did not want the 2012 elections hurt for the democrats but we all know that Third Way corporate democrats are working towards the same goals as republicans so we needed to get people on board with this fight years ago.  As it is now, Third Way corporate democrats will try to push these deals through Congress just as they did sequester......a massive spark of intense closed door negotiations with a quick vote that approves all of these trade deal agreements with no public input.  WE ALREADY KNOW THAT IS WHAT WILL HAPPEN AND THE CURRENT IMMIGRATION REFORM BILL IS ONE OF THESE EARLY TRADE DEAL ISSUES DISGUISED AS POLICY MEANT TO HELP EXISTING AMERICAN IMMIGRANTS.

As Margaret says here there is no way that global health systems will be anything but cutthroat and profit-driven and we know that the Affordable Care Act is simply moving that policy of global markets for market-based health care.
  Third Way corporate democrats and Obama are actually trying to force nations that have strong public health care to cut programs as these subsidies kill market competition.  See why they are gutting and killing the Entitlements with massive fraud and defunding just like our pension system?

I am not sure of some of these social leaders like Margaret and Green Party Jill Stein because none of them place the massive corporate fraud and recovery of Treasury bound payroll taxes out in the open.  I know that all of these issues are overwhelming but we need people to know that they are due tens of trillions of dollars and that we will get them back.
  They are providing a national voice to important issues


Trans-Pacific Partnership undermines health system
Medical corporations seek tools to protect their profits despite harmful effects on public health.
Last Modified: 17 Jun 2013 15:38 Margaret Flowers



Margaret Flowers, MD served as Congressional Fellow for Physicians for a National Health Program and is on the board of Healthcare-Now. She is co-director of It's Our Economy and co-host of Clearing the FOG Radio Show.

RSS People in the US pay the most for health services as there is no rational system for setting prices [Reuters] The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a deal that is being secretly negotiated by the White House, with the help of more than 600 corporate advisers and Pacific Rim nations, including Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam. While the TPP is being called a trade agreement, the US already has trade agreements covering 90 percent of the GDP of the countries involved in the talks. Instead, the TPP is a major power grab by large corporations.

The text of the TPP includes 29 chapters, only five of which are about trade. The remaining chapters are focused on changes that multinational corporations have not been able to pass in Congress such as restrictions on internet privacy, increased patent protections, greater access to litigation and further financial deregulation.

So far, all that is known about the contents of the TPP is from documents that have been leaked and reports from NGOs and industry meetings. Unlike other trade deals, the White House refuses to make the text available to the public. In fact, the negotiators refuse to publish the text until four years after it is signed into law. Why are they being so secretive? Former US Trade Representative Ron Kirk said he opposed making the text public because doing so would raise such opposition that it could make the deal impossible to sign.

From the information available, one thing is clear about the impacts of the TPP on health care: the intention of the TPP is to enhance and protect the profits of medical and pharmaceutical corporations without considering the harmful effects their policies will have on human health.

We know that the TPP will extend pharmaceutical and medical device patents and provide other tools to keep the prices of these necessities high. This will make medications and treatments unaffordable for millions of people and raise the costs of national health programmes. At its worst, the TPP will provide a pathway to infect the world's health systems with the deadly parasite of for-profit health corporations that plague the US.

Patents keep prices high

Through the TPP, pharmaceutical and medical device corporations are seeking extensive patent protections using a process known as "Evergreening". The TPP gives 20 years of patent protection for pharmaceuticals and medical devices; however, patents can be renewed for another 20 years each time there is a change in an indication or delivery. For instance, if a drug is indicated for headaches, but then the pharmaceutical company finds that it is also helpful for stomach cramps or makes it a capsule instead of a tablet, a new patent may be issued. In reality, patents can be extended indefinitely under the TPP.

Doctors Without Borders criticised this practice, stating that patent protections in previous trade agreements raised the price of life-saving medications and made them unavailable to people in poorer countries. Patents prevent the production of low cost generic forms of medications. Yet it was the availability of generic medicines to treat HIV and other infectious diseases that allowed advances to be made in decreasing their impact in developing countries.

Because of the negative impact on public health from patent protections in previous trade agreements, such as the Korea Free Trade Agreement, former President Bush rolled some of these practices back. Unfortunately, the TPP will move them forward again.

In fact, the TPP goes farther than previous agreements by also requiring that surgical techniques, medical tests and treatments be patented. This will restrict the availability of these treatments, especially in health systems that have limited resources. 


India's top court dismisses drug patent case Doctors Without Borders also expressed concern that patent protections encourage innovation based on profit instead of the needs of people, particularly those in poor nations. Corporations do not see it as in their financial interest to address health conditions more prevalent in poor nations which do not have the financial resources to buy their products. But it is often in these situations treatments can have the greatest impact on quality of life.

Attacking public health systems

An area of great concern is language within the TPP concerning State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs). These are institutions that are fully or partially owned by governments. SOEs are very common in countries such as Vietnam, Malaysia and Singapore.

Corporate lobbyists are concerned that SOEs have "unfair advantages" over private industry. These advantages include government subsidies, preferred tax status, low finance rates and access to capital. According to a leaked chapter, corporate lobbyists believe that there is a conflict of interest because SOEs have political considerations such as functioning to provide basic goods and services for their population and believe that instead SOEs should operate strictly as commercial entities seeking profit.

The TPP requires SOEs to disclose any special advantages they receive and the government to give the same advantages to corporations. It also provides methods for corporations to sue governments if they believe that they are not being treated fairly. The text outlines punishments such as increased tariffs on exports from the country found in violation and suspension of any "tariff concessions" made to the country in violation on imports.

Text from a section of the TPP called "Annex on Transparency and Procedural Fairness for Healthcare Technologies" was leaked in June 2011. It reveals this conflict between medical industries that have strictly commercial interests and public health systems that are concerned about the health of the population. Medical industries are pushing on all fronts to keep their prices high while public health systems must negotiate to keep prices affordable and maximize what they can cover within their budgets.

To the medical industries, such price negotiation is one of the "unfair advantages" of public health systems. When a public health system negotiates a lower price, it is said to be exerting its market power. On the flip side, when a government extends patent protections to medical industries to keep prices high, this is not considered to be an unfair advantage granted by the government.

Medical industries are pushing for other concessions within the TPP to "level the playing field", also known as forcing public entities to operate as market-based entities, such as factoring the cost of not just research, development and production of drugs and medical devices, but also the cost of marketing them into what is considered to be a fair market price. And they only view prices negotiated without any government influence as fair. These provisions are significant because the TPP allows pharmaceutical corporations and others to challenge the legitimacy of any reimbursement decisions made by public health systems through the courts.

Patent and price protections for multinational pharmaceutical and medical device corporations based in the US will benefit their bottom line and their investor's pockets, but may bounce back and undermine public health systems in the US. The leaked text indicates that the above provisions only apply to health authorities under the jurisdiction of the federal government. However, the loopholes are large enough that all of the US public health systems, which include Medicare, Medicaid, Tricare and the Veterans Health Administration, can arguably be considered to be federal.

These systems already struggle within the market-based US health system that is most expensive in the world. The US health system wastes one third of health dollars on a bloated bureaucracy due to thousands of different health insurance plans, each with different rules. And people in the US pay the most for prescriptions and health services because there is no rational system for setting prices. High prices in the private health sector drive up prices in the public health sector too. For example, at present Medicare is prohibited from negotiating a bulk price for pharmaceuticals.

Over the past four years, there has been an increase in self-rationing in the US, patients avoiding or delaying necessary medical care and medications, due to health costs. At the same time, CEOs of health industries are the highest-paid in the nation. For the good of public health, we must reverse this trend towards greater privatization and lower the cost of care. But the TPP will protect the medical industries and give them greater power to use their wealth and the rigged trade tribunal court system to protect their profits.


This will undermine health systems in the US and abroad. High prices could bankrupt public health systems like those in Japan and Australia (ranked among the top in the world). Under the TPP, it is also possible that Japan's regulation of health insurance which includes controlling coverage, prices and profits would qualify it as an SOE that has unfair advantages. This could open the door for private multinational health insurance corporations to enter TPP signatory countries and demand access and that regulations are loosened.

As medical corporations gain greater wealth and power, we can expect to see further abuses to the detriment of human health. The TPP takes global health in the wrong direction. The losers in this negotiation will be the patients if the profits of corporations are permitted to come before the health of people.

Margaret Flowers, MD, served as Congressional Fellow for Physicians for a National Health Program and is on the board of Healthcare-Now. She is co-director of It's Our Economy and co-host of Clearing the FOG Radio Show.






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