Citizens' Oversight Maryland---Maryland Progressives
CINDY WALSH FOR MAYOR OF BALTIMORE----SOCIAL DEMOCRAT
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April 03rd, 2014

4/3/2014

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PLEASE STOP THIS CYCLE OF POLITICIANS THINKING THEY CAN IGNORE RULE OF LAW.  IT WILL END YOUR STATUS AS CITIZEN.....WHICH IS THE GOAL OF NEO-LIBERALISM.

You know what we say to Supreme Court ruling that allows corporate and wealth to send tons of money into campaigns?

LET THE RICH MAKE THE MEDIA RICH MAKING THEIR CORPORATE POLS RICH --------just educate in your communities for people to stop listening to these campaign advertisements that almost always have little truth.  Community centers, public schools, public justice organizations should all be educating the public as to the need to dis-empower these campaign strategies!



I will end for now my look at public justice in Maryland with a fitting topic......election law and free and fair elections.  My candidacy is based first on getting elected as Governor of Maryland but as important is highlighting how fraudulent and corrupt Maryland elections have become and much of it involves how candidates are allowed to get their campaign platform out to the public and get name recognition.  As you see below, there are pockets of Maryland's system that work and gaping holes where it doesn't.

I know that the same thing is happening in your neck of the woods so please fight the dismantling of democracy and democratic structures!




Regarding Doug Gansler and Maryland elections:


I would like to take one last day for now to speak to rebuilding Rule of Law and public justice in Maryland.  Today I will look at free and fair elections and election violations.  These are a good topic for Dan Rodricks show with Doug Gansler.

The first question has to do with eligibility to run for Governor of Maryland.  As Maryland Attorney General these two terms Doug has served at a period in America that needed justice for the largest looting of the US Treasury and American people pockets in US history.  The Bush/Obama Administrations are already labelled as the most corrupt in US history.  Doug Gansler has time and again signed off on settlements for fraud that all know were parking tickets and then found ways to make sure any penalties paid by corporations made it back to them through 'gifting' or development.  Meanwhile Doug famously says 'I see no fraud and corruption' as Center for Public Integrity ranks Maryland at the bottom for corruption and lack of transparency and other government watchdogs do the same for fraud.  A state does not have the honor of being ranked as one of the most criminal in the nation without the State Attorney General 'seeing no fraud and corruption'.  All government officials take an oath of office to serve in the public interest so turning your head to fraud and corruption is aiding and abetting these crimes.  THIS IS A FELONY.

Now, as a candidate for Governor of Maryland I am due equal access to public forums and debates put forward in Maryland by all 501c3-4 non-profits and democratic party machines.  I have many invitations across America but this is what I see quite often and most of it is illegal.  When the Baltimore Education Coalition has a debate of candidates for governor and does not invite Cindy Walsh for Governor-----the candidate from Baltimore----they have broken election campaign laws.  Who was part of that debate?  DOUG GANSLER FOR GOVERNOR.  Now, it is his job to stop this debate until it represents all democratic candidates.  I'll let the republicans put forward their own beef.  I was told the worst offender of this non-profit equal participation for candidates law are Maryland public media-----Maryland Public Television and Maryland Public Radio.  Both of these are 501c-3s getting taxpayer money that break these campaign laws every election-----AND DOUG GANSLER DOES NOTHING.  THIS IS HIS JOB.  Doug does not get to enforce only the laws he wants------THIS IS A RULE OF LAW ----EQUAL PROTECTION country.

So, we have political forums and debates happening across Maryland deliberately violating laws and doing so because they think they are protected from justice.  The second category of violations are the stealth debates and forums designed to circumvent the election laws by pretending a private non-profit is not behind these events.  Morgan State University has a public forum sponsored by 'a group of individuals' as does the Maryland NAACP, and the State Democratic Party has its statewide debates as 'Brown invites Gansler and Mizeur for a debate', another circumvention this time by the State Democratic Party.  The Young Democrats of Maryland had a debate and forum failing to invite Cindy Walsh for Governor of Maryland-----an illegal act.  Doug Gansler charged with enforcing election laws was there.

The last point has to do with campaign contributions and war chests collected by politicians who just 'cannot see fraud and corruption'.  When Doug Gansler selects how he will enforce law to protect corporate industries from billions of dollars in fraud and prosecutions......does that warrant a few million in industry contributions to his campaign?  Sounds like a good deal for these corporations and for Doug Gansler. 

THIS IS CALLED PAY-TO-PLAY and it is illegal. 
So, we have felonies right and left for one candidate for governor who seems able to receive time in Maryland media and with State Democratic Party machines.......but not for the candidates who are not felons and promote Rule of Law.  This is what makes Maryland and right now, the US, a second world heading for third world nation.  Rule of Law and Equal Protection does not allow selective enforcement of laws----this happens in Iran and Kenya.

You probably will not hear me on Maryland 'Public' Media this election cycle-----state tune for Cindy Walsh in court over election violations happening during this campaign hopefully in the capacity of Governor of Maryland!  One thing I do have is a private non-profit called Citizens Oversight Maryland that has more readership than public radio and many of the private non-profits excluding me.

These corporate neo-liberals in Maryland that control the democratic party work to make sure this control stays with wealth and profit candidates like Brown, Gansler, and Mizeur.  That is why these are the candidates you hear.  The citizens of Maryland are being subjected to the worst of social conditions created by suspended Rule of Law and dismantling of democratic structures but people of color will feel it most.  So, when institutions like Morgan State and Maryland NAACP work to keep my campaign out of this election debate......I being the only candidate who will actually protect black university funding and civil rights and liberties.....you see the corruption.  

NEO-LIBERALISM = TOTALITARIANISM = THIRD WORLD SOCIETY.  America does not have to be about winners and losers and doing anything to win.  It is a democracy with a US Constitution that gives all citizens the same rights and protections!





The Restriction of Political Campaign Intervention by Section 501(c)(3) Tax-Exempt Organizations

Under the Internal Revenue Code, all section 501(c)(3) organizations are absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office. Contributions to political campaign funds or public statements of position (verbal or written) made on behalf of the organization in favor of or in opposition to any candidate for public office clearly violate the prohibition against political campaign activity.  Violating this prohibition may result in denial or revocation of tax-exempt status and the imposition of certain excise taxes.

Certain activities or expenditures may not be prohibited depending on the facts and circumstances.  For example, certain voter education activities (including presenting public forums and publishing voter education guides) conducted in a non-partisan manner do not constitute prohibited political campaign activity. In addition, other activities intended to encourage people to participate in the electoral process, such as voter registration and get-out-the-vote drives, would not be prohibited political campaign activity if conducted in a non-partisan manner.

On the other hand, voter education or registration activities with evidence of bias that (a) would favor one candidate over another; (b) oppose a candidate in some manner; or (c) have the effect of favoring a candidate or group of candidates, will constitute prohibited participation or intervention.
Page Last Reviewed or Updated: 05-Mar-2014


_______________________________________________

Cindy Walsh for Governor of Maryland has received many invitations to debates across Maryland this primary season.  The system is not completely corrupt.  You will see the major Democratic Party vehicles in Central Maryland/Baltimore are the ones violating election law and it is no coincidence that this is the area most filled with fraud and corruption in the state.

I introduced myself to the Young Democrats.  They have a requirement to see all candidates are invited.



Gubernatorial candidates make their cases to Young Democrats
Convention held in Annapolis



March 22, 2014|By Scott Dance and Carrie Wells, The Baltimore Sun

Maryland's Democratic candidates for governor made their cases to the party's youths Saturday, but for some, like Baltimore high school student Eric Brown, the race is still a tossup.

Brown criticized all three candidates. Of Attorney General Douglas Gansler, the Reginald F. Lewis High School senior said he liked hearing straightforward albeit long answers to questions. Del. Heather Mizeur? "She's an idealist," Brown said. And Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown, he said, "had a hard time telling us what he's done."

The three candidates appeared at the Young Democrats' annual convention in Annapolis, answering questions from the young audience that focused largely on issues including higher education, jobs growth and marijuana policy. In a straw poll, Brown edged out Mizeur, with Gansler a distant third.

Each made the pilgrimage as their campaigns prepare for the June 24 primary that will decide which of them will be the favorite in the general election, in which Democrats outnumber Republicans by a 2-to-1 margin among voters.

Given a large number of students in the audience, each of the candidates weighed in on college affordability.

Mizeur suggested that the state step in where the federal government has backed off in support of financial aid, and possibly consider a "pay it forward" model adopted in Oregon in which students agree to pay a portion of their future salaries rather than paying tuition up front.

Asked about a Baltimore Sun editorial board proposal to cap tuition increases at 5 percent, instead of the 3 percent that Brown's campaign has pledged, and use the extra money for scholarships for needy students, Brown said his campaign was open to the idea.

"We have pivoted more and more to the need-based scholarships than ever before, but we need to continue to pivot there," Brown said.

Alicia Joynes, a Baltimore candidate for the Democratic State Central Committee and a 2008 Morgan State University graduate, asked Brown and running mate Ken Ulman, the Howard County executive, what their stance was on unfair program duplication affecting historically black colleges. The parties in a lawsuit on that issue are currently in court-ordered mediation.

"I don't think that policy is best made through the courts, so I'd like to see that removed from under the supervision of the court," Brown said. "We need to incentivize within our university system collaborations so that Towson and Morgan can collaborate on delivering a business school or whatever the program may be. ... What we don't do is look to the courts to settle matters. If this thing is not mediated by the time Ken and I take office, we're going to do everything we can to take it outside of mediation."

Gansler backed a "need-blind" admission process used at universities like Harvard and Yale in which students are accepted on their merits, and then financial aid packages are used to make it possible for all to afford tuition.

When one attendee challenged him for being conservative on business issues, Gansler also defended a proposal from his campaign to lower the state's corporate tax rate while collecting more from large corporations by enacting a tax policy known as combined reporting, saying it would support job growth in the state.

Much of Mizeur's education focus was on a push for universal pre-kindergarten, while she received the loudest crowd support for her calls to legalize marijuana. Attendee Dominique Hazzard called Mizeur "a breath of fresh air."

Ian Bonanno, a senior at Northern High School in Calvert County, said he thought it was clear Mizeur and Brown brought out supporters in large numbers, whereas a smaller and quieter crowd was present for Gansler's portion — circumstances perhaps reflected in the straw poll results.

"I think Heather was able to make the biggest impact," said Bonanno, who plans to volunteer for her campaign but is undecided on how he will cast his vote in June.

___________________________________________

Below you see how a general invitation to all candidates for governor is easy to do.  It is not partisan, it is inclusive, and it does not violate election laws.  Doug Gansler will probably not be there.




 On Wednesday, March 26, 2014 3:53 PM, Erik Gulbrandsen <etgulbrandsen@gmail.com> wrote:
On Friday, May 2, Kent County Democrats will host a "Meet the Candidates" event at our Headquarters, at 357 High St. The event will be an open house from 5 to 8 pm, coinciding with Chestertown's First Friday festivities. We hope you will join us for a great opportunity to meet potential supporters.

Let me know if you plan to attend, or if you have any questions. We also look forward to making your campaign signs, stickers, and other materials available at HQ throughout the cycle, so bring us some of your swag and we'll make sure it gets displayed prominently!

Erik Gulbrandsen
KCDCC Treasurer
410-371-0323


____________________________________________

The last point for now has to do with the consolidation of media in Baltimore and Maryland with the Baltimore Sun now having City Paper and all small regional news journals and the Daily Record going out of business.  We have no public media as that is corporate as well.  Now, I have for years commented in the Baltimore Sun as in all media in the area responding to Thomas Schaller and the columnists for the Sun at every turn.  Yet somehow the comment section for Schaller is disabled and no one can comment to his opinion pieces that are always neo-liberal/Clinton.

It doesn't matter if these columnists shout out for O'Malley, Hillary, Biden, or Cuomo-----they are all neo-liberal.  We hear Maryland is Clinton Country because she is the neo-liberal/neo-conservative darling----the mother of global corporate tribunals and Trans Pacific Trade Pact (TPP) that no one wants.  So, the citizens of Maryland are not for Hillary----the neo-liberals supporting global corporations and markets are.  Maryland media does not want this in the comment section going into 2016 elections and they are blocking me.

Free and fair elections must have avenues for all candidates for elections able to share their platforms and discuss the issues.  Voters need to know who the candidates on the ballot are when they go to vote.  In Maryland, if you are not part of the crony political machines.....whether democrat or republican.....you will not get name recognition.  

RULE OF LAW WILL REQUIRE THE STATE AND CITY TO PROVIDE PUBLIC ELECTION FORUMS AND ISSUE DEBATES FOR ALL CANDIDATES.  A democracy requires that all citizens have access to issues and opportunity to join the political discussion.  Maryland has neither.


THOMAS SCHALLER AND BALTIMORE SUN----STOP BLOCKING COMMENTS AGAINST NEO-LIBERALS LIKE HILLARY CLINTON.



Your move, Governor
As his governorship comes to an end, Martin O'Malley can retire or seek higher office


 

Thomas F. Schaller

12:14 p.m. EDT, April 1, 2014

Is Martin O'Malley running for president in 2016? Should he?

The answer to both questions seems the same: Sort of.

Maryland's governor will finish his second term in January, the same week he turns 52. After serving as Baltimore mayor and Maryland governor, his career in elective politics may end at a very young age unless he runs for the presidency.

    

The major obstacle in Mr. O'Malley's path to the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination is Hillary Clinton. In fact, as the prohibitive favorite to win the nomination, she's every Democratic hopeful's obstacle. When the Sun polled Maryland Democrats in February, they preferred Ms. Clinton to their own governor by a 10-to-1 margin, 59 percent to 6 percent.

And don't bet on Ms. Clinton repeating in 2016 the strategic and tactical errors that ruined her 2008 presidential bid. Fool her once, shame on her. Fool her twice — not a chance. If she runs, she wins.

Ms. Clinton has yet to declare her candidacy, and maybe she'll opt not to run. Presuming she does seek the nomination, however, she has a small problem: She needs to actually beat somebody to claim it.

Victory by acclimation will be less satisfying for the former first lady, U.S. senator and secretary of state than vanquishing a decent challenger. A contested primary is in her best interest.

Enter Mr. O'Malley, the Larry Holmes of 2016. If he's smart, Maryland's governor will declare his candidacy later this year — but before Ms. Clinton does — and then start raising money and a few eyebrows by serving as her sparring partner-to-be. Just as Muhammad Ali sharpened his boxing skills by sparring with Mr. Holmes, Mr. O'Malley can help Ms. Clinton stay sharp as she prepares for the general election.

He is ideally suited to the task.

Remember: Mr. O'Malley endorsed Ms. Clinton over Barack Obama in the 2008 Democratic primary, a decision that partly insulates him from backlash from Camp Hillary. He's wonky in a way that will make the former first lady — who in 2008 was the policy steak to Mr. Obama's rhetorical sizzle — look dynamic. His lack of foreign policy experience will accentuate her international and diplomatic cred.

And with all the administrative problems of the Obamacare rollout, both nationally and here in Maryland, Mr. O'Malley is more likely to be on the defensive about health care than she. (Hard to believe the Hillarycare disaster was more than two decades ago, isn't it?)

Which is not to suggest Mr. O'Malley's job is to take an embarrassing political dive. He's stronger than Ms. Clinton on issues related to economic populism and inequality, which may force her to talk about these issues more cogently.

What possible benefit is there for Mr. O'Malley to play the role of primary sparring partner? That's pretty obvious: the vice presidential slot on the Clinton ticket.

He is ideally suited for that role, too.

If she runs and wins the nomination, Ms. Clinton could select a woman or racial minority to be her running mate. But the safe move is probably to choose a white male. Mr. O'Malley qualifies, and he would balance the ticket in other ways: Younger, a governor, a Catholic. Progressives will also be cheered by Mr. O'Malley's successful efforts to move Maryland leftward on issues ranging from gay marriage to college tuition to the death penalty.

Mr. O'Malley doesn't put any additional states into play for the Democrats: One of only three states where Mr. Obama's 2012 winning margin exceeded that of 2008, Maryland is already solidly Democratic. But so what? Most states are so reliably blue or red that vice presidential candidates are no longer expected to deliver their states' electors anyway. (Mitt Romney didn't carry Paul Ryan's Wisconsin, which not long ago was a swing state — third closest margin in 2000, closest in 2004.)

Mr. O'Malley wowed nobody with his address to the 2012 Democratic National Convention. If he wants to move to the next level, he must prove he can deliver a rousing speech, raise gobs of cash and artfully skewer the Republicans. Or he could quietly retire to private life.

Your move, Governor.


__________________________________________

You know what we say to Supreme Court ruling that allows corporate and wealth to send tons of money into campaigns?

LET THE RICH MAKE THE MEDIA RICH MAKING THEIR CORPORATE POLS RICH --------just educate in your communities for people to stop listening to these campaign advertisements that almost always have little truth.  Community centers, public schools, public justice organizations should all be educating the public as to the need to dis-empower these campaign strategies!

FIGHT THIS BY REBUILDING PUBLIC SPACES FOR POLITICAL ISSUES AND DISCUSSION!


Supreme Court ruling could affect governor's race


The Supreme Court today struck down restrictions on the total that any person can contribute to all federal candidates for office.

By Erin Cox The Baltimore Sun 12:38 p.m. EDT, April 2, 2014

Maryland’s heated primary race for governor could get another twist if Wednesday's Supreme Court decision also strikes down the state’s cap on how much residents can donate to state political campaigns.

Minutes after the Supreme Court struck down aggregate contribution limits in federal races, Jared DeMarinis’ phone at the Maryland Board of Elections began ringing off the hook.

“Everyone wants to know: What does this mean?” said DeMarinis, director of campaign finance and candidacy.

“This one does have a direct impact on Maryland,” he said. “Maryland has one of the more restrictive aggregate limits in the nation.”

DeMarinis is still thumbing through a 40-page ruling to determine whether it could invalidate Maryland’s $10,000 per-person cap on political spending. 

Limits about how much each candidate can receive from a donor remain in place, but the ruling could possibly allow donors who have already reached their aggregate limit for the election cycle to begin putting money into as many races as they want.

“The impact that this has is great, and because it's an election year, these questions need immediate answers,” he said.

The Board of Elections can’t unilaterally undo a law, but it could tell donors who have already reached the cap they are now free to donate more without facing state enforcement.

DeMarinis said he and lawyers with the attorney general’s office will review the ruling and issue a letter of guidance to donors and campaigns by April 11. 




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March 12th, 2014

3/12/2014

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Cindy Walsh for Governor of Maryland stands for strong public, private libraries, and research institutions  


NEO-LIBERALS WORK FOR WEALTH AND PROFIT AND CONTROL THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY!  HEATHER MIZEUR SAYS SHE IS PROGRESSIVE?  HAVE YOU HEARD HER SHOUT AGAINST ALL OF THIS? SHE SUPPORTS PUBLIC PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS AND WALL STREET CREDIT BOND LEVERAGE FOR THESE KINDS OF THINGS!



MOVING ALL FEDERAL AND STATE FUNDING OF EDUCATION TO PRIVATE CORPORATE NON-PROFITS AND EDUCATION BUSINESSES IS DELIBERATELY MEANT TO PRIVATIZE AND CLOSE PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS DEDICATED TO PUBLIC INTEREST.  THIS SHOULD HAVE EVERYONE ON THE STREETS.



  To:  Citizens for Maryland Libraries

I would like to share my views of policy that will concern the vision and mission of Maryland libraries.  As an academic currently working as a research professional I live in libraries and archives so I am one of the most frequent users of the institutions for which you advocate.  I would be a real friend to public and private libraries and research institutions. 

First, let me clarify a policy stance that drives my policies on education and by extension how libraries fit into education at all levels.  We have watched these few years of Governor O’Malley’s term the embracing of a Federal policy advanced by the Obama Administration under the direction of his Education Secretary Arne Duncan called Race to the Top and this policy guides any questions regarding libraries and Common Core materials.  As a progressive labor and justice candidate I see Race to the Top as an assault on public education K-12 and with it Common Core.  I will work hard to restore rigor and accountability in all public schools as I too agree that we have failed to assure these standards in public schools these few decades.  I think Race to the Top and Common Core are not the best approach for doing this.  Indeed, I feel these policies work against the very goal stated by politicians pushing this agenda.  The method of implementation of Race to the Top shows what I feel is a desperate attempt to move education policy that Federal officials know the public does not want and they are doing as quickly as possible with such a lack of transparency as to have no avenue for public comment and input in what is the cornerstone to our democratic society-------democratic education and equal opportunity and access to all education.  Common Core sold as a standardization of curricula is not progressive but regressive.  It is not even about making sure there is consistency across America in subject content and rigor.  As anyone who has a background in science and education as I do knows……STEM courses are already standardized.  Facts are facts and courses from science, technology, engineering, and math are fact based.  Now, some people may say that areas like evolution and environment have prejudice in political beliefs, but if students are required to know science standards for existing national tests, those requirements will continue to drive course content.  My concern with Common Core is more with the humanities and liberal arts where standardization greatly jeopardizes democratic freedom of thought and speech as each region of this nation has its own experiences with socio-economic evaluation, civics, history, music, literature, etc.  We do not want to standardize that which makes a nation a plurality.  As a progressive I do not like conservative states writing out the labor and civil rights era every opportunity they get, but I also would not like having the Bush Administration writing the Common Core history lesson on their administration’s foreign policies on War and torture.  Standardization never works well at a time when government is controlled by what we all know to be corporate culture that does not have the public interest in mind in writing policy.  So, just as a general statement on education policy I will open with my intent to fight Race to the Top implementation in Maryland.  My appointments would be strong public education advocates and my bully-pulpit as governor would address the Maryland Assembly as regards the movement of policy that has so little research showing its legitimacy in creating the achievements it states and the unwise decision to move forward so quickly with policy that has not had public comment, development of core materials to be used, and the discussions as to where these policies lead the state in the long-term.  I believe the majority of citizens in Maryland, both democrat and republican are not comfortable with these policies and particularly their being implemented without discussion and thought.     Please see my website Citizens Oversight Maryland.com for very clearly written policy stances on this education policy.  Keep in mind I am an activist and this site is written to be populist.  Accountability and public oversight is the passion of my campaign.  

Now, on to  three specific questions directed at libraries: 

1.        One of the greatest achievements of our last economic revolution, the Industrial Revolution, was philanthropy that gave us the public institutions of learning and the public library system we have today.  The idea that all people living in America were to be educated in a way that prepares them to be leaders and to be citizens is central to our Founding Father’s writing of the Declaration of Independence and US Constitution.  Public places were key to the American people being both.  The legal case of Brown vs Board of Education was successful in that the dictate of equal opportunity and access to public education was already a given; it was simply the acknowledgement, as if this needed to be acknowledged, that all men are created equal includes people of color.  So, simply having this philosophy of education identifies me as someone who by extension values the library system in providing that access and opportunity to all.  If we look at the future as regards digitization of all information and the ability of citizens here in America to afford the tools needed to access this digital information we know that libraries will be even more necessary to open access to many people.  Right now, for many it is libraries that offer the only access to the internet and as public schools become more wired and computers become integrated in lessons, access to computers outside the classroom is critical.  Funding for this transition in classrooms is a good thing and we need to see that libraries and community centers are viewed as equally needing of funding to meet these changes.   We are seeing a movement in Maryland of using private education non-profits to serve in providing after-school programs and even in-school programs.  Libraries on the other hand are being left to feel that budgets could be slashed or branches closed at any time.  The movement of these educational outlets from the public to these private non-profits shows a desire to privatize our public sources and services.  I write extensively on the negative impact of public-private partnerships and where I do see good coming from some of these partnerships the goal is clearly to make these relationships the rule and not the exception.  This will not end well for libraries whether public or private.  As a researcher I know that access to research is becoming limited as even universities are making research protected from public view through patents and by extension librarians are now having to tell consumers of the library sources that once accessible data is now proprietary.  This also limits what librarians can say in the course of their duties while on the clock and as we all know, Federal rules regarding surveillance of public records has librarians forced to operate in ways they may find disagreeable.  We see this as an assault on free speech and freedom of information.  All of this falls into policy that attempts to privatize our public spaces.    In order for an education policy to be dynamic and promote success for all Marylanders, we cannot restrict our public spaces and the flow of public information with these categorization of quasi-governmental or public private.  It is repressive and it hurts everyone.  We want to build community educational programs, we want to make libraries center of these communities and a vital part of each school’s structure.  This requires strong funding to public schools and I will say that the current policy of allowing corporations to donate rather than pay taxes skews all attempts at making educational opportunities equal.  Tiered-per-pupil funding in Baltimore for example with the desire to run individual schools as businesses has some schools pressed to buy toilet paper for the children’s bathrooms so whether that school has a good library falls to the whim of private donation.  This is not democratic and public education.  It does not meet the US Constitutional requirement of democratic and equal opportunity.  Libraries that are tied to private donation rather than by public funding are then under the restrictions that come with that donation and, indeed, that is the point of this policy.  Libraries whether private or public will not serve their consumers if policy is dictated by private donation only.  I know, Carnegie was one big private donation but he had the foresight of placing them in the hands of public operation.   We must continue the public funding of library resources of all kinds and with it public access and programming developed with the public in mind.  In Baltimore, small libraries have been defunded and public access ended because of cuts to library budgets and branches are in fear each budget season that the axe may fall.  Politicians thinking all information is online will be the ones who view physical buildings for libraries as extraneous.   In conclusion, I value private non-profits operating as a source for after-school programs.  I feel that libraries are already in the position of providing these programs as well.  A well-resourced library already in a community is necessary for any well-developed education mission.  In this age of technology we would want our libraries to have the same resources as our classrooms so the connection to after-school consumers is there.  

2.        Since I am not a supporter of all of the testing and evaluation policy I do not see a need to expand preparation for testing to libraries more than what exists right now.  Education that is broad and experiential needs to have more opportunity in group projects and exposure to any number of learning skill development tools.  Classroom teachers are not able to do the level of educational skills development needed for achievement and this is where libraries can be an excellent source for parents and students in their after-school choices.  We desperately need all hands on deck with skills development and I do not feel that private non-profits are the only avenue for this.  Our Pratt Central Library has wonderful programs for children and with a bigger budget would have the space to expand as a meeting place for after-school programs.  Having library staff coming to public community centers to help build and implement these programs, funding of mobile library buses all are extremely valuable in attaining educational goals in Maryland.  The upside down education policy of having students going online after school to prepare for classroom lessons is an excellent opportunity for libraries so having the software and materials used in the classrooms at the library is a must.  Parents have never needed more resources than now in learning how to help their children meet these new classroom requirements.   I cannot begin to share the importance for every student in having a library to which to retreat for all kinds of reasons.  Libraries are not only about classroom K-college.  They have as a mission to be the sight of Lifelong Learning.  To be able to meet this mission libraries must be well-resourced.  It is expensive to outfit a library for those with disabilities or to make sure the library collections cater to all kinds of tastes and cultural backgrounds.  All attempts to cut budgets makes the libraries less able to do this and in turn make them attractive to fewer people.  If your goal was to be rid of libraries, that would be the mechanism.  Look to the US Post Office to see this strategy for dismantling a national public treasure!  

3.       I will say as Governor of Maryland my responsibilities to move forward policies regarding Race to the Top will remain until a time comes that this policy can be changed.  It is my intent to push for this.  That said, as State Executive it will be my responsibility to move forward policy dictated by past legislation and indeed, MCC-RS and Common Core are those policies.  That said, I will be sure to see that libraries have what is needed to make them central in implementing this policy and support public school teachers in their classrooms and with promoting the success of students in achievement on these tests.  The amount of education funding going into implementing these Race to the Top policies is outrageous for people knowing all our public schools need are resources and rigor.  So, it would be my job to look carefully at all of the private consultants, all of the private educational businesses tied with this Race to the Top and assess how we might better implement these policies by using the resources such as libraries already in our community.  Since Race to the Top is mostly about growing an education business industry, corporate politicians working for these corporations are no doubt bringing the state into lots of business deals that may not be needed or effective.  I would look at these contracts to see how we can bring libraries and public community centers into the loop in assuring student readiness for these tests.  As a former classroom teacher I know these teachers are overwhelmed and really have little ability to accomplish all that is being placed upon them so quickly.  I would make it my goal to give relief to these classroom teachers in whatever way I can and that would extend to bringing in existing educational sources like libraries and librarians.     


WALSH FOR GOVERNOR IS A GREAT BIG FAN OF LIBRARIES AND ALL RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS AND IN PROTECTING US CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS OF FREE SPEECH, CIVIL LIBERTIES, AND CIVIL RIGHTS THAT GO WITH EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS! 


Update: Vermont Library Lays Off Whole Staff; Librarians Protest

By Meredith Schwartz on January 8, 2013 This article has been updated to include video footage of the “Hug” of the Athenaeum on January 12.

On December 3rd, 2012, the St. Johnsbury Athenaeum Board of Trustees announced it would lay off its entire library, docent, and information technology staff, then “ask them to consider applying for the newly formed Athenaeum positions,” Bill Marshall, chair of the Athenaeum Board of Trustees, said in a letter.

The first goal of the radical restructuring is to reduce costs: the library is eating into its endowment. It could be depleted in as little as seven years if spending continues at the current rate, which the Athenaeum’s Executive Director, Matthew Powers, said was between 10 and 20 percent per year, rather than the recommended 4.5 percent. The plan will cut personnel spending by eight percent, or about $40,000. Powers told LJ that personnel is the “single highest line” in the library-cum-museum’s budget. “Last year personnel costs were roughly $340,000 out of a total budget roughly of $500,000, and that doesn’t take into account the deficit,” he explained.

Although it is the staff restructuring that is raising the most controversy, Powers told LJ it’s far from the only cut. “Within the overall budget we reduced about $150,000; so we didn’t just look at the personnel budget,” said Powers. Other cutbacks affected general expenses and facilities. “No stone was unturned,” Power continued.

The other stated goal of the restructuring is to gear the Athenaeum up to meet the challenges of the rapidly changing world of librarianship, including a new focus on digitization, research and technical assistance, super-broadband Internet access, and off-site services, as well as more emphasis on programs and collaboration with other institutions. However, it is not entirely clear how the restructuring would place more emphasis on technology use and support, since it replaces a dedicated employee with an IT contractor.

According to Laurel Stanley, a retired academic library director, public library trustee, Athenaeum member and donor, and member of the Vermont Library Association Board, a new focus on these goals isn’t necessary. “They’re saying that the Athenaeum is behind in new services and technology and that’s just not true,” said Stanley. “The Athenaeum is definitely a leader in the Northeast Kingdom [section of Vermont], and measures well compared to other libraries in the state.”

According to a second letter from the Board, the Athenaeum is moving from a team of eight people working in the library—most part-time—to a team of four people, two of whom are full time. (Plus a new curatorial position which requires museum, not library, expertise, and a full time development position.) The letter compared the decision to the also-controversial restructuring at Harvard University, and also includes a Q&A section describing some background:

Q: Is there a future for public libraries?

A: Yes! Absolutely yes! There is an important role for public libraries, but it’s going to be different. Preparing for this new role for our library is the fundamental reason we are restructuring. Moreover, this change is occurring with great speed and we have some catching up to do. This is the reason we felt we needed to take a bold step forward, instead of small, incremental changes.

The Athenaeum’s new library positions include a full time librarian and assistant librarian, a part time assistant librarian, and a part time youth services librarian. Although the Board’s letter stated that the people hired into the four new positions will be qualified librarians, according to the job posting, an MLS is not required for any of the positions. While Vermont considers someone with a department of library certification to be a qualified librarian, Stanley told LJ, “it is highly unusual that a library the size of the Athenaeum would not have at least one MLS. You can’t tell me you’re going to do catching up and then say you don’t need an MLS.”

While the Athenaeum says the restructuring does not result in any significant cut in staffing, Stanley disagrees, saying the 130 hours of library staffing that the new positions provide will be insufficient to both staff the Athenaeum’s two service desks and children’s room for the library’s current 42-43 open hours per week, and provide the additional outreach services and programming called for by the plan. Likewise, expanding non-library positions such as a curator, a development director, a book keeper, and a custodian, while reducing library staff hours, is not focusing on library services, claims Stanley.

Stanley agrees that the budget must be balanced, but feels that “they’ve put far too much money into this art gallery, and library services has been far down” on the list of priorities.

Rural Librarians Unite (RuLU), a newly formed volunteer group, is organizing opposition to the cuts in the form of a “hug” for the library. On Saturday, January 12 at noon, the group will join with the Vermont Library Association and citizens of St. Johnsbury to hold hands around the library.

The demonstration is similar to that organized by 2012 LJ Mover & Shaker Christian Zabriskie in 2011. Zabriskie, founder of Urban Librarians Unite, coordinated a “hug” of the New York Public Library’s main branch, and Lydia Willoughby, spokersperson for RuLU, says that’s not a coincidence. “We contacted ULU before starting anything up here, and got their blessing. The ‘hug’ event was definitely influenced by their work at NYPL.”

The Vermont Library Association (VLA) said in a statement, “While the Vermont Library Association understands the Board’s responsibility for setting direction for their library during a time of financial stress, now, more than ever, Vermonters need libraries–and librarians. The Vermont Library Association feels that the board’s actions demonstrate a devaluation of libraries and the library professionals capable of leading them through a time of intense change in information resources and society.  Librarians are not replaced by the Internet–their skills and training enrich the Internet and facilitate access for all Vermonters.”

Both RuLU and VLA also called on supporters to contact the Athenaeum directly, as well as their elected representatives.

Willoughby told LJ, “While the timing of Rural Librarians Unite was definitely in response to the Athenaeum situation, the story was never about just the Athenaeum library staff…RuLU will serve as an activist force that libraries and librarians can go to whenever they want to get a campaign off the ground for any reason.”

RuLU’s future plans include building library and literacy services for correctional facilities and reentry programs in Vermont, an alternative email listserv for rural librarians to make action plans and share resources, support for safe physical spaces for vulnerable learners and library users, meet ups at independent bookstores, unconferences, collaboration with Every Library on State-wide advocacy, and reaching out to ARSL and other peer organizations. While RuLU is focused on Vermont right now, Willoughby doesn’t rule out expanding nationally/or and working with nearby Canadian libraries.


__


The “Hug” drew a crowd of about 200 people, according to RuLU. Video of the event can be seen below:



HUG the Athenaeum - The People Make the Library

- Jan 12, 2013 RuralLibrariansUnite·1 video
2 864 views 16     0 Published on Jan 13, 2013

In December 2012, the board of trustees at the St. Johnsbury Athenaeum laid off 11 library staff and invited them to reapply for 3.25 positions. Rural Librarians Unite organized a rally in response. Here is some footage! We love libraries!

Find out more on our website: rurallibrariansunite.org
facebook: facebook.com/rurallibrariansunite
twitter: @rurallibrarians


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This article shows the same happening in Maryland.  While I do fault union leadership for not shouting and using labor lawyers to fight worker wealth lost to fraud and corruption,these unions need the citizens of the state to come out in support of labor and public services.  When neo-liberals partner with republicans to privatize all that is public.......labor and justice must have public support.

PLEASE MOBILIZE AND SHOUT, PROTEST, PETITION AND RUN FOR OFFICE AT ALL LEVELS!  WE NEED TO TAKE BACK THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY FOR LABOR AND JUSTICE.

Remember, budget shortfalls come from failure to recover tens of trillions of dollars in corporate fraud at the national level and tens of billions at the state and local levels.  IT IS ALL ABOUT REINSTATING RULE OF LAW AND ACCOUNTABILITY!




SCOD Public Blog
Sustainable Cooperative for Organic Development

Maryland Budget Cuts = Drastic Library Layoffs Maryland State Budget Cuts Public Services




County library workers in unions, pay more than $500 a year in dues. What have all those dues done for them? That is the sum total effect that paying all those union dues has done for thousands of workers in 21st Century Maryland. Luxurious Legislators have waited until the State deficit is almost $800 million, before they decided to radically chop down the life-long careers of countless loyal State workers and their families.

Montgomery County Executive Dictator Isiah Leggett is calling for a reduction in government spending for the first time in more than 40 years. Regardless of political party, there is nothing “democratic” about his legacy. He spent all the County’s money on bullet-proofing his personal security, and a gold-leaf bathroom in his office. Now in his $4.3 billion budget Monday, he calls for cuts across the state, including libraries and other services. The plan also gives schools $137 million LESS than required by the state. Leggett is calling for an energy tax that would cost about $3 per month for the average household. He has called for a $62 million ambulance fee that was rejected by the county council in the past.

All of these drastic cuts are his attempts to address his own political follies that have aggregated into one of the largest budget deficits in the region. Leggett is proposing no pay increase for county employees. He would eliminate hundreds of currently filled jobs and impose 10 days of furloughs for non-public-safety employees. The overall job reduction amounts to well over 750 work years.

This massive reduction in much needed public service, is almost as bad as the General Assembly cuts to Baltimore’s highway aid from the state. The evidence is clear that the public demands more access to these services, yet the wrong decisions are made. There are many ways to cut budgets over a period of years, without forcing a mass exodus.

The future of civilization in Maryland does not look good. Already homeless and people without internet access clamor at the doors of the libraries. What will all those thousands of people do? Get a job with all these cuts? Yeah, right.


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Libraries are now one of the last places for the public to meet in a public space especially in Maryland.  The intent is to take that away as well.  With loss of net neutrality and consolidation of the communications industry, prices will soar and content standardized across the nation in the hands of global corporations.  THE INTENT IS TO CONTROL INFORMATION AND ACCESS TO THIS INFORMATION.  Libraries are and will become the only outlet for people to computers and content online. 

Meanwhile, librarians are being threatened by Federal Security agencies against making public illegal searches, illegal blocking of information, and privacy issues libraries have always protected.  Free speech and free flow of information is threatened by neo-liberals.



Librarians Protest Against Budget Cuts At City Hall October 31, 2011 1:32 PM Library Generic (Photo by Andreas Rentz/Getty Images)

CHICAGO (CBS) – It was reading time and protest time for more than 100 city librarians and supporters Monday morning at a rally outside Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s office at City Hall.

WBBM Newsradio’s Bernie Tafoya reports that one librarian read to children at City Hall about a “big green monster,” but what librarians found even scarier were the mayor’s planned cuts to the library system.

LISTEN: WBBM Newsradio’s Bernie Tafoya reports




“At a time we’re taking more and more things away from our kids, we need to give them something to expand their imaginations,” said Beverly Cook, who has been with the library system for more than 25 years.

The mayor plans to trim $11 million from the budget for public libraries next year by eliminating 268 vacant positions and laying off 284 workers – including two dozen various librarians, 112 clerks and all 146 pages charged with shelving books.

Library student Megan Russell said, “The effect will be horrendous for both children and people that cannot afford Internet and cannot afford books.”

Library supporters arrived at City Hall with more than 4,000 petition signatures backing up their opposition of the library cuts.

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You may not understand the outrage over issues with Trans Pacific Trade Pact (TPP) like intellectual property protections and IT protections but the article below shows the problem.  Since universities are being made into corporations and patenting their research, what was free and open sharing of all academic research internationally will now be threatened.  Proprietary means that the decades of building an international system of sharing academic information to cut the costs of taxpayer funding of costly research will be closed to the public.  Librarians used to be the experts on finding all of this information to share with the public and now those resources are mostly accessible to only university personnel.



Bill Clinton placed privatization of universities on the fast track once he and Reagan tag-teamed global corporate rule.  Obama has sent hundreds of billions of dollars to build these university research centers that are now simply corporations while sending relatively small funding connected to Race to the Top to fund K-12.  Most of that too attached to building private education structures.  Meanwhile, researchers like myself cannot access what Federal, state, and local taxes fund in research because patented research is proprietary.

Why have library staff when most of what libraries did is now being lost.....the public does not need to know!  'Innovation startup' is just a political phrase for spending all taxpayer money on the R and D costs for new product development.  All these startups that are successful are simply folded into global corporations and the university department heads are paid as if they are manufacturing executives. 

NEO-LIBERALS WORK FOR WEALTH AND PROFIT AND CONTROL THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY!  HEATHER MIZEUR SAYS SHE IS PROGRESSIVE?  HAVE YOU HEARD HER SHOUT AGAINST ALL OF THIS? SHE SUPPORTS PUBLIC PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS AND WALL STREET CREDIT BOND LEVERAGE FOR THESE KINDS OF THINGS!


Academic Patenting: How universities and public research organizations are using their intellectual property to boost research and spur innovative start-ups

Mario Cervantes, Economist, Science and Technology Policy Division, Directorate for Science, Technology and Industry, OECD1

Introduction Universities and other public research organizations are increasingly protecting their inventions – from genetic inventions to software – helping raise additional funding for research and spurring new start ups. The rise in university patenting has occurred against a broader policy framework aimed at fostering a greater interaction between public research and industry in order to increase the social and private returns from public support to R&D. The general strengthening of intellectual property protection world-wide as well as the passage of legislation aimed at improving technology transfer are additional factors that have facilitated the expansion of patenting in academia in OECD countries.

Indeed, in 1980, the United States passed what is widely considered landmark legislation, the Bayh-Dole Act, which granted recipients of federal R&D funds the right to patent inventions and license them to firms. The main motivation for this legislation was to facilitate the exploitation of government-funded research results by transferring ownership from the government to universities and other contractors who could then license the IP to firms. Although patenting in US universities did occur prior to the passage of Bayh-Dole Act, it was far from systematic.

At the end of the 1990s, emulating the US policy change, many other OECD countries reformed research funding regulations and/or employment laws to allow research institutions to file, own and license the IP generated with government research funds. In Austria, Denmark, Germany and Japan, the main effect of these changes has been the abolishment of the so-called “professor’s privilege” that granted academics the right to own patents. The right to ownership has now been transferred to the universities while academic inventors are given a share of royalty revenue in exchange. There has also been debate in Sweden on whether to follow a similar path and transfer ownership to institutions. For now at least, the status quo remains and policy efforts are focusing on developing the ability of universities to provide professors with support for patenting. 

In Canada, where rules on IP ownership by universities vary across Provinces, efforts have nevertheless been made to harmonize policies at least with respect to R&D funded by federal government Crown Contracts. In Ireland and France, where institutions normally but not always retain title, the government has chosen an alternate path: issuing guidelines for IP management at institutions in order to foster more consistent practices. Such reforms are not only confined to the OECD countries. China has recently made legislative reforms to allow universities to protect and claim IP, but implementation of such reforms remains a challenge. One lesson from all this is that despite the importance of patent legislation in fostering technology transfer, different national systems may require different solutions.

Institutional ownership of IP is not sufficient Encouraging universities to commercialize research results by granting them title to IP can be useful but it is not sufficient to get researchers to become inventors. The key is that institutions and individual researchers have incentives to disclose, protect and exploit their inventions. Incentives can be “sticks” such as legal or administrative requirements for researchers to disclose inventions. Such regulations are often lacking in many countries, even in those where institutions can claim patents. Government rules that prevent universities from keeping royalty income from licenses are another disincentive to institutions. Incentives can also be “carrots” such as royalty sharing agreements or equity participation in academic start-ups. Recognition of patent activity in the evaluation and recruitment of faculty can also provide incentives for young researchers. Tsinghua University in China offers its young researchers prizes for inventions that are commercialized. 

Given the diversity of research institutions and traditions, it is important that incentives are set at the institution level, but national guidelines can help bring about coherence and the sharing of good practices. As important as incentives is the need for research institutions to clarify IP rules and disseminate them among faculty, staff as well as graduate students- who are increasingly involved in public research activities.

Building critical mass in IP management To bridge the gap between invention and commercialization, universities have established "technology transfer offices" (TTOs), on campus or off-campus intermediaries that carry out a wide range of functions, from licensing patents to companies to managing research contracts. Results from an OECD report on patenting and licensing at public research organizations2 show that there is a large diversity in the structure and organization of TTOs within and across countries (e.g. on or off -campus offices, arm’s length intermediaries, industry sector-based TTOs, and regional TTOs) but the majority appear to be dedicated on-site institutions and integrated into the university or research institution. Many of the TTOs are in their infancy; most are less than 10 years old and have less than five full-time staff. Still, the number of new TTOs is growing, to the order of 1 per year per institution.

In terms of performance, the report also found enormous variations in terms of the size of patent portfolios as well as revenues obtained from licensing. In 2000 the United States had a huge lead over other OECD countries in academic patenting: universities and federal labs received over 8 000 patents (5% of total patenting, rising to 15% in biotechnology). Academic patenting in other countries, as measured by the number of patents granted to public research institutions, ranged from the low hundreds in Japan, the Netherlands and Switzerland, to close to 1 000 at German public labs and Korean research institutions in 2000-2001. While leading universities and public research organizations in countries such as the United States, Germany and Switzerland may earn millions of dollars or euros in licensing revenue, the gains are highly skewed – a few blockbuster inventions account for most revenue. Furthermore, income from licensing academic inventions remains quite small in comparison to overall research budgets. Academic patenting is thus more about boosting research and transferring technology to industry than about making a profit. In fact, evidence from the US show that the break even point for TTOs is between 5 to 7 years.

A main barrier to the development of TTOs is access to experienced technology transfer professionals. Not only are the skills sets of such professionals in short supply but sometimes government employment rules and pay-scales prevent public institutions from being able to provide competitive salaries to such professionals. Governments are nevertheless trying to help universities build IP management capacity. Denmark and Germany have both invested several millions of euro to spur the development of technology transfer offices clustered around certain regions or sectors such as biotechnology. The UK government has increased expenditures on the training of intellectual property management at universities. Even in the United States and Japan, universities pay reduced patent application fees. National patent offices are also involved in reaching out to universities to provide training in intellectual property.

Start-ups versus licensing to other firms One of the questions facing technology transfer managers and inventors is whether to license a technology or to create a start-up firm to commercialize it. Governments and university managers, especially in some European countries, have tended to favour start-ups as opposed to licensing strategies. Part of this stems from the rise in government funded venture funds that aim to promote new firm creation. The key question, however, is: which is the best channel for transferring the technology to the marketplace? The answer in fact depends on the technology in question, the market for such a technology, the skills set of the staff and researchers involved the invention, access to venture capital, and finally the mission of the institution. Certain “platform” technologies with a wide range of applications may be commercialized via a start-up company for example while others may be licensed to larger firms with the business capacity to develop the invention further and integrate it into its R&D and business strategy.

Balancing IP protection with the need to maintain public access Despite the relatively small amount of (formal) academic patenting activity that takes place, the increased focus on patenting academic inventions and licensing them to companies has raised a number of concerns common to countries throughout the OECD area and beyond. These concerns range from the impact of patenting on the traditional missions of universities, the effect on the direction of research, on the actual costs and benefits of patenting and licensing, to the effects on the diffusion of and access to publicly funded research results.

What has been the impact of IP and technology transfer activities on the direction of research? Quantitative studies tend to show that patenting has led universities to conduct more applied research. By making university research more responsive to the economy, is there a danger that basic research will suffer? On the one hand, several studies in the United States have found that universities and individual researchers that have seen the largest increases in patenting are also those which experienced the greatest gains in academic publications. On the other hand, the rate at which academic patents are cited in other patents fell (relative to the average) between the early 1980s and late 1990s in the United States and is now lower than the citation rate of patents granted to business. This could suggest a possible drop in the quality of public research – or at least of its patented component. Alternatively, it may reflect the inexperience of newly founded technology transfer offices.

Exclusive versus non-exclusive licensing Should universities and other public research organizations grant exclusive licenses to firms for inventions that have benefited from public funds? Licensees often require exclusive licenses as they offer more protection for the necessary development to be conducted before a university-provided invention can become a marketed product. The issue is particularly crucial for start-ups which have few assets other than their IP. On the other hand, by definition, exclusive licenses limit the diffusion of technologies. The OECD report has found that the mix of exclusive and non-exclusive licenses granted by public research organizations is fairly balanced, and that exclusivity is often granted with restrictions on the licensee side. Research institutions often include clauses in license agreements to protect public interests and access to the IP for future research and discovery. Licensing agreements in many institutions include a commitment to exploit the invention on the part of the licensee, particularly if the license is exclusive, and to agree on milestones in order to assure that commercialization will take place. Such safeguards can be used to ensure that technology is transferred and that licensed patents are not used simply to block competitors.

As academic inventions arise in areas closer to basic research, scientists and policy makers are also concerned that patenting certain inventions could block downstream research. One example is that of research tools, in which granting a patent could inhibit diffusion by increasing the costs and difficulty of using such tools in applied research. In response, the National Institutes of Health in the United States (NIH) have espoused a policy that discourages unnecessary patenting and encourages non-exclusive licensing (see link). Such guidelines are now being emulated by funding agencies and research institutions in other countries.

Research exemption Another area of debate concerns the use of the so-called “exemption for research use” that has been in use in universities in both the United States and in EU countries, either formally or informally. Traditionally, universities have been exempted from paying fees for patented inventions they use in their own research. The rationale is that universities fulfill a public mission. As more public research is carried out with business and generates monetary rewards, the divide between public mission and commercial aims becomes less stark. The extent and status of this exemption differs across countries and is often ill-defined. This research exemption – or rather its interpretation – has recently been the subject of policy debate and litigation: recent court decisions in the United States have restricted its meaning.

Conclusions Making universities and other public research organizations more active in protecting and exploiting their IP means not only actively promoting faculty and student research, but also determining how best to pursue any relationship with business clients while protecting the public interest. Many of the concerns or issues related to balancing IP protection with public access will take time to resolve. The growing reliance of public research institutions on various sources of funding, including from industry and contract research, as well as demands by society for greater economic and social returns on investment in public R&D, have made academic patenting a reality that is more likely to increase than decrease. At the same time, it should be recalled that intellectual property is but one of several channels for transferring knowledge and technology from publicly funded research which include publication, the movement of graduates, conferences as well as informal channels. While research institutions and firms are working to find solutions to problems as they arise, governments and research funding agencies have a role to play in providing guidelines on academic patenting and licensing and in fostering debate.





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Keep in mind that Maryland and especially Baltimore are ranked at the bottom for fraud, corruption, and the lack of transparency.......billions of dollars are lost in Baltimore alone to the richest.  This is the structural deficit for all government budgets and it is being used to privatize and close all that is public.

Neo-liberals are doing to the US what Gorbachev did to USSR during Perestroika......privatizing all public wealth to create Oligarchs.  The US has a Constitution and Equal Protection under law that protects Americans from these actions. 

WE SIMPLY NEED PEOPLE IN OFFICE THAT ARE NOT COMPLICIT



Maryland Historical Society cuts operating hours, staff

Budget gap of $670,000 to blamemuseum, library open on Thursdays, Saturdays onlyDecember 03, 2009|By Liz F. Kay | liz.kay@baltsun.com

A $670,000 budget shortfall caused by the dismal economic climate has prompted the Maryland Historical Society to cut hours at its Baltimore museum and library and to eliminate several staff positions, according to the president of its trustee board.


In addition, Wednesday was director Robert Rogers' last day with the society, board president Alex G. Fisher said. Rogers' departure is unrelated to the 165-year-old organization's budget problems, according to Fisher. The board will name an interim director until it can conduct a search for a new leader.

The society was able to close nearly half of its budget gap by cutting the equivalent of seven full-time positions. To make up the rest, it also limited operating hours at the museum and library to noon to 8 p.m. Thursdays and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturdays, and the 28 trustees agreed to double their gifts to the society's annual fund.

Many charitable organizations have been struggling to remain solvent during the economic downturn.

"It's no secret that all nonprofits are suffering as a result of the economy," Fisher said.

Although financial markets have recovered somewhat, they are still lower than they were several years ago, which affects the income drawn from the historical society's endowment, as well as the confidence of supporters who make contributions, Fisher said. State funding for the society has also decreased by $450,000 in the past three years, according to Fisher.

He described the decrease in hours as "regrettable." However, "if you're going to be fiscally responsible, you just have to do that," Fisher said. The library and museum were formerly open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Wednesday through Sunday, though the library would close during lunch.

Scholars and historians worry that the decision to reduce hours will make it difficult for researchers to conduct their work.


"If you're an out-of-town researcher, you can't even go back-to-back days," said Jessica Elfenbein, an associate provost and professor of history at the University of Baltimore. "It's going to be very hard for any researcher to do justice to Baltimore if you can't get to the collections it supports."

Said Robert Brugger, senior editor at the Johns Hopkins University Press: "That means that people who would like to be doing research are not going to do it, or need to find more money than would otherwise be needed to get work done."


Fisher acknowledged that was a legitimate concern. The society is hoping to restore some operating hours at its Mount Vernon facilities by relying on volunteers.

"But it will take time to get that accomplished," Fisher said.

The society is also revamping its Web site.

"Once that's done, access to library material will expand dramatically to anyone off-site," courtesy of the Web, Fisher said.

Education programs in Maryland schools will also be curtailed through the remainder of the school year, according to Fisher. As student tours of the museum have dwindled in recent years, outreach in schools has filled that void, he said, and the society would send staff to train teachers to use replicas of museum holdings for Maryland history lessons. But next summer, the society will transition to offering more Web-based resources.

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March 06th, 2014

3/6/2014

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MARYLAND HAS DELIBERATELY MADE IT DIFFICULT FOR ANY CANDIDATE NOT RISING FROM THE POLITICAL MACHINES -----WE ALL KNOW ARE CRONY-----TO GET ANY CAMPAIGN COVERAGE.  FROM MEDIA TO PUBLIC FORUMS, ONLY THOSE CONNECTED TO CRONY GET THE AIR/FLOOR TIME AND IN MARYLAND THAT MEANS NEO-LIBERALS.  ALSO, ELECTION POLICY IS

GANSLER, BROWN, AND MIZEUR ARE ALL NEO-LIBERALS THROWING A FEW PROGRESSIVE BONES!




Regarding corporate WYPR being the go-to place for MD Election coverage:

As someone taking WYPR to all of the election agencies and public media oversight for failing to provide free and fair election coverage that statement is LOL!!!  WYPR provides Montgomery County with strong election coverage while blacking out all other state elections and coverage.  They do indeed break with the requirements of public media in providing fair and balanced election coverage.

When I moved to Maryland several years ago and saw a crony and captured political system with no public airing of issues I first went to Maryland Chapter of League of Women's Voters.  I noticed they had debates that included all the candidates on the tickets for all parties and each candidate was able to state what the issue surrounding their platform would be.  This is recorded on video and then the League solicits all of Maryland media outlets to play and/or link to the League of Women Voter's site with these debates.  


ALL MARYLAND MEDIA REFUSES TO PLAY OR LINK TO THESE DEBATES THAT ALLOW ALL CANDIDATES FOR MARYLAND OFFICE STATE THEIR PLATFORM AND ISSUES.  EVEN ALL OF MARYLAND'S 'PUBLIC' MEDIA.

As Frazer Smith stated, if you do not have a campaign war chest you will not get your campaign word out in Maryland.  What we know about Maryland is that we do indeed have a highly educated public and we do have citizens overwhelmingly for campaign finance reform.....the flooding of airwaves turns people off.  As Maryland works toward having all campaigns be public financing, we work as well for a state public system of debate forums for people and candidates.  THIS IS WHAT MUST HAPPEN TO REBUILD FREE AND FAIR ELECTIONS IN MARYLAND.

MY PLATFORM SHOUTS LOUDLY TO DO JUST THAT AND AS GOVERNOR.,.....YOU HAVE THE RESOURCES TO BUILD THOSE PUBLIC FORUMS FOR DEBATE ON ISSUES AT EVERY LEVEL OF GOVERNMENT.

Did you notice that the Baltimore City Paper used to have an entire issue dedicated to elections and airing each candidate's platform but stopped in 2010 just as Wall Street took control of all of US media----making the US ranked with Romania in free press?  Now, they have been put out of business with the consolidation into Baltimore Sun.....which does not play League of Women Voters debate forums or link to them.
 

BEST PLACE FOR CANDIDATE COVERAGE-----GO TO THE MARYLAND ELECTIONS WEBSITE FOR THE CANDIDATES WEBSITES/FACEBOOK PAGES!!!!


So, for real democratic election coverage start with the group below.  They aren't perfect, but they do try.

 The League of Women Voters  

Mission:

 The League of Women Voters, a nonpartisan political organization, encourages informed and active participation in government, works to increase understanding of major public policy issues, and influences public policy through education and advocacy.

Making Democracy Work

League members from around the state get a briefing at Union Station before visiting Congressional Offices.

The League of Women Voters is dedicated to providing well-researched and unbiased information so that all voters may become better informed. Browse this website or use the Search Box to learn more about issues, events, and your elected representatives. You can also:

    
During Elections, the League of Women Voters assists people to become more informed participants in their community and their government by

    producing Voters Guides;
    assisting at voter registration drives and providing information about voting;
    and hosting forums for candidates.

The LWV also

    researches issues such as transportation, housing, environmental concerns, campaign reform, etc. then produces Fact Sheets;
    conducts community forums on local, state, and national issues;
    distributes informational brochures and pamphlets;
    and provides information about government on the national, state, and local levels.


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As a candidate the first thing one does after paying filing fees and getting your campaign committee together is to meet Maryland campaign requirements.....the first being to connect to campaign finance reporting systems.  Right away you notice......even Maryland's Board of Elections is out-sourced to a private contractor ----in this case PCC Technology Group-----to do the work of election oversight.


Now, as we are seeing with the Maryland Health Care Exchange debacle, the State of Maryland needs a strong ITT/technology department as a public entity.  We do not need to outsource every public IT job to the highest bidder.  The state and localities need to hire public employees that do IT work.  This level of privatization of public work is ridiculous.  The amount of money lost to fraud, corruption, and incompetence pays for good public sector jobs.


WE FOUGHT ELECTRONIC VOTING MACHINES BECAUSE WE FEARED PRIVATE CORPORATIONS AND NO PAPER BALLOTS WOULD MEAN FRAUD....AND INDEED, THAT IS WHAT WAS SHOWN TO HAPPEN.

Campaign Finance Reporting and Management System (CFRMS)



On August 23

, PCC Technology Group demonstrated the public site for the online, browser based campaign finance reporting system. The demonstration included registering a political committee with
electronic signature capabilities and verification. Additionally, SBE and PCC have completed functional requirement documents for the filer software and administration management and look forward to those demonstrations shortly. Ms. Mack asked about the impact of the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee’s recommendations will have on the new system, to which Mr. DeMarinis responded that minor changes would be needed.


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As a candidate who knows that if the Trans Pacific Trade Deal (TPP) is passed none of the campaign finance laws would be in affect because.......global corporate tribunals would be writing all laws that WE THE PEOPLE will not be able to contest and US Constitutional laws would be lost with sovereignty.

If an organization is not shouting out against TPP and education the public about TPP-----THEY ARE SUPPORTING TPP.

Maryland has a strong movement on campaign finance reform and most citizens support getting big money out of politics.  Yet, Maryland media only considers a candidate in reporting that has a war chest.....SEE THE DISCONNECT?

I'M GOING TO OUT ALL OF THESE ORGANIZATIONS BELOW SUPPORTING THIS GOOD BILL FOR HAVING NOTHING ON THEIR WEBSITES ABOUT TPP.  THIS MOVEMENT MEANS NOTHING IF TPP IS PASSED.

It appears that all of the pols supporting it so far are neo-liberals who are working to push TPP-tied policy forward.  Remember, when a pol supports public private partnerships.....corporate welfare that hands all public policy writing and control to corporations.....and they love connecting the state and localities to all kinds of Wall Street financial instruments leveraging Maryland's future for decades handing the public over to Wall Street control-----


THEY ARE NEO-LIBERALS AND ALL DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATES ARE SILENT ON TPP AND SUPPORT THE ABOVE.  BROWN, GANSLER, AND MIZEUR.


MD Campaign for the Free & Fair Elections Amendment


 

Maryland Campaign for the Free and Fair Elections Amendment
Coordinated by Get Money Out - Maryland (GMOM) Charlie Cooper President, 410-624-6095


 
Proposal to:

    Co-sponsor the GMOM Rally Jan. 21, 2014, 11 A.M. Lawyers Mall, Annapolis to oppose “corporate personhood and “overturn Citizens United on the 4th anniversary of that tragic Supreme Court ruling. Following the rally, participants will make lobby visits with senators and delegates.

    Sponsors of last year’s rally expected to sponsor this year’s, with more to be added, include:
    Get Money Out - Maryland, Progressive Maryland, Common Cause Maryland, Maryland Public Interest Research Group, Maryland United for Peace and Justice, MoveOn.Org Baltimore Council, Progressive Democrats of America – Maryland, Maryland Nonprofits, Fund Our Communities, Prince George's Peace & Justice Coalition, Peace Action Montgomery, Generations for Peace and Democracy, Progressive Cheverly, Howard County Peace Action, Pax Christi, Chesapeake Climate Action Network, United Workers, Pledge of Resistance.
    -
    Endorse the binding resolution bill [See CONFIDENTIAL drafts of full bill and letter attached]
    to be introduced by Sen. Jamie Raskin (and championed by Del. Sheila Hixson in the House, with co-sponsors Dels. Mizeur, Hucker et al.). It calls for an Article V convention of the states to draft an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to do 3 things:
        Overturn Citizens United and regulate money in politics
        Reserve constitutional rights exclusively to natural persons (not corporations)
        Guarantee that every individual citizen has the constitutional right to vote (for the first time) in order to roll back growing efforts to suppress the freedom to vote.

Why endorse this bill

When policy outcomes are controlled by who invests most in Congressional campaigns, large corporations and the wealthiest use their influence to dominate our politics. They enact policies that further increase their wealth and power in opposition to the public interest. Revenue, effort and resources are redirected away from jobs, education, housing, health care, infrastructure, environmental protection, renewable energy and the needs of workers, seniors, children and families.

Background: Supreme Court Decisions Undermining Democracy

    “Over the longer term, I think we need to seriously consider mobilizing a constitutional amendment process to overturn Citizens United.” - President Barack Obama

    “Money does not equal free speech. We’re going to work as best we can to try to rectify that.
    It may take a constitutional amendment. Because this Supreme Court as currently constituted equates money with free speech and that fundamental difference prevents virtually any kind of meaningful legislation from happening. That means we’ll continue to have a system that is polluted with money…” - Richard Trumka, AFL-CIO President at its 2013 Convention, September 9th

    “No sensible reform is possible until we end this corruption… We will never get your issue solved until we fix this issue first… Yours is the most important issue, but mine is the first [that] we have to solve before we get to fix the issues you care about.” - Harvard Law Professor Larry Lessig

--

The Citizens United v FEC decision by the Supreme Court opened the floodgates for unlimited campaign expenditures in elections, which corporations and the extremely wealthy have used with devastating impact in the last few elections. This misguided decision reversed decades of campaign finance regulation at the state and federal level, turning our public elections into private auctions. With regard to voting rights, Supreme Court justices in the Bush v Gore decision declared that there is no individual right to vote in the Constitution and in its aftermath, there has been a concerted attack upon the right to vote across the country. These legal travesties require remedy if we are going to preserve representative democracy and create a more perfect union.

Why We Must Amend: To Preserve and Defend Democracy in America

American democracy is under assault by the most powerful economic forces and the wealthiest individuals the world has ever known. Our country is being called a “flawed democracy” by some, and even a former Democratic President said outright, “America does not at the moment have a functioning democracy.” This is America in 2013, and we must take action to reverse course before our country falls into even darker days.

The right to vote is being gutted in states around the country. The rising tide of campaign cash places free and fair elections in jeopardy. The wounds initially opened in our democracy by Bush v Gore have only been further expanded by a Supreme Court recklessly demolishing the walls of separation between wealth and state. They have arrogantly handed down decision after decision that defends the right of corporations to influence our elections but derides the right of everyday Americans to participate in them, and now they are considering going even further with McCutcheon v. FEC.

If it is not the fate of representative democracy to die face down in a pile of campaign cash, suffocated under the boot of a lobbyist-driven dictatorship of outside interests, then we must discover a way to revive our democracy. Ever since the founding of our country, Americans in every generation have overcome overwhelming odds to create a more perfect union, including the Abolitionists, the Suffragists, and the Civil Rights Movement which came before us. Now it is our turn.

As was the case with those Progressive movements, our goal is to amend the U.S. Constitution to make America more democratic, more inclusive, and more accountable to the people. We must amend, because the Supreme Court overturned federal campaign finance law with Citizens United v FEC and rejected state level attempts to preserve anti-corruption laws with American Tradition Partnership v Bullock. That means no law passed, at either the state or federal level, can be protected without an amendment, and the only authority superior to the Supreme Court is the U.S. Constitution, so we must amend.

Every generation of Americans has amended the Constitution (with the exception of the current one), which has been amended 27 times in our nation’s history. While Congress has ultimately proposed all previous amendments, 4 out of the last 10 Amendments as well as the Bill of Rights used state level campaigns calling for a convention to force Congress to act. Therefore, most amendments to the Constitution come from states issuing a call for an amendment and pushing for a convention of the states to do so, if Congress will not act. Historically, if you want an amendment, this is how to do it.

Congress is broken. We have been told by Democratic members in leadership that there’s no way 2/3rds of Congress will vote to propose an amendment to fix our elections. Congress could not even pass something as decent and simple as the DISCLOSE Act when they had Democratic majorities in both houses with a Democratic President. Yet, when asking what we could do for them, multiple members of Congress said, “Free us from fundraising.” It appears that they see the problem, but they cannot find their way to the solution.

The good news is that democracy is still alive at the state level, where state legislators are responsive to their constituents and similarly concerned about the threats to our democracy. Nearly 90% of Americans are deeply concerned about the corruption of our federal government, and the dysfunction in government just surpassed the economy as the number one issue to most Americans. While Congress is broken, state legislators in Maryland can take action with other states to drive toward a solution.

As was the case with the 17th Amendment (direct election of U.S. Senators), there were powerful institutional forces that would prevent the Congress from ever taking action – it’s difficult to get 2/3rds of Senators to throw away their own method of selection. But with pressure from state legislatures across the country and a populist movement forcing their hand, the people were able to wrench the 17th Amendment out of Congress and then ratify it into the Constitution. It will likely take a similar strategy for us to win.

Whether proposed by Congress or proposed via a convention of the states, any amendment would need to be approved by 75% of the states prior to being added into the Constitution.
With 20 state legislatures controlled entirely by Democrats and 27 controlled entirely by Republicans (3 are split), only the most popular proposals supported by a vast majority of the population across lines of partisanship will make it through this political gauntlet.

Of course it is hard to amend the Constitution, as it should be, but guaranteeing the right to vote and getting money out of politics are fundamental reforms the vast majority of Americans support. The majority of Americans agree elections should be free of the corrupting influence of excessive spending by outside interests, fair enough that any citizen can run for public office, and that every American should have the right to vote. It is just this kind of issue that can unite Americans across political divides and create a movement to amend that will ultimately prevail.

The right of the people to choose our own elected officials, write our own laws, and determine the fate of our country together should be enshrined into the U.S. Constitution.The perverse doctrine that artificial entities have inalienable rights and that systemic bribery is a form of protected speech must be explicitly rejected. We must reclaim representative democracy in this country, for ourselves and for all future generations of Americans.

Our generation’s greatest responsibility is to get private money out of public elections and enshrine the right to vote in our nation’s most sacred document. It’s time to use the tools of democracy – all of them – while we still have the ability to do so in order to fix the problems we face. Only once we have freed our elections and government from the corruption currently plaguing them, and have restored the right of the people to choose the course of our country, can we begin effectively fixing the myriad of other fundamental problems we face.

Many people joining our efforts around the country, as well as those working with the Maryland Campaign for the Free and Fair Elections Amendment, cite climate change as their driving motivation, recognizing that environmental problems cannot be solved without removing the corrupting influence of fossil-fuel companies on our government. But whether it’s economic justice, workers’ rights, women’s rights, civil rights, social justice, or any of the many other Progressive campaigns and causes, we must stand united against the privilege of the world’s wealthiest individuals who dominate our political discourse and drown out the voices of everyday Americans.

To win on these issues in the long term, we must reset the rules of the political game. Powerful economic forces and corporations have used their economic clout to rig our laws to benefit only the 1% to the detriment of the rest of us and the future of our country. Amending the Constitution to restore free and fair elections and guarantee the individual’s right to vote will give us a fighting chance.

The one unifying demand of reformers nationwide should be to end the corruption in D.C. and to save our democracy. When we achieve the historic feat of amending the Constitution, we will know that we all participated in creating a more perfect union. We can do this, and the tools of the internet provide us with a powerful arsenal, but ultimately, we as Americans must take action before it is too late.
--

Process and Strategy: The Two Ways to Amend the Constitution

As public concern and anger build about the destruction of our democracy, so does agreement that the only effective means to reverse Citizen’s United and the perversion of “corporate personhood” is by amending the U.S. Constitution, which can be done in two ways:

a) REQUEST that Congress pass such an amendment, which this Congress is free to ignore, so far has, and always will according to nearly all progressive observers, in and out of Congress. Thus far, on record as supporting an amendment to overturn ‘Citizens United’ are 108 members of the Maryland General Assembly, 15 other states, 350 U.S. cities and towns, 125 members of Congress and a clear majority of the American public. However, Congress is the source of the dysfunction, so this is like asking cancer to cure cancer. Congress could not even pass something as simple and decent as the DISCLOSE Act, so cannot and will not fix it according to most informed observers. Even members of Congress themselves who ask that we “free them from fundraising,” state plainly that “the current Congress [or leadership] is incapable of proposing an amendment.”

b) REQUIRE: When 2/3rds of the states (currently 34) demand a ‘convention of the states’ for the purpose of proposing such an amendment, Congress is forced to assemble the convention (also known as an Article 5 Convention.) Already over 30 states – representing the entire political spectrum - have active campaigns underway to pass a state resolution calling for a convention to propose anamendment for Free and Fair Elections, overturning the ‘Citizens United’ decision, and eliminating ‘corporate personhood.’ Maryland could lead the way, as it did on the Living Wage, along with Vermont and Iowa as most likely to pass the “binding resolution” among at least 10 states introducing one in 2014.

c) RATIFICATION: Once an amendment is proposed, whether by a 2/3rds vote of both houses of Congress or by 2/3rds of the states (currently 34) calling for a convention, it must then be ratified by 3/4ths of the states (38).
--

For reference, here is the text of Article V in the United States Constitution:

Article V: The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress....

While use of a convention of the states to propose an amendment is unprecedented, state-level campaigns to call a convention helped add 4 out of the last 10 Amendments and the Bill of Rights.
So historically, most amendments to the Constitution have been added by utilizing this strategy.
--

Historical Perspective: Previous Amendments, Movements and Conventions

Our Constitution has been amended 27 other times, and at least once by every generation of Americans. In the past 100 years, America has amended the Constitution 9 times, once in as little as 100 days. The Founders explicitly gave citizens the ability to amend the Constitution and used it themselves to establish the Bill of Rights, the first ten Amendments to the Constitution.

Three amendments passed as recently as in the 1960’s. In 1971, just four months after Congress submitted it to the states, the 26th Amendment (allowing 18-year-olds to vote) was ratified in just four months. The most recent amendment to the Constitution was ratified in 1992, more than 200 years after it was first presented in the US House of Representatives by Representative James Madison of Virginia.

The 17th Amendment (for direct election of Senators) was proposed by Congress in 1913 only after the states were within one state of the 2/3rds needed to call for a convention of the states. Also, Congress proposed the 21st amendment (repeal of prohibition), 22nd amendment (term limits for the President), and 25th amendment (clarifies Presidential succession), only after many state legislatures had called for a convention of the states for each of these issues.

The amendment power of the states included in Article 5 is a core component of the Constitution, meant to be used when our federal legislators no longer represent the nation’s citizens. In the
“final argument” of the Federalist Papers (no. 85), Alexander Hamilton said the Article V amend-ment process was the means by which the states would rein in an out-of-control or corrupt federal government.

Even though a convention of the states has not yet occurred, there is a strong precedent for a single issue convention to propose amendments, as there have been over 700 state applications, but never 2/3 on a single subject, which would have compelled Congress to call a convention on that subject.

There have been over 233 state level conventions to amend state constitutions and none has ever exceeded the scope of their mandate (although the ultra right-wing John Birch Society likes to promote the conspiracy theory of a “runaway convention”).

Furthermore, a convention would only propose an amendment that would then need to be ratified by 75% of the states, 20 of which are controlled by Democrats and 27 of which are controlled by Republicans (3 are split). Only proposals that enjoy widespread cross-partisan support, such as voting rights and getting money out of politics, will make it through that incredibly narrow political gauntlet, and anything 75% of the states want in the US Constitution probably belongs in there anyhow.

Whether it’s through Congress or a convention of the states, it is clear that we must amend the U.S. Constitution if we are to preserve representative democracy for future generations of Americans.


_______________________________


This is what strong citizen action can do----protect free and fair elections.  Maryland is heading toward online voter registration which is not a bad thing, but hacking can undermine this process and we know how easily accessed these public systems can be.

The population most connected with having a hard time registering are the poor and working class.....both not having easy access to computers or online registration.  The next being troops overseas.  We need to monitor this process to be sure it is not compromised by hacking and false voter registration.

THE FACT THAT THE PUBLIC HAS TO WATCH AS PUBLIC FUNDS ARE CONSTANTLY SPENT ON THESE POLICIES NO ONE WANTS----AND THEN WATCH THEM DISMANTLED---SHOWS WE HAVE A DYSFUNCTIONAL SYSTEM

Pencils Ready? Maryland to Return to Paper Ballots for 2016 Election

Maryland state election authorities are shopping for a new paper ballot system to have in place by the 2016 presidential election.
Posted by Deb Belt (Editor) , November 22, 2013 at 11:34 AM

Maryland voters will switch from touch screens to using paper ballots for the 2016 presidential election.



After a short experiment with electronic voting machines, the state of Maryland has decided to move back to paper ballots for the 2016 election, reports the Washington Times.

The state decided to switch back to paper ballots after long-standing voter outcry and fear that computer based voting may lead to some ballots not being counted, the newspaper said. Maryland’s electronic voting machine has been controversial ever since its first institution in 2002.

Voters raised a ruckus in 2004 after the state moved to electronic voting machines that eliminated paper ballots and still raises suspicions, reports WJZ TV. But the switch to paper ballots was delayed until now because of limited funding.

Local election officials are already expressing uncertainty about what could go wrong when the state switches from an electronic voting system to using paper ballots, says the MarylandReporter.com.

“This is a big transition for us,” said Montgomery County Board of Elections Deputy Director Alysoun McLaughlin told the website. “Everything from set up, to warehouses, to the voting experience is based around touch screen [voting] machines.”

State officials told the website they plan to run mock elections prior to the 2016 elections.


___________________________________


The top reason Maryland voters give for not coming to the polls is -----there are no candidates for whom I would vote.  Indeed, the democratic party in Maryland is controlled by neo-liberals.  This sentiment soars in the City of Baltimore.  How do you change that sentiment?  

YOU REBUILD ALL PUBLIC STRUCTURES THAT GET THE GENERAL PUBLIC IN THE DISCUSSION ABOUT PUBLIC POLICY AND YOU HAVE LOTS OF PUBLIC FORUMS FOR ALL CANDIDATES GETTING THEIR PLATFORMS OUT.

So, if the problem is no candidate for which people want to vote-----all of these laws below are nice, but window-dressing as the structure for public engagement is gone.  That's why early voting always has no one coming to use this policy.  GOOD POLICIES BUT THE ELEPHANT IS MISSING.

I ask.....why does Maryland have a primary in June when primaries are the most important part of the election?  Do we really want two candidates in a general election having more than the three months to say the same thing over and over?  OF COURSE NOT.  IT MAKES NO SENSE TO SHORTEN THE PRIMARIES WITH LOTS OF CANDIDATES.  So, we need the primaries moved back to September.  The reason given for this move is to give troops more time to register for elections.  I DO NOT THINK THIS IS A PROBLEM....



Early Voting, Absentee Ballots, and Provisional Ballots in Maryland

By Mike Unger  


Early voting, absentee ballots, and provisional ballots are all available in Maryland, but they are all very different. An absentee ballot is a ballot cast in advance of the election because the voter is unable to make it to the polls, while a provisional ballot is cast at a polling place when there is a question as to the voter's eligibility. Early voting is permitted at selected sites throughout the state.

Absentee Ballots

Any voter registered in Maryland can vote by absentee ballot. Simply submit a request to receive an absentee ballot. For the 2010 general election, the deadline is Tuesday, October 26, 2010. Your request must be received by 8 p.m. if you mail or deliver the application or 11:59 pm if you fax or email it.

After you receive your absentee ballot, read the instructions. You will need a No. 2 pencil to vote. You will be voting a paper ballot and must completely fill in the oval to the left of your choice. Do not vote for more candidates than the number specified in the contest heading. If you wish, you may vote for fewer candidates than specified. Do not sign your name or make any other mark on your ballot.

Write-in voting is only allowed in general elections. A general election ballot has spaces for write-in votes. To cast a write-in vote, fill in the oval to the left of the space for the write-in vote, and write the last name and first name (or first initial) of the person in the appropriate space.

You must mail or hand deliver your absentee ballot to your local board of elections. You cannot email or fax your voted absentee ballot or take your voted ballot to an early voting center or a polling place.

If you hand deliver your ballot, you must deliver it to your local board of elections by 8 p.m. on election day.

If you mail your ballot, you must mail it on or before election day and it must be received by your local board of elections by 10 am on September 22, 2010 (primary election) and November 12, 2010 (general election).

Early Voting

Anyone registered to vote in Maryland is eligible to vote early. For the general election, early voting centers will be open starting Friday, October 22, 2010 through Thursday, October 28, 2010, except for Sunday, October 24th when early voting centers are closed.

Early voting centers will be open from 10 am until 8 pm each day of early voting. Anyone in line at 8 pm will be allowed to vote.

Find your early voting polling place

Provisional Ballots

Provisional Voting is a safeguard to help ensure that no eligible voter is denied the right to vote. If there is a problem verifying a voter's eligibility, he or she can cast a provisional vote that which will be counted if local election board can verify that the person is eligible and registered to vote. Reasons that a person might cast a provisional ballot include:

    Name is not on the precinct's voter registry because voter moved within the state of Maryland and did not update voter registration. (Provisional ballots must be cast in the voter's current voting precinct to be counted)
    Identification is required and voter is not able to provide it. ID is required when this is the first time the person has voted in Maryland or the voter has not previously met identification requirements. Identification must be supplied before the first Monday after the election for the provisional ballot to be counted.
    Records indicate that you received an absentee ballot. If you have not voted already, you may cast a provisional ballot. It is illegal to vote twice.
    Your right to vote was challenged by a poll watcher. Poll watchers, who are registered voters designated by a candidate or political party to watch the polls, may challenge your identity. If this happens, the voter must swear out an affidavit affirming his or her identity, and the poll watcher swears one citing the reason for the challenge.
    If poll hours are extended by court order, those voting after the regular close of polls must vote by provisional ballot.

    To find out if your provisional vote was counted, call 800-222-8683 ten days after the election.

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This is indeed the case.  Since Maryland has no public oversight of any agency, one has to be worried about fraud and corruption in this registration process.  IT IS CRITICAL THAT WE ALL SHOUT OUT FOR FREE AND FAIR DEMOCRATIC ELECTIONS NOW----TPP WILL KILL THE NEED TO ELECT PEOPLE AS CONTROL OF LAW-MAKING WILL GO TO GLOBAL TRIBUNALS.



'Michael Greenberger, the University of Maryland law professor who serves as director of the Center for Health & Homeland Security, says the identification system currently in place is not an effective way to authenticate a voter; in fact, it's vulnerable to fraud'.




Experts worry about election fraud threat
Maryland online registration, absentee ballots raise alarms


    

State House

The money spent on at least two referendum campaigns will likely be in the millions. (August 18, 2012)
Dan Rodricks

5:00 a.m. EST, February 6, 2014

By now, just about everyone connected to the Internet is familiar with this process: Required to fill out and sign a form of some kind, you ask for and receive a hyperlink via email. You open the link, find the form you need (perhaps a pdf), download it, print it, fill it out and mail it off.

That's a common practice, though increasingly old-school by today's online standards. There doesn't seem to be anything particularly risky about the transaction; few would think twice about conducting business that way.

But while integrity is important in all transactional realms, it rises to precious when we're talking about voting.


And that's why a similar process, new this year and slated to be part of Maryland's primary election in June, has some civic-minded computer security experts sounding alarms about the potential for fraud.

A small group of them, including three researchers based in other states, has also warned Maryland's Board of Elections about vulnerability in the state's online voter registration process. In fact, more than two years ago, they found the Maryland system to be susceptible to "large-scale, automated fraud" and said so in a letter to the board.


The concerns of these experts, however, have not led to major changes. Online registration has been available since before the 2012 elections. The new plan for absentee ballots — making them available electronically to any Maryland voter who requests one — is in place.

Regarding the latter, here's what the Board of Elections website says:

"Election officials can mail or fax your ballot to you, or you can download your ballot from the States website. If you want to download your ballot, make sure you provide your email address. ... We will send you an email when your ballot is ready. The email will include your ballot tracking number and a link where you can print your ballot and instructions. You must enter the ballot tracking number to access your absentee ballot."

This is what has security experts concerned. They say there is no way to know for certain that the person requesting the absentee ballot is the one filling it out and mailing it in.

Michael Greenberger, the University of Maryland law professor who serves as director of the Center for Health & Homeland Security, says the identification system currently in place is not an effective way to authenticate a voter; in fact, it's vulnerable to fraud.

Therefore, he says, "bad actors" could impersonate real voters, have the tracking numbers sent to them by email, then fill out and return ballots to local election boards without any meaningful check for fraud. Voter signatures are not checked against those on file, Greenberger points out.

A member of the Maryland Commission on Cybersecurity Innovation and Excellence, Greenberger advocates dropping the current plan and going old-school — that is, mailing absentee ballots to "brick and mortar addresses."

The other major concern was the potential for fraud in online registration.

The three experts who wrote to the board about this in 2012 were David Jefferson, a computer scientist based at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California; J. Alex Halderman, assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the University of Michigan; and Barbara Simons, a retired IBM computer scientist and an expert on electronic voting.

They are part of network of vigilant computer security experts who independently assess state elections systems and report their concerns.

"We have identified severe security vulnerabilities in Maryland's online voter registration system," Jefferson and his colleagues wrote state elections officials in September 2012. "These problems leave the system open to large-scale, automated fraud, and make the Maryland system among the most vulnerable of all the states' new online voter registration systems."


The letter said, in boldface: "Given the grave potential for harm, we urge the State of Maryland to take immediate defensive steps to safeguard the online voter registration system or else shut down the system."

That statement was reiterated in a follow-up letter last February.

In an interview Tuesday, Jefferson said he and his colleagues have never received a response.

For its part, the elections board says the system has been adequately tested by an independent consultant who found it to be secure. Teams of testers tried to hack into the system but couldn't, says Nikki Charlson, deputy administrator of the board. And, she says, there are additional measures in place to alert officials to any unusual transactions during the three-week absentee voting period.

Del. Jon Cardin, a candidate for attorney general in the June primary, serves as chairman of a House of Delegates subcommittee on election laws. He is well aware of the concerns that were raised about the new absentee system when the General Assembly considered and approved it last year. On balance, he says, the legislative mandate to make voter access as convenient as possible outweighed the security concerns. He says the system will continue to be scrutinized for any irregularities.

OK, I guess we'll see.

Here's hoping, for the sake of our precious democracy, this works better than the state's health insurance exchange.

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February 17th, 2014

2/17/2014

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WHEN YOU HEAR OR SEE TERMS LIKE --------NEW ECONOMY, 21ST CENTURY ECONOMY, THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION AND 'CENTER' POLITICS, MOVING FORWARD AS A CAMPAIGN SLOGAN, JOHNS HOPKINS DEVELOPMENT.....

THIS IS ALL TPP-------WE HAVE ALL THE MONEY AND NOW WE ARE BUILDING GLOBAL CORPORATE RULE. ALL OF MARYLAND POLS ARE NEO-LIBERALS AND MARYLAND IS FIRST IN INSTALLING TPP. IT IS ALL ILLEGAL!




Regarding Maryland's ranking as first in implementing TPP:

As I posted in my last blogs, all of the policies passed by Obama and Congress are tied to the TPP. Getting rid of regulation in public education and health by privatization......ignoring all laws for immigrants as the Immigration Bill readies the Congress for a flood of immigrants each year into every state.

NO ENFORCEMENT OF RULE OF LAW SO NO ONE IS PROTECTED FROM THE ABUSES OF CORPORATE FRAUD AND CORRUPTION ESPECIALLY THOSE IMMIGRANTS BEING LURED TO MARYLAND AND THEN LEFT TO WAGE THEFT AND WORKPLACE ABUSE.

So, as you political pundit and politicians pretending to be progressive in passing these laws knew then and now that all this was in preparation of TPP, I remind people that my blog talked of this for 4 years.

EVERYONE IN LEADERSHIP POSITIONS KNEW ALL OF THIS WAS TPP. THIS IS WHY PUBLIC MEDIA WAS HANDED TO CORPORATIONS IN 2010.....SO FREE PRESS IN AMERICA WOULD NOT ALLOW AMERICANS TO KNOW WHAT WAS HAPPENING. THE WORLD KNOWS.....AMERICANS DO NOT BECAUSE OF CORPORATE/STATE CAPTURED MEDIA.

I am already hearing the laments of all those 'progressive' leaders......WE DIDN'T KNOW!!!!!.....and O'Malley and all of the current candidates for governor in Maryland all knew and participated in making Maryland tops in global corporate tribunal rule. Fraser Smith sounded confused over Maryland's ranking on top of Hispanic deportations even as Maryland is ranked on top for immigrant abuse and indentured status.

The important thing to remember is that all of this is reversible. You won't hear it on public media NPR/APM, but all of this is illegal and a COUP against the US Constitution and politicians allowing all of this suspension of Constitutional rights and law go unenforced are indeed acting criminally. If you look at the article below, you will see a picture of Obama and Eric Holder as the face of TPP and ending US Constitution and Rule of Law. Remember, it is the states that allow all of this Federal dismantling to occur. It is Maryland Congress people who are silent as they do the deed.....it is Maryland's O'Malley and Attorney General Gansler who suspends Rule of Law and pushes all the TPP policies through a willing Maryland Assembly. WHEN A GOVERNMENT SUSPENDS RULE OF LAW IT SUSPENDS STATUTES OF LIMITATION.

NEVER ONCE DID YOU HEAR ANY OF THIS IN US MEDIA WHILE OVERSEAS....THE MEDIA WRITES OF THE DECLINE OF AMERICA TO THIRD WORLD AUTOCRACY.

As you see US rankings in yet another democratic freedom falls between Haiti and former USSR satellite Romania.

REMEMBER, YOU ARE ONLY HEARING ALL THIS NOW BECAUSE ALL OF THE DAMAGE HAS BEEN DONE!



US Plummets In Press Freedom Rankings


The Huffington Post | by Jack Mirkinson

Posted: 02/12/2014 7:09 am EST Updated: 02/12/2014 9:59 am EST Huffington Post




America Press Freedom Index Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Index US Press Freedom Index Media News

The United States plunged 14 places in the annual Press Freedom Index released by Reporters Without Borders on Wednesday. The group said it was "one of the most significant declines" in press freedom it had tracked during 2013.

The US in now ranked 46th on the RWB list, in between Romania and Haiti. It was ranked 32nd in the 2013 index. (Finland tops the entire list.)

The press freedom group was blunt in its explanation. It cited increased efforts to track down whistleblowers and the sources of leaks, mentioning Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden in particular. It also condemned the Justice Department's surveillance of reporters, and the continued leak battle facing New York Times journalist James Risen.

RWB also criticized the United Kingdom for what it said were its "disgraceful" threats against the Guardian newspaper, and for its detention of Glenn Greenwald's partner, David Miranda.

"Both the US and UK authorities seem obsessed with hunting down whistleblowers instead of adopting legislation to rein in abusive surveillance practices that negate privacy, a democratic value cherished in both countries," the group wrote.

The decision by RWB to rank the UK 13 places higher than the US, at 33, drew a great deal of skepticism from many in the media:

The US also came under fire from the Committee to Protect Journalists, which, in its annual Attacks on the Press report, said that press freedom had "dramatically deteriorated" in 2013.

The US was 20th on the list just a few years ago. It fell 27 places in the 2012 index thanks to the harassment and arrest of journalists covering Occupy Wall Street, before climbing 15 places in 2013.

Read the full RWB report here.

___________________________________________

I was sitting in Baltimore in a cafe while at the table next to me a very LOUD telephone conversation was taking place. It was relevant to this conversation because the person talking was telling the other NOT TO LET ANYBODY KNOW ABOUT A PROJECT CONTRACTED BY THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT BECAUSE THE GOVERNMENT DOES NOT WANT ANYONE TO KNOW UNTIL AFTER THE PROJECT IS DONE.

This man was a Federal employee of a decade or more talking with his son, a fresh PhD now working as a government contractor on a project. The son wanted to share with everyone his accomplishments and connections but the father knew that the Federal government would not hire him again if anyone knew what that project was. Now, this was not necessarily classified information.....it was simply public policy that moved the US from domestic to global corporate structure.

SEE WHAT SNOWDEN MEANT WHEN HE SAID THAT THE PUBLIC DESERVED TO KNOW! IT IS HISTORIC VISIGOTH RAIDING OF OUR US GOVERNMENT AND ALL MONEY AND ASSETS!

I met with the same attitude a few years ago by simply trying to do research at University of Maryland Library. This is a state institution that all citizens have a right to know how it is being run. I went there and asked for access to the databank that had all of the negotiations involving the merger of Baltimore's U of M campus with College Park. The librarian was aghast that I would think there would be a database and even more so that the public would have access to it. IF YOU HAVE ANY SPECIFIC QUESTIONS JUST ASK ME AND I WILL CHECK ON IT!

This is what a totalitarian government looks like. As people in Baltimore and Maryland know, that is how all public policy works. The public is no longer in the loop of public policy-making because all policy is written by corporate power and handed to us by neo-liberals working for that corporation. Same with the Federal government. We now know that NSA is Wall Street and we know all of the Federal outsourcing of public agency work has ended all public sector. Wall Street has been working to take over state and local government for these few decades and that is what O'Malley and Rawlings-Blake represent. Like the idea of minimum wage increase? It is all a con because TPP does not allow enforcement of labor law if it takes from corporate profit.
NEO-LIBERALS AND NEO-CONS ARE GLOBAL CORPORATE POLITICIANS. THE MEDIA'S 'CENTER' IN POLITICS IS THIS GLOBAL CORPORATE RULE.




Restoring Transparency to Automated Authority


Frank Pasquale, University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law

Article
Publication Date

2011


Leading finance, health care, and internet firms shroud key operations in secrecy. Our markets, research, and life online are increasingly mediated by institutions that suffer serious transparency deficits. When a private entity grows important enough, it should be subject to transparency requirements that reflect its centrality. The increasing intertwining of governmental, business, and academic entities should provide some leverage for public-spirited appropriators and policymakers to insist on more general openness.

However well an "invisible hand" coordinates economic activity generally, markets depend on reliable information about the practices of core firms that finance, rank, and rate entities in the rest of the economy. Brandishing quasi-governmental authority to determine which enterprises are funded and found, they need to be held to a higher standard than the average firm.
Journal

____________________________________________

When Mayor Rawlings-Blake keeps telling the public that deals and contracts the city entered on behalf of the Baltimore Development Corporation are confidential and as we know full of fraud and corruption.....this is what handing our public sector over to private partnerships does. IT ENDS DEMOCRACY AND CITIZEN'S RIGHTS TO PARTICIPATE IN THIS DEMOCRACY. THIS IS WHAT TPP DOES AND MARYLAND HAS ALREADY IMPLEMENTED TPP.

All of Maryland's pols are neo-liberals who have worked to create this environment and they did it knowing all of it ended democracy and all of it was illegal. IT IS A COUP ON THE US CONSTITUTION AND THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. Just because media is only now letting us know as the groundwork is laid.....WE CAN AND WILL REVERSE THIS BECAUSE IT IS ILLEGAL.



Reporters Committee of Freedom of the Press

Other bodies to which governmental or public functions are delegated.

Although the entity may have a public purpose (i.e., carrying out an advisory or quasi-legislative function), it is not subject to the Act unless it is a public body as defined by the state. § 10-502(h). Thus, for example, a University of Maryland task force that was not created by a rule, resolution, or bylaw of the Board of Regents of the University, but was created as an investigatory body wholly under the province of the Chancellor was not a public body subject to the Act. A. S. Abell Publishing Co. v. Board of Regents, 68 Md. App. 500, 514 A.2d 25 (1986). Section 10-502(h)(2) expands the definition of public bodies to include any multimember board, commission, or committee appointed by the governor or comparable local chief executive that includes at least two individuals not employed by the state or a local jurisdiction. § 10-502(h)(2).


___________________________________________
Now, you will hear all kinds of republican groups calling what Obama is doing a COUP against the Constitution, but remember, Obama is simply continuing George Bush policy....so, the very republicans pretending to hate this constitutional attack are the ones behind it as well. THIS IS THE NEO-CON/NEO-LIBERAL 'CENTER' CORPORATE NPR/APM TELLS US IS GOOD.

Ellsberg is of course speaking of the takeover of all of the US CIA/FBI/NSA services by Wall Street and the categorization of everything as classified.....just as with the local Rawlings-Blake/Baltimore Development Corporation deals. NONE OF THIS IS CLASSIFIED.....IT IS SIMPLY A TAKEOVER OF ALL THINGS PUBLIC. Remember, Congress cannot pass laws knowing they are illegal. For example, Congress cannot pass a law that says Congress people cannot be charged with insider trading for goodness sake. Only governments in Africa pass that kind of law. The Supreme Court cannot re-write the US Constitution by pretending to be 'interpreting' it in ways that completely negate what the Constitution says.

WE THE PEOPLE ARE CITIZENS WHO WRITE THE LAWS OF THE COUNTRY. WE THE PEOPLE ARE GUARANTEED BILL OF RIGHTS. WE THE PEOPLE ARE PROTECTED EQUALLY UNDER LAW......PERIOD




Ellsberg: A Coup Against the Constitution
TheRealNews

Published on Jun 15, 2013

Daniel Ellsberg, the man who released the Pentagon papers, says the FISA court is a sham and warrantless wiretapping, which has being going on for years before 9/11, is a violation of the US Constitution no matter what law Congress passes.

______________________________________________
Try as I might to take any of this to court or to get the Maryland Attorney General's office to pursue these issues.....which is in fact what they should be doing.....I CANNOT GET ANY PUBLIC JUSTICE ORGANIZATION TO PURSUE WHAT IS A COUP AGAINST THE US CONSTITUTION.

The article below shows that a huge number of law school graduates are unemployed and law schools are no longer offering anything other than corporate/international law. REMEMBER, GLOBAL MARKETS ARE DEAD.

THE CITIZENS OF THE WORLD HAVE FOUND GLOBAL MARKETS AND NAKED CAPITALISM FILLED WITH FRAUD AND CORRUPTION AND NOT CONDUCIVE WITH DEMOCRATIC STRUCTURES. SO, THIS ATTEMPT TO END ALL DEMOCRATIC STRUCTURES LIKE RULE OF LAW IN THE US MUST BE REVERSED!




Equal Protection Of The Law

n. the right of all persons to have the same access to the law and courts and to be treated equally by the law and courts, both in procedures and in the substance of the law. It is akin to the right to due process of law, but in particular applies to equal treatment as an element of fundamental fairness. The most famous case on the subject is Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954) in which Chief Justice Earl Warren, for a unanimous Supreme Court, ruled that "separate but equal" educational facilities for blacks were inherently unequal and unconstitutional since the segregated school system did not give all students equal rights under the law. It will also apply to other inequalities such as differentials in pay for the same work or unequal taxation. The principle is stated in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution: "No State shall…deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."


___________________________________________

This is because all of the public sector has been gutted with naked capitalism and neo-liberalism ending all regulatory and public justice because corporate profits come first. ALL MARYLAND POLS ARE NEO-LIBERALS. THEY ARE NOT THE EXCEPTION AND YOU KNOW BECAUSE MARYLAND IS THE BIGGEST GLOBAL CORPORATE RULE IN THE COUNTRY.

So, Maryland's unemployment above 36% as Economic Policy Institute let's us know is based on this gutting of the public sector and public justice. All that needs be done is reverse this by running and voting for REAL PROGRESSIVE LABOR AND JUSTICE CANDIDATES IN ALL PRIMARIES BUT ESPECIALLY MARYLAND/CITY ATTORNEY. So far.....ALL OF THE CANDIDATES ARE CRONY AND NEO-LIBERAL. Remember, the first thing Mizeur said when she announced was that she would continue the public private partnerships that end the public sector and she said she would continue all the leveraging Wall Street bond debt for development-----THIS IS NEO-LIBERAL. It does not matter if she pretends to support a few progressive bones. If she pushes TPP-----none of those laws will be enforced!



June 7, 2012
Unemployment Among Recent Law Graduates Is as Bad as It's Ever Been

By Katherine Mangan

The employment rate for recent law-school graduates has fallen to its lowest level since 1994, according to figures released on Thursday by the National Association for Law Placement. Only 85.6 percent of 2011 graduates whose employment status was known had jobs nine months after leaving law school.

That rate, which has declined every year since 2008, was two percentage points below the previous year's employment level. The figure is based on data submitted by schools and includes graduates working part time and in jobs that don't require a law degree. (Recently, more than a dozen law schools have been sued and 20 more threatened with legal action over their allegedly inflated job-placement rates.)

According to a report from the association, only 65.4 percent of the 2011 graduates who reported their employment status were working in positions for which they had to pass a bar examination. More than nine percentage points below the 2008 rate, that proportion is the lowest the association has ever measured.

"For members of the Class of 2011, caught as they were in the worst of the recession, entering law school in the fall of 2008 just as Lehman Brothers collapsed ... the entry-level job market can only be described as brutal," the association's executive director, James G. Leipold, said in a written statement.

"When this class took their LSAT's and applied for law school, there were no signs that the legal economic boom was showing any signs of slowing," he said, "and yet by the time they graduated, they faced what was arguably the worst entry-level legal-employment market in more than 30 years."

Fewer than half of the employed graduates were in private practice, a share that has also been steadily declining.

The only glimmer of good news in the report was Mr. Leipold's suggestion that the job market may have bottomed out and might begin creeping up over the next few years.

The shrinking job market and declining applications have prompted some law schools to cut their incoming class sizes, while others have moved ahead with plans to expand.



0 Comments

February 11th, 2014

2/11/2014

0 Comments

 
Regarding the NSA spying programs and Edward Snowden:

Below you will see an article shared by Charlton Stanley that linked a video of Edward Snowden giving a very intelligent, well-received conversation on his motives behind his whistle-blowing and how he accepts the dangers that come with a rogue government as the US has become.  The article at the bottom of this blog shows the outright conspiracy that existed as a similar attempt to shout out against the NSA build-up and limiting of US freedoms happened a few decades ago......you can believe these threats of death were real.

As we all know, Snowden is a whistle-blower, not a traitor.  If you can find this video posted overseas no doubt you will see an American the world thinks has integrity, sincere actions of common good, and a genius for the systems he now hopes the world will regulate.  

BERNIE SANDERS AND EDWARD SNOWDEN FOR PRESIDENT/VICE PRESIDENT 2016!!!!

The American corporate media tries its best to spread the neo-liberal propaganda that Snowden committed this act specifically to aid the enemy.....China and Russia.  We know that he was in China because his employer.....Booz Allen has a branch in China and Snowden simply needed to find a safe haven.  I wonder if Booz Allen is a traitor since they are in China?  Snowden ended in Russia because few nations had the courage to shelter him.....not because he works for Russian intelligence.

As Snowden says......the NSA is working as an industrial spy and as hedge funds operate the NSA WE THE PEOPLE are outraged that a government agency that should be public has been outsourced to the very entity that is indeed a traitor and terrorist to the American people.....WALL STREET.  Our goal is to turn those NSA super-computers on Wall Street as we rebuild all Rule of Law/oversight and public justice agencies to follow all Wall Street transactions and to bring back tens of trillions of dollars in corporate fraud stolen from our government coffers and individual's pockets!

THANK YOU EDWARD SNOWDEN FOR RISKING YOUR LIFE FOR THE COMMON GOOD AND HOPEFULLY WE THE PEOPLE WILL TAKE ACTION TO CONTROL THIS TOTALITARIAN CREEP TAKING HOLD OF THE US DEMOCRACY.

NEO-CONS AND NEO-LIBERALS ARE THE FACE OF THIS TOTALITARIAN CREEP......GET RID OF THEM!  ALL OF MARYLAND POLS ARE NEO-LIBERALS.

When I viewed this article I was able to see the video attached......when I went back a few days ago....the video was gone.  Please look for it posted overseas where free press and democracy still operates!


Edward Snowden speaks: US blackout of interview (Updated with new video source)

THIS IS THE CURRENT UNCENSURED VIDEO SITE!!!!
German Television does first Edward Snowden Interview (ENGLISH) German Television Channel NDR does an exclusive interview with Edward Snowden.
Uploaded on LiveLeak cause German Television thinks the rest of the world isn't intereseted in Edward Snowden.



1, February 1, 2014 by Charlton Stanley, PhD, ABPP

By Charlton Stanley, Weekend Contributor

NSA logo smallLast Sunday, former NSA contractor and whistleblower Edward Snowden was interviewed for the German television network ARD.  The interview was big news in Germany and much of the world in both print and broadcast media. However, the interview appears to have been blocked intentionally by US government authorities. In fact, the media in the US appears to have gone to ‘radio silence’ about it. It has been posted on YouTube several times, but is taken down almost immediately.  The video site Vimeo has it embedded, but as I write this, Vimeo is under a DDoS attack.  LiveLeak also has it, and that video is embedded in this report by Jay Syrmopoulos for  Ben Swann’s news page.

Mr. Snowden spoke candidly in a thirty-minute English language interview with the reporter from ARD.

He says his “breaking point” was “seeing Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, directly lie under oath to Congress.” That was when Clapper denied the existence of a domestic spying programs when he testified before Congress in March of last year. Snowden added, “The public had a right to know about these programs. The public had a right to know that which the government is doing in its name, and that which the government is doing against the public.”

In case Ben Swann’s page is taken down, along with the LiveLeak video, here is the interview on Vimeo. Offered without commentary, since Edward Snowden can speak for himself.
Update:
An internet search revealed the Edward Snowden interview is up on Rutube.  It is a Russian video site somewhat similar to YouTube. The text is in Russian and doesn’t have an English language version.  I have a feeling Rutube will not be as knee-jerk responsive to take-down orders from western countries.
Here is the Snowden interview as presented on Rutube.  WordPress does not support Rutube for embedding, but this link will take you to the interview:


____________________________________

Wall Street's and their corporate media's first reaction of being outed by Snowden and having justice groups like Anonymous hacking into bank's accounts to download and allow international justice groups to follow the money stolen and shipped to offshore accounts --------CLOUD COMPUTING PROTECTS AGAINST HACKERS-------HEAD FOR THE CLOUD!  Actually cloud computing opens all data for easy hacking especially for the NSA and Wall Street.  

Below you see how people are trying to protect themselves from their own government run by Wall Street.  US technology corporations are part of the US global tribunal and no amount of pleading innocent will sell the world on the complicity so we will see the Balkanization of the Internet and US tech corporations will be downsized to regional businesses.  This is not a bad thing.  WHAT ABOUT ALL THE JOBS?  


THE AMERICAN PEOPLE WANT BUSINESSES THAT EARN MILLIONS IN PROFIT AND NOT BILLIONS.  JOBS WILL NOT BE LOST IF PROFITS ARE CAPPED.  LET THEM GO OUT OF BUSINESS IF NOT AND WE WILL REBUILD A DOMESTIC TECH INDUSTRY.




Entrepreneurs
|
2/10/2014 @ 5:45PM
Former NSA Security Architect Pushes Email Encryption For The Masses

Will and John Ackerly are touting email encryption for the people with their startup, Virtru.

 when using GmailSince former NSA contractor Edward Snowden began divulging information on how vulnerable our personal digital data is – and how much of it security organizations have been helping themselves to – the average web surfer has begun to think a bit more cynically about cyber security. That newfound suspicion creates a headache and a PR-fiasco for the NSA but opens doors for entrepreneurs in the world of online privacy.

Two such entrepreneurs are brothers Will and John Ackerly. The Ackerlys and their startup venture, Washington D.C.-based Vitru, are two weeks into the launch of a product that lets internet users encrypt any and all of their emails for free. Unlike competitors, the service acts as an add-on to your web browser and does not require the email recipient to have signed up for the service. That feature alone makes Virtu notable.  


Obama Calls For 'New Approach' On NSA Surveillance--Not New Enough For Critics Andy Greenberg Andy Greenberg Forbes Staff
Hackers And Governments Beware--Online Anonymity For The People Karsten Strauss Karsten Strauss Forbes Staff
NSA Secretly Admitted Illegally Tracking Thousands Of 'Alert List' Phone Numbers For Years Andy Greenberg Andy Greenberg Forbes Staff
Forget Fingerprints, Your Face Is A Security Key Karsten Strauss Karsten Strauss Forbes Staff

“What we’ve tried to do – and what’s different from what a lot of encrypted communication tools out there have done – is really spend time to integrate the encryption technology directly into Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook.com,” John Ackerly said.

There is no shortage of privacy and security products out there, but the brothers felt that if they created a simple system that required little technical know-how it would catch on with the tech-dyslexic and tech-savvy alike. “86% of Americans, while concerned about the privacy of their personal information, have not taken action because they don’t know where to go.”

Here’s how it works:

I downloaded Virtru as a Firefox add-on and a mobile app. On Firefox, each new email contains a small unobtrusive switch on the top right corner of the message window which turns encryption on (yes, it is opt in). Press “send” and Virtru encrypts the contents on your device with standard AES 256, then sends it to the recipient but separates the encryption key from the message. The recipient does not need to have downloaded Virtru to get the key but does need to confirm his or her identity by email address. Virtru holds the key to that decryption process and won’t fork it over without verification.  According to Will Ackerly: “We also have a firewall that makes sure that every keystroke that you type inside the compose window never gets to the server.” Normally, he said, every single keystroke is recorded and sent to Google servers when using Gmail.
Virtru's user to user blueprint.

Virtru’s user to user blueprint.

On smartphone, the user can send out emails via the Virtru mail app that links to, say a Gmail app but only after verifying your identity on the device. Other free services include the ability to control whether your recipient can forward your message and the power to revoke access to the message after a chosen period of time, a la Snapchat.

The two brothers are in a unique position to build security solutions. Will Ackerly, the 33-year-old CTO, spent 8 years working as a cloud security architect for the NSA before taking his talents to the private sector in 2012. John, who is 39 and is Virtru’s CEO, served as associate director of the National Economic Council and director of the Office of Policy and Strategic Planning at the Commerce Department under President George W. Bush and.

Will Ackerly’s primary focus with the NSA was developing technology to protect data. “After my experience at NSA I really gained an appreciation for how hard it was for people to protect their data and an acute awareness that there’s a lack of tools out there for individuals to be able to protect their data.”

John Ackerly’s tenure under President George W. Bush coincided with September 11, 2001. Following the attacks on the World Trade Center, actions were taken concerning security that had long-lasting impact on the right to privacy, he explained. Massive technological change happening at the same time as major policy decisions led to an undeveloped sense of how much privacy a person can expect, how much data a third party should have access to and what the government is allowed to see. “It was a wonderful moment for me, from the policy perspective, to be talking to my brother around the kitchen table about technology that he was building at the NSA that very clearly could have a transformative impact on the way people feel about communicating online.”

The Ackerly brothers financed the company with their own money early on before raising $4.2 million from angel investors including Bob Pittman, CEO of ClearChannel. John was working for private equity firm Lindsay Goldberg in New York at the time and left to head the young firm. The extra money helped build out a team of developers and the company now stands at 11 full-timers and 24 part-time platform builders. It is a developer-heavy crew and some have experience working with Will at the NSA.

Email encryption is free (“and it will always be free,” they say) but the duo have formulated a revenue model consisting of soon-to-come paid features like attachment security, domain-level enterprise data management platforms, as well as the licensing of their technology to organizations that want to manage their own security keys.  The fees themselves have yet to be determined but will be announced in the second quarter.

The majority of its angel round is still in place but the company is not profitable. Remaining cash will likely see Virtru through 2014 but the company could look to raise more money from investors after that.

Will Ackerly and his team have spent the past 18 months making sure the product works in all the top webmail providers and building out mobile apps. So far Virtru has launched its email privacy product as an add-on to Chrome, Firefox and iOS—and user numbers have reached the tens of thousands in less than a month (70% in the U.S.). That’s a limited app, to be sure, but in the coming weeks compatibility will spread to Internet Explorer, Safari and Android, as well as plugins for Outlook and Mac Mail.

 Whistleblower Edward Snowden’s highly publicized disclosures of global surveillance and metadata interception has put the focus on privacy and products that can provide it. That attention has been a boon for the Ackerly brothers and their team, as it has for other security app products from new companies. Says John: “Having that ecosystem of players, we think that’s a great thing. We think that 2014 is going to be the year of encryption and of people embracing it for their personal lives. We think that’s one of the silver linings of the Edward Snowden revelations.”

______________________________________________


Get involved in your communities as this NSA deal is simply Wall Street and industrial spying and very little terrorist threat surveillance.  It is totalitarian and these Wall Street hedge funds are telling you and me....YOU HAVE NO RIGHTS OF PRIVACY BECAUSE WE DO NOT OPERATE UNDER THE US CONSTITUTION.

THEY SAY WE WILL TAKE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION.....WE WILL GIVE IT TO WHOMEVER WE WANT.....AND WE WILL SELL IT FOR PROFIT.




End NSA Massive Spying Programs



We've told you about TODAY's massive action against mass spying -- and now it's time to act.  We're calling today The Day We Fight Back, and dozens of large organizations and websites and thousands of smaller ones are mobilizing their members and visitors to demand an end to broad suspicion-less surveillance.  

We announced it on the anniversary of the passing of Aaron Swartz, to honor him and to celebrate the victory over SOPA that he helped us achieve two years ago.

If all of the organizations and sites that have signed on to the cause press forward today, we should be able to drive tens of thousands of phone calls to lawmakers to demand that the NSA's mass spying programs be reined in.

Will you place one of those calls?  It'll only take 2 minutes, and we'll make it easy for you by giving you a call script and connecting you to the right office.

Just click here to call your lawmakers.

Then, or if you can't call, please click here to send an email to

We understand the United States to be a democracy, founded upon a Constitution that affords us critical rights, and governed by therule of law.

Yet for years, the NSA has exploited secret legal interpretations to undermine our privacy rights -- thus chilling speech and activism, and thereby threatening to subvert the very underpinnings of our democracy itself.

We are demanding that decision makers remedy this by:

    Passing the USA FREEDOM Act, which would end the bulk collection of Americans' phone records and institute other key reforms.

    Defeating the so-called FISA Improvements Act, which would entrench -- and potentially expand -- the spying.

    Creating additional privacy protections for non-Americans.

    Ending the NSA's subversion of encryption and other data security measures.

And we're not even that far from winning on at least one key front:

The USA FREEDOM Act has more than 100 bipartisan sponsors, including two powerful lead sponsors: Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Representative James Sensenbrenner (R-WI), who was the original author of the PATRIOT Act and is furious that it has been abused to spy on Americans en masse.

This summer an amendment that's very similar to parts of the USA FREEDOM Act failed to pass in the House of Representatives by just a handful of votes. Enough lawmakers now say they would have voted in support that it would pass if it came up for a vote today.

Now we need to force a vote on the issue in the House, and a first vote on it in the Senate -- and we'll do that by putting pressure on lawmakers by calling and emailing them today.  Tens of thousands of people are poised to join the cause: Please be one of them.

Just click here to call your lawmakers.

Then, or if you can't call, please click here to send an email to your lawmakers.

We're going to persist in this fight, and we will win it.


_____________________________________________

Below you see the threats this early fighter of NSA overreach endured as he shouted loudly and strongly against these unconstitutional actions decades ago.  BUT THE SUPREME COURT SAYS IT IS CONSTITUTIONAL FOR THE GOVERNMENT TO BE EVERYWHERE YOU SAY.  No, the Supreme Court says that certain methods of surveillance is legal but we all know none of what is being done follows the law.  We ask as well, is the Supreme Court re-writing law rather than interpreting it if corporations are allowed to own and profit from all of our activities on the web when the web is engrained in daily life?  OF COURSE NOT.  

CITIZENS OF NATIONS HAVING A COUP AGAINST THE PEOPLE AND THEIR CONSTITUTIONS OFTEN THROW THE SUPREME COURT OUT OF OFFICE WITH THE POLITICIANS COMMITTING TREASON AGAINST THE CONSTITUTION.  WE KNOW THAT THE TPP IS ILLEGAL AND A COUP AGAINST THE US CONSTITUTION AS WE KNOW ALL OF THE LOSS OF PRIVACY IS AS WELL.  THIS NSA SURVEILLANCE IS AN EXTENSION OF US GLOBAL CORPORATIONS AND PROFIT.




The first congressman to battle the NSA is dead. No-one noticed, no-one cares.

By Mark Ames
On February 4, 2014

otis_pike

    “Pike will pay for this, you wait and see—we’ll destroy him for this.” —Mitchell Rogovin, CIA special counsel, 1976

Last month, former Congressman Otis Pike died, and no one seemed to notice or care. That’s scary, because Pike led the House’s most intensive and threatening hearings into US intelligence community abuses, far more radical and revealing than the better-known Church Committee’s Senate hearings that took place at the same time. That Pike could die today in total obscurity, during the peak of the Snowden NSA scandal, is, as they say, a “teachable moment” —one probably not lost on today’s already spineless political class.

In mid-1975, Rep. Pike was picked to take over the House select committee investigating the US intelligence community after the first committee chairman, a Michigan Democrat named Nedzi, was overthrown by more radical liberal Democrats fired up by Watergate after they learned that Nedzi had suppressed information about the CIA’s illegal domestic spying program, MH-CHAOS, exposed by Seymour Hersh in late 1974. It was Hersh’s exposés on the CIA domestic spying program targeting American dissidents and antiwar activists that led to the creation of the Church Committee and what became known as the Pike Committee, after Nedzi was tossed overboard.

Pike was an odd choice to take Nedzi’s place—he was a conservative Cold War Democrat from a mostly-Republican Long Island district, who’d supported the Vietnam War long after most northern Democrats abandoned it, and who loathed do-gooder Kennedy liberals and Big Government waste. So no one expected Pike to challenge the National Security State and executive privilege so aggressively and righteously—and some argued, recklessly—as he wound up doing.

The reason is simple if you think in 1975 terms. Pike was an ambitious political animal—and in 1975, standing up to the secrecy-obsessed NatSec State like Warren Beatty and Robert Redford did on screen seemed like smart politics. Pike was looking to trade up to the Senate in 1976, just as Frank Church was looking to use the Church Committee hearings to springboard into the White House.

Pike was less interested in sensational scandals like Church’s poison darts and foreign assassination plots than he was in getting to the guts of the intelligence apparatus, its power, its funding, its purpose. He asked questions never asked or answered since the start of the Cold War: What was America’s intelligence budget? What was the purpose of the CIA, NSA and other intelligence agencies and programs? Were they succeeding by their own standards? Were taxpayers getting their money’s worth? Were they making America safer?

Those were exactly the questions that the intel apparatus did not want asked. The Church Committee focused on excesses and abuses, implying that with the proper reforms and oversights, the intelligence structures could be set right. But as the Pike Committee started pulling up the floorboards, what they discovered quickly led Rep. Pike and others to declare that the entire intelligence apparatus was a dangerous boondoggle. Not only were taxpayers getting fleeced, but agencies like the NSA and CIA were a direct threat to America’s security and democracy, the proverbial monkey playing with a live grenade. The problem was that Pike asked the right questions—and that led him to some very wrong answers, as far as the powers that be were concerned.

It was Pike’s committee that got the first ever admission—from CIA director William Colby—that the NSA was routinely tapping Americans’ phone calls. Days after that stunning confession, Pike succeeded in getting the head of the NSA, Lew Allen Jr., to testify in public before his committee—the first time in history that an NSA chief publicly testified. It was the first time that the NSA publicly maintained that it was legally entitled to wiretap Americans’ communications overseas, in spite of the 1934 Communications Act and other legal restrictions placed on other intelligence and law enforcement agencies.

It was also the first time an NSA chief publicly lied to Congress, claiming it was not eavesdropping on domestic or overseas phone calls involving American citizens. (Technically, legalistically, the NSA argued that it hadn’t lied—the reason being that since Americans weren’t specifically “targeted” in the NSA’s vast data-vacuuming programs in the 1970s, recording and storing every phone call and telex cable in computers which were then data-mined for keywords, that therefore they weren’t technically eavesdropping on Americans who just happened to be swept up into the wiretapping vacuum.)

Pike quickly discovered the fundamental problem with the NSA: It was by far the largest intelligence agency, and yet it was birthed unlike any other, as a series of murky executive orders under Truman at the peak of Cold War hysteria. Digging into the NSA’s murky beginnings, it quickly became clear that the agency was explicitly chartered in such a way that placed it beyond legal accountability, out of reach of the other branches of government. Unlike the CIA, which came into being under an act of Congress, the NSA’s founding charter was a national secret.

In early August, 1975, Pike ordered the NSA to produce its “charter” document, National Security Council Intelligence Directive No. 6. The Pentagon’s intelligence czar, Albert Hall, appeared before the Pike Committee that day—but without the classified NSA charter. Hall reminded Pike that the Ford White House had offered to show the NSA charter document to Pike’s committee just as it had done with Church’s Senate Committee members, who had agreed to merely view the charter at a government location outside of Congress, without entering the secret document into the Senate record. Officially, publicly, it still didn’t exist. Pike refused to accept that:

    “You’re talking about the document that set up the entire N.S.A., it’s one which all members [of Congress] are entitled to see without shuttling back and forth downtown to look at.”

Assistant Defense Secretary Hall told an incredulous Pike that he hadn’t brought the NSA charter with him as he’d been told to, and that he couldn’t because “I need clearance” and the charter “has secret material in it.”

Pike exploded:

    “It seems incredible to me, very frankly, that we are asked to appropriate large amounts of money for that agency which employs large numbers of people without being provided a copy of the piece of paper by which the agency is authorized.”

Pike’s investigations led him to believe that the combined intelligence agencies were massively understating their budgets, and that the true figure was in the area of $10 billion in 1975 dollars (about $43 billion today), with the NSA by far the largest intelligence agency of all. Broken down, he discovered that about one-fifth of the FBI’s budget went to counterintelligence, largely wasted except as it targeted and harassed leftist dissidents and political opponents. He estimated that the CIA spent about a third of its budget bribing or funding foreign political parties and foreign politicians, including in allied countries like Italy. And that the NSA was a powerful tool in some of the most nefarious—and illegal—domestic surveillance programs.

For example, the CIA-run MH-CHAOS program (which I wrote about here and here in the days after the Snowden story first broke last summer—an illegal domestic spying program which grew out of the CIA’s surveillance of Ramparts magazine and the mighty Warren Hinckle) used the NSA to provide thousands of files on US antiwar activists, celebrities, dissidents and even political figures. It became increasingly clear that if you really wanted to reform and restructure the US intelligence community, you had to take on the NSA.

When the Pike Committee started looking into what taxpayers were really getting for their $10 billion annual investment in intelligence, things went from bad to worse. Pike charged the NSA with taking unacceptable risks that threatened to spark war with the Soviets on several occasions, using  Navy subs, including nuclear-armed subs, to penetrate Soviet territorial waters to perform intelligence activities. On a few occasions, the Navy subs doing NSA missions were spotted and pursued by Soviet warships and air forces. Perhaps the craziest revelations involved Navy submarine missions inside the Soviet naval ports in Vladivostok, where “technicians” attached small transmitters to cables that connected Vladivostok’s naval installations with their counterparts in Moscow, all of which was recorded into NSA computers in Ft Meade, Maryland.

Did those risky and expensive intelligence operations make the United States safer? Did they prevent attacks on America or American interests, or correctly warn the White House of some impending crisis? To answer that, Pike looked into some major world events to see how US intelligence fared: The 1973 Yom Kippur War; Turkey’s 1974 invasion of Cyprus; and the 1974 coup in Portugal (as well as the US intelligence failure in the 1968 Tet Offensive).

The answers were devastating and embarrassing—in every instance, US intelligence failed miserably. In October 1975, while the hearings were still ongoing, Pike told the New York Times,

    “If an attack were to be launched on America in the very near future, it is my belief that America would not know that the attack were about to be launched.”

To find out why US intelligence was such a dangerous and expensive boondoggle, Pike summoned Secretary of State Kissinger to testify— but Kissinger refused to appear. Pike wasn’t playing ball the way Church was, so the Ford Administration and the intelligence community decided to stop cooperating and to start pushing back—stonewalling or ignoring subpoenas, gumming up the investigation’s gears. The Pike Committee held Kissinger in contempt; Kissinger responded that he was the victim of Congressional “McCarthyism”— and much of the Washington Establishment backed up the invented Kissinger-as-McCarthyism-victim meme.

Meanwhile, an even more radical subcommittee on privacy in the House, headed by Bella Abzug, targeted the NSA’s domestic spying program, subpoenaing government officials and the heads of the major telecoms and cable telex firms—AT&T, ITT, Western Union and RCA. The more the House dug into the NSA’s foundations, the more they discovered about the murky extralegal arrangements and deals made between private telecom firms and the National Security State apparatus. In the late 1940s, as the NSA was being formed out of the Army Security Agency and other military signal intelligence branches, Truman’s top defense officials cajoled the major US cable telex firms to agree to let the nascent NSA tap into all international communications. Some of the firms were more reluctant than others; all asked for written legal assurances and legislative action, but were given less than they were promised. Everything remained legally murky—promises, but nothing concrete and publicly legalized, like the NSA itself. [For more on this, read James Bamford's excellent history of the NSA, "Puzzle Palace."]

To prevent the public from learning that the NSA had programs physically tapping and recording all international telex cables, President Ford invoked executive privilege for the first time in history on behalf of private corporations, to exempt them from having to testify to Abzug’s committee. Eventually, some went ahead and testified anyway. Like I said, for a brief period in the mid-1970s, the smart money was on the Robert Redford anti-government heroes…

But what Abzug, Pike, Church and others hadn’t counted on was that some seemingly-permanent cultural changes turned out not to be as permanent as thought. The shock from the stream of revelations was no longer so inspiring—as more dirty linen was aired, it had a cumulative numbing effect on much of the public, turning them away from politics—away from the institutions they trusted, and away from the political mavericks taking them on—away from it all, and inward, just as the Baby Boomers themselves were turning inward in droves, away from  messy political struggles, and into the purity of personal fulfillment…away from struggling for world peace, in favor of seeking inner peace.

What Pike and Church were uncovering turned out to be something much darker and harder to process than Watergate. With Watergate, there was a simpler narrative that reaffirmed America’s own fairytales about itself: Here was a bad apple, Nixon, and a few bad apples around him, eventually exposed and overthrown by the good guys—the valiant press, the politicians with integrity—proving that the American System worked after all.

But what the Pike Committee (and to a lesser extent the Church Committee) revealed was something much more systemic, much more complex and depressing to grapple with.

As Pike put it, in Watergate the American people were asked to believe that “their President had been a bad person. In this situation they are asked much more; they are asked to believe that their country has been evil. And nobody wants to believe that.”

Watergate was inspiring; the Pike Committee was a “bummer” (in the parlance of their times).

American public opinion proved to be fickle and shallow, and the reactionaries in the intelligence community took advantage of this fickleness to destroy Pike and others like him. When in January 1976 the Pike Committee approved its draft report slamming the intelligence community as a dangerous boondoggle, calling for radical budget reductions, the abolition of the Defense Intelligence Agency, and other radical structural reforms, the special counsel to CIA director George H. W. Bush called Pike’s office and warned that if the report was approved, “we’ll destroy him for this.”

    “I’m serious, there will be retaliation,” Rogovin said. “Any political ambitions that Pike had in New York are through. We will destroy him for this.”

And so they did. The Pike Committee’s report was quashed by a vote in the House. Portions of the Pike Committee report were leaked to the Village Voice by CBS reporter Daniel Schorr, which only made the Pike Committee look worse, “irresponsible” as they put it. Newly-appointed CIA director Bush accused Pike of losing hundreds of classified documents, making matters even worse. The House not only voted to quash the Pike Committee report, it launched a separate new investigation into the Pike Committee—who leaked the classified report to Schorr? Who lost the alleged lost documents? The House investigation into Pike’s committee lasted months, ending with Schorr, who’d been fired by CBS, dragged before Congress to testify. Through it all, Pike, the conservative Democrat, was made to look like a loose cannon and a revolutionary radical in his conservative Long Island district, where local Republican officials started openly red-baiting him. Pike backed out of his Senate run, and quit politics for good two years later. Rightly sensing a massive GOP backlash in the 1978 elections, Pike bitterly complained to a New York Times reporter that voters in his own district were driving around with bumper stickers on their cars reading “Pike Is 2 Liberal 4 Me”.

Bella Abzug’s committee report on the NSA and privacy was likewise quashed, and she was out of Congress, and out of political life, the following year.

Frank Church also lost out: from leading Democratic Party nominee for president in early 1976, to not-even-vice-president material a few months later. The next time he ran for his Senate seat in 1980, he lost to a crypto-Bircher by a couple thousand votes, in a contest that received murky outside campaign funding. By the time Reagan triumphantly won a second term in office, Frank Church was dead of cancer, and whatever positive reforms he was able to push through during the Carter years were long undone—thanks to Reagan’s EO 12333, the CIA was now authorized to engage in some domestic spying activities so long as it involved “terrorism,” and the FBI was once again infiltrating and harassing leftist dissidents on a scale that would’ve made J. Edgar proud.

By 1978, the reform energy was dead. As quickly as that, the culture seemed to want to forget about it and brush it all under the carpet again. As a Washington Post reporter, George Lardner, put it that year,

    “All that seems left is the steady tattoo of suggestions that the scandals were somehow imagined.”

Today, there’s an underlying assumption that exposing dark government secrets is somehow transformative in itself, even without a wider politics to frame it. It’s hard to know where that silly assumption comes from: a vestigial Freudian faith in the transformative power of dark secrets brought to light? Are we really that foolish?

What we have instead: No hearings, no politics, no frame to make sense of this or to transform our lives for the better. Instead, we have the language of public relations and marketing, the rush to frame the story, feeding the outrage monkey and nothing to show for it.

Any politician’—or political handler— with a sense of history will point to Otis Pike’s fate: He stuck his neck out and took on the National Security State on terms that should’ve appealed to common sense conservative values: Are taxpayers getting fleeced? Is America safer under these programs? He was destroyed. And after he was destroyed, he was forgotten. Now he’s dead, and no one noticed, or cared.
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January 23rd, 2014

1/23/2014

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I listened to my local corporate NPR/APM outlet WYPR give political commentary that does all it can to support the crony political system we have in Maryland.  As you read below, what got my ire going this morning requires remembering that progressive politics and neo-liberalism are at polar opposites in political spectrum.   A candidate cannot be a neo-liberal supporting a few progressive policies because global corporate rule will not allow any of these progressive stances to exist in the end.  Fraser Smith and his enthusiasm for Maryland's political machines cannot be outdone and WYPR makes sure that commentary like mine......a counterpoint is never heard.  I bet that my website and blog has more people visiting than WYPR!!!!!

IF YOU HEAR 'NEW ECONOMY' OR '21ST CENTURY ECONOMY' THAT MEANS THE WORLD UNDER TPP----GLOBAL NEO-LIBERALISM.
  The Brookings Institute and Johns Hopkins are leaders in these policies!

I so not know if this group is a real progressive economics group or a poser as is the case with most groups calling themselves progressive but this statement on their website hits at the definition of economic progressivism.  What we have in the US are neo-liberals-----global corporate pols using a few progressive issues to get votes and then they kill us with policy like TPP.  WE MUST DO OUR HOMEWORK WHEN WE CHOOSE MEDIA OR PUNDITS FOR OUR INFORMATION!!!!

Maryland has only neo-liberals in the democratic party.....as Fraser says......it is the political machines that choose the candidates.  So, when Heather Mizeur says she is 'progressive' and uses a few progressive issues to label her as such.....she makes her economic platform clearly neo-liberal.......tying the state to Wall Street leveraging, public private partnerships, and building global markets.  MIZEUR IS NOT THE PROGRESSIVE CANDIDATE----SHE IS THE NEO-LIBERAL TRYING TO WIN WITH PROGRESSIVE ISSUES!  Montgomery County is the wealthiest in the nation because it is from here (and the Virginia suburbs) that all of the fraud and corruption bringing trillions to corporations originate.....and that includes state fraud and corruption.  We would not go to Montgomery County for a democratic candidate!


NEO-LIBERALISM = GLOBAL CORPORATE TRIBUNAL RULE = TOTALITARIANISM = THE END OF DEMOCRACY AND WE THE PEOPLE  US CONSTITUTION


Progressive Economics – Everyone Makes Progress
Monday, Dec. 24, 2012 - by Diane Alter

Progressive economics is chiefly concerned with advancing human commerce for the betterment of all – so that all can make progress. The aim is to make certain that greater stability exists in tandem with balanced growth in the economy, to keep money flowing – preventing it from accruing solely in one place or to one small group – in order to better reach universal goals. This is where the Center for Progressive Economics (CPE) comes in. The Encino, California-based non-profit company’s mission is “to promote the correct macroeconomic understanding, mainly through economic validation, that joins business with government, educators, environmentalists, civic and philanthropic leaders to create a quality global economy and community.”

At the helm is founder and Chairman Mark Pash, a Certified Financial Planner, who boasts the kind of lengthy and impressive resume that comes from 40 years of working in finance and politics. He was even a Congressional candidate in 1996. Pash founded CPE with the goal of making the world a better place for current and future generations.

Totally committed and passionate to this cause, Pash promised to fund all the expenses of CPE’s website, with its plethora of valuable information, for the next several years, encouraging everyone to become a member. Tax deductible donations are accepted, but CPE’s primary goal is to grow its member base rather than to increase the amount of dollars pledged.

CPE strives to educate individuals about, and be the advocate for, progressive economics. Members recognize progressive economic principles as being the most favorable way to safeguard the checks and balances between fair markets and community interests. As the backbone of our society, the economy has a monumental impact on the quality of life for everyone. In order for individuals to prosper and provide for their families, the economy must function properly. With proper policies, the economy can stabilize our society.

One of CPE's basic tenets is this: “We cannot have a politically democratic society without economic democracy.” CPE’s underlying philosophy is designed to facilitate the advancement of human commerce for the benefit of all, while also protecting the business environment from its own zealous hands and those of a meddlesome government. Acknowledging the myriad flaws of commerce and capitalism, the government has a role to play in countering these imperfections. But it must do so without hampering the marketplace, allowing for free enterprise and competition.

CPE, with its vibrant vision of future possibilities, explains that an understanding of progressive economic understanding along with wise application of its principles could be the conduit to future financial success for everyone – underscoring that we are all in this together. Progressive economic principles, CPE maintains, can insulate America and the entire world from the defects of capitalism, and is capable of escorting us into a future where wealth can be created and relished by all in a quality economy.




As we watch law enforcement become tightened and cruel on citizens of the US at the same time Rule of Law is suspended on white collar and government crime, we see what Germany and Fascism looked like as it was building in Europe pre-WW2.  Hitler took over all of a nation's businesses and used them for his goal of taking over the world.  Neo-liberals have as their goal taking over the world with global markets leading to colonialism.

SAME THING.  TRANS PACIFIC PACT-----TPP TRADE DEALS MOVE FURTHER TOWARDS THAT.

Let's look at some of the facts happening across the country to show what the goal looks like and how NOW IS THE TIME TO ENERGIZE AGAINST THIS.  In Hitler's time people ask......how did these citizens allow a grip on society take hold?  WELL, IT IS HAPPENING NOW IN AMERICA AND EUROPE.

I'm listening to my corporate 'public' media station WYPR giving its typical political coverage that has no counterpoint and always pushes the political machine agenda in Maryland.  Fraser Smith tells us that a newcomer to the state elections in June would not have a chance now because all of the campaign money and war chests and alignment of labor and justice has already taken place.  The candidate getting Fraser's ire didn't have any political experience for goodness sake and it seems he must have intentions of promoting his own business.  This is LOL as all Maryland politics is about promoting and moving money to connected business.  I was at an election event where a few candidates came to the podium to give their canned speaking points with the selected progressive issues of the election but the people were not able to ask any questions on policy.......neither are they at any event and the media certainly doesn't allow general questions.  So, what happens in Maryland are not elections.......THEY ARE FIXES.  The need for political experience to run for state office?  REALLY??????

WHEN THE US WAS NUMBER 1 IN THE WORLD WITH A THRIVING ECONOMY AND FIRST WORLD STANDARDS........THE GOVERNMENT WAS FILLED WITH TEACHERS, SOCIAL WORKERS, TRADES PEOPLE, CLERKS AND THE MANTRA------

SEND MR AND MS SMITH TO WASHINGTON, THE STATE HOUSE, AND CITY HALL!!!!!  AS IT IS TODAY. 


We try to help our local media be sharing with them what the Maryland citizens really think.  For example, did you know that Maryland has one of the strongest Expanded and Improved Medicare for All?  See why the private health system reform is trying to dismantle public health as fast as possible.  Not one word from media about this Universal Care movement!

Well, from Occupy, to labor and justice movements, to seniors and professionals------EVERYBODY WANT CORPORATIONS AND THEIR MONEY OUT OF GOVERNMENT AND THESE SAME PEOPLE SEE TODAYS NEO-CONS AND NEO-LIBERALS AS SIMPLY CORPORATE EXECUTIVES, NOT POLITICIANS.  So, why does Fraser Smith speak about the very system people do not want as the status quo that will stand? Oh, that's right ------corporate 'public' media working to keep corporate pols and their machines cranking!


LET'S SEE WHAT TOTALITARIANISM LOOKS LIKE IN AMERICA:



So, as Fraser tells us that having a campaign war chest will decide the Maryland elections in June-----(don't  forget FEBRUARY 25TH DEADLINE FOR FILING FOR ALL PRIMARIES),  you see the entire electorate wanting big money out of politics.  Even small business, which is an endangered species with global corporate rule, is on the bandwagon.  Here in Maryland we hear nothing of this mass movement!
  Rather, war chests are touted as what is needed to win-----GO GLOBAL CORPORATE POLS!!!!

A CAPTURED POLITICAL SYSTEM IS A MUST TO WEAN PEOPLE FROM THE IDEA OF FREE AND FAIR ELECTIONS THAT DO NOT HAPPEN IN A TOTALITARIAN SOCIETY! 


About Us

We are a community of citizens who believe passionately that public funding is the single most critical long-term public policy issue our nation faces. What’s at stake are nothing less than the health of our democracy, the quality of our leadership, and our government’s ability to tackle the serious problems that affect us all: health care, energy policy, education, the environment and the economy.

Clearly, incumbents have an interest in keeping the current system in place — because it keeps them in place. It will take a powerful, non-partisan, grassroots movement to demand their support for a new kind of politics in America.

Vision

We have a vision of a better America, and a return to a more responsive, participatory democracy. It’s a nation whose leaders are accountable to the voters, and elected according to their abilities, their qualifications and their character. A nation whose citizens once more have confidence in their leaders and in the integrity of the political system. A nation where cynicism and apathy are replaced by the true American ideals of optimism and activism.




Business groups call for campaign finance reform
By Amanda Conto

March 01, 2013

Business leaders are calling for full disclosure and small-donor citizen-funded elections that will restore power to the voters.

Americans for Campaign Reform, along with several other groups, will host a free event discussing why campaign finance reform matters to New York's business leaders at noon on Tuesday, March 5 at the Albany Institute of History and Art.

The coalition formed by the American Sustainable Business Council, the Business and Labor Coalition of New York, Citizens Union of the City of New York, the Committee for Economic Development, the New York State Sustainable Business Council and New York Leadership for Accountable Government, will present an overview of business benefits related to campaign finance reform and discuss how small-donor citizen-funded elections can strengthen democracy.

According to Americans for Campaign Reform's website public funding is the "single most critical long-term public policy issue" facing the nation.

"We have a vision of a better America, and a return to a more responsive, participatory democracy. It's a nation whose leaders are accountable to the voters, and elected according to their abilities, their qualifications and their character—a nation whose citizens once more have confidence in their leaders and in the integrity of the political system, a nation where cynicism and apathy are replaced by the true American ideals of optimism and activism," the website states.

Campaign finance reformers say the current system promotes a pay-to-play mentality that encourages political giving as a means of influencing legislative decision-making and increases the risk of sacrificing long-term interests for short-term gains. They also said donor influence can serve to undermine market forces by the pursuit of policies and regulations that diminish competition or unduly benefit particular firms or industries.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo outlined plans for campaign reform during his Jan 4, 2012 State of the State Address. Rob Werner, national field director for Americans for Campaign Reform, said with Cuomo's support, now is the time for campaign reform.

The governor's plan includes a voluntary "multiple match" public financing system that will encourage candidates to fund their campaigns through a broad base of small donors. His plan also includes lower contribution limits and the closure of contribution loopholes as well as lower contribution limits for corporations and individuals who do business with New York state. (Sounds the same as public media requirements----wait, they have nothing but businesses supporting them now)  Note that Maryland has done just the opposite in raising campaign donation levels and no election oversight.  Would seeing no corporate fraud for Gansler equate to a campaign war chest?  THE ASSOCIATION IS EASY-PEASY!!!!

A new enforcement unit in the New York State Board of Elections, with the independence and authority to investigate alleged violations, is also a part of Cuomo's plan.

"New York is very important and beneficial. The people of New York provide a beacon for the nation," said Werner.

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Maryland is acting as though TPP has already been passed as all of Maryland Assembly works towards installing these policies in the state.  I spoke at length about this VEOLA Super Shuttle incident so I won't go further than to say it embraces the idea that a global corporation can act any way it chooses inside the US as laws that inhibit profits are not enforced.  So, this French global corporation with headquarters in Africa brings African immigrants to Maryland and indentures them with contracts that have them working but not earning any money. 


THIS IS ALLOWED TO HAPPEN BECAUSE OF MARYLAND CAPTURED POLITICAL SYSTEM THAT ONLY ALLOWS PEOPLE PROVEN TO WORK FOR THESE SITUATIONS RISE IN THE POLITICAL MACHINES......SEE WHY FRASER IS SO ADAMANT THAT POLITICAL MACHINE POLITICIANS BE THE ONES THAT RUN.......GROOM THEM AT THE LOCAL LEVEL AND IF THEY HAND ALL THAT IS PUBLIC TO MARYLAND'S 1%, THEN THEY CAN MOVE UP TO THE MARYLAND ASSEMBLY AND STATE POLITICS!  Just running MR AND MS SMITH in state elections????!!!!!  ARE YOU CRAZY SAYS FRASER!


BELOW YOU SEE A SURE SIGN OF TOTALITARIANISM.....CORPORATE SLAVERY RIGHT HERE IN MARYLAND!

Veolia Draws Labor Protest at its Headquarters in Baltimore


Oh, let's vote for more Maryland political machine candidates to fix this!!!!!!!  RUN AND VOTE FOR LABOR AND JUSTICE AND DO NOT ALLOW THE DEMOCRATIC POLITICAL MACHINES CHOOSE YOUR CANDIDATES AS THEY ARE ALL NEO-LIBERALS!

Baltimore PostExaminer·25 videos
  Published on Jan 20, 2014

Veolia is a billion dollar international corporation with transportation companies operating along the East Coast of the U.S. It hires SuperShuttle workers at both BWI and Dulles airports. Many of the SuperShuttle workers at the airports are very unhappy with the conditions of their employment. On Monday, January 20, 2014, some of the workers, and their allies in the Social Justice and Union Movements, stage a rally at Veolia's main office in Baltimore, MD. The action was organized by activists Sharon Black and Amy Millar of UFCW, Local 1994. To learn more, go to: https://www.facebook.com/events/20568...


Reclaim Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream -
END POVERTY & INJUSTICE! SUPPORT SUPERSHUTTLE DRIVERS!



PROTEST VEOLIA’S SYSTEM OF WORKER SLAVERY
Monday, January 20, 3 P.M. to 4 P.M. at Veolia’s Baltimore transportation HQ, 2100 Huntington Ave, Baltimore, MD (21st St. & Huntington Ave. right off of Howard Street near the car wash and Jiffy Lube)

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Below you see Bill Bratton, the NYC police chief put into place by a supposed 'progressive' de Blasio calling a citizen's beating for almost nothing anything but excessive force.  We all know in Baltimore it is militaristic policing that has police acting like this and the SWAT TEAM mentally is directed at WE THE PEOPLE and not terrorist.

Truthout
Kang Wong was attacked as he crossed a busy street in Manhattan. He was thrown against a wall and left with cuts on his face that required metal staples. But it was Wong who was subsequently arrested and charged at the nearest police station - because his attackers were New York City cops.


Why Did Police Beat an Elderly Man for Jaywalking?
Wednesday, 22 January 2014 15:12 By The Daily Take, The Thom Hartmann Program

(Image: Don't walk via Shutterstock)84-year-old Kang Wong is recovering today from a brutal attack on the streets of New York City.

Wong’s attackers jumped him as he jaywalked across a busy street in Manhattan, threw him up against a wall, and left him with cuts all across his face that have since been sealed up with four metal staples.

The attackers then brought Wong to the nearest police station, where he was booked on charges of jaywalking and resisting arrest.

Kang Wong’s attackers, you see, were New York City cops.

That city’s police commissioner, Bill Bratton, has said that excessive force wasn’t used in his arrest, but that statement doesn’t really face up to much muster. It’s pretty clear that the cops overreacted.

Wong doesn’t speak any English, and if it looked like he was resisting the officers in question, that’s almost certainly because he didn’t understand a word they were saying.

Understandably, his family now plans on pressing charges.

Wong’s brutal arrest is outrageous in its own right, but it also speaks to the broader problem of police brutality in this country. In some places, police culture is very professional; in others it’s just plain militaristic.

I know this from personal experience.

Back in 1996, the Olympics were coming to Atlanta. Just like right now, with Sochi trying to ramp up their security, Atlanta needed more security for the Olympics than was available from just the local police.

At the time, I was writing a novel about a private detective, and shadowing an Atlanta PI, a now-longtime friend named DeWitt Wannamaker, who has held a variety of jobs in law enforcement.

The Georgia Police Academy had opened their doors to civilians that year with an “executive protection” training course for people who’d work for Olympic athletes and visiting VIPs, and DeWitt got me into the course. I ended up not only completing the course but getting licensed for two years as a private detective in the state of Georgia.

Most of the guys going through the course were small-town cops who’d never had any professional training at all, and what I discovered was that there are a lot of really good, really dedicated, and really smart people who aspire to or work in law enforcement.

I also discovered that there are a small number of yahoos who are just really, really excited about the chance to get a gun and a billy club and have the legal authority to kick the stuffing out of people. I encountered one of those guys in the “hand to hand” part of the Academy’s course, and still remember the bruises.

It’s cops like that who do things like beat up an 84-year-old man for jaywalking and it’s cops like that who crack open a protestor’s head at an Occupy Wall Street protest.

Part of this, I believe, has to do with how we talk about law enforcement in the United States. We don’t solve crime, we “fight” it; we don’t have a campaign to stop drug addiction, we have a “War on Drugs.”

We tell cops that they’re in a battle with crime, and then they act accordingly: like soldiers, not public servants.


It shouldn’t be any surprise, then, that the number of SWAT team deployments - something unheard of when I was growing up - jumped from around one hundred in the 1970s to over 50,000 in 2005.

While we’ve turned our public servants into warriors, we’ve started to give up - at the federal level, at least - on the whole idea of community policing.

The federal Community Oriented Policing Services program, or COPS, which provides resources for local police forces around the country was initiated in 1994 during the Clinton administration as part of an effort to put 100,000 police officers on America’s streets.

The idea was to get officers out into the community where they could form relationships with everyday people and act more like teachers than soldiers.

Madison, Wisconsin Police Officer Katie Adler is a great example of the kind of person the COPS program was meant to create.

She is a neighborhood officer in the crime-ridden North Side area of Madison. Unlike regular patrol cops in Madison, neighborhood officers are put in at-risk communities to help make a difference and build relationships with citizens in the hopes preventing future crime.

Officer Katie, as everyone calls her, is beloved in the communities that she patrols, so much so that kids follow her wherever she goes. She’s even inspiring children in the communities to become police officers when they grow up.

But the promise of every neighborhood having an Officer Katie is becoming increasingly unlikely.

That’s because ever since the Bush administration, funding for the COPS program has been continually slashed by hundreds of millions of dollars.

In 2010, $792 million was allotted in the form of federal grants under the COPS program for local police forces across the country; by 2012, that number shrank to just $199 million.

We need to reverse this trend and ramp up funding for community policing.

Programs like COPS encourage law enforcement agencies to do more than just catch criminals. They encourage them to work with communities to create a culture of trust that breaks down the barrier between cops and civilians. They also encourage police officers, police officers like Katie Adler, to work towards solving the root causes of crime as opposed to just trying to stop its symptoms.

Not all police officers are bad guys. The vast majority, in my experience, actually want to do good by their community. But it’s clear that by turning our law enforcement agencies into battalions, we’ve created an environment where violence is both more acceptable and more likely.

If we really want to prevent people like Kang Wong from being brutalized at the hands of the people who are supposed to protect them, then we need to totally rethink what it means to be a police officer in America.

Part of this means drawing down wasteful and ineffective initiatives like Nixon’s War on Drugs that do nothing but alienate already vulnerable communities from law enforcement.

But we need to go bigger than that. We need to make a commitment to funding the COPS program so that police work is seen not just as a way to catch the bad guys, but as a way to serve communities all across the country.

We also need to pay police as professionals and hold them to professional standards just like we do other professions.

This won’t stop all police brutality, but it will definitely go a long way towards making sure that our streets become less of a battle zone and more of a place where we can all learn to live with each other in peace.


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0 Comments

December 11th, 2013

12/11/2013

0 Comments

 
I really want to encourage people to consider what your news organization or pundit is saying and who is giving REAL news.  The US is captured by corporate interest and that includes media and sadly, the once great National Public Media is now trash.....Wall Street all the time!

Our NPR programming  just finished a story of financial justice with the auto industry paying off its bailout and now free to act as a economic engine for US workers.  As you see below, the story is neither.  Should US workers be glad that the auto industry did not go out of business?  Did it really need to or was that just a way to break the auto industry unions?  THAT'S WHAT IT WAS ALL ABOUT!  Remember, auto sales were so bad because of the massive financial fraud that brought down the economy and when we were told Wall Street would not 'loan' money to the auto industry to help weather the crisis, we ask ----WHY DID THEY NEED A LOAN WHEN IT WAS THE FINANCIAL FRAUD THAT BROUGHT THEM DOWN?  It is the same as the gas prices that drained the profits of airlines for a decade as speculators took prices sky-high everyone knowing it was illegal market manipulation.  Was it just a way to move the airline industry into bankruptcy to shed all of union wages and benefits, because as we know, now that all the airlines have gone through bankruptcy we haven't seen gas prices like that and airlines are making billions in profit. 

THIS IS ALL MANIPULATION TO TAKE ALL OF NEW DEAL AND WAR ON POVERTY WEALTH AWAY FROM THE MIDDLE/LOWER CLASS AND BREAK THE UNIONS. 


I wanted to look at this one piece of news item......the announcement that General Motors has paid its bailout with the Treasury selling all of the stock handed the government at the time of bankruptcy.  Only......none of it is true!

First, let's look at one economist's view of how widespread fraud and corruption is to know I am not making this up!


Corruption of America starts at home, not abroad JPMorgan Chase has been hiring China's "princelings" in exchange for business deals with their parents -- a serious offense that's all to similar to practices here in America
By Robert B. Reich 6:00 a.m. EST, December 11, 2013  Baltimore Sun



The Justice Department has just obtained documents showing that JPMorgan Chase, Wall Street's biggest bank, has been hiring the children of China's ruling elite in order to secure "existing and potential business opportunities" from Chinese government-run companies.

"You all know I have always been a big believer of the Sons and Daughters program," says one JPMorgan executive in an e-mail, because "it almost has a linear relationship" to winning assignments to advise Chinese companies. The documents even include spreadsheets that list the bank's "track record" for converting hires into business deals.


It's a serious offense. But let's get real. How different is bribing China's "princelings," as they're called there, from Wall Street's ongoing program of hiring departing U.S. Treasury officials, presumably in order to grease the wheels of official Washington? Timothy Geithner, President Obama's first Treasury secretary, is now president of the private-equity firm Warburg Pincus; his budget director Peter Orszag is now a top executive at Citigroup.

Or, for that matter, how different is what JPMorgan did in China from Wall Street's habit of hiring the children of powerful American politicians? (I don't mean to suggest Chelsea Clinton got her hedge-fund job at Avenue Capital Group, where she worked from 2006 to 2009, on the basis of anything other than her financial talents.)

And how much worse is JPMorgan's putative offense in China than the torrent of money JPMorgan and every other major Wall Street bank is pouring into the campaign coffers of American politicians -- making the Street one of the major backers of Democrats as well as Republicans?

The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, under which JPMorgan could be indicted for the favors it has bestowed in China, is quite strict. It prohibits American companies from paying money or offering anything of value to foreign officials for the purpose of "securing any improper advantage." Hiring one of their children can certainly qualify as a gift, even without any direct benefit to the official.

JPMorgan couldn't even defend itself by arguing it didn't make any particular deal or get any specific advantage as a result of the hires. Under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the gift doesn't have to be linked to any particular benefit to the American firm as long as it's intended to generate an advantage its competitors don't enjoy.

Compared to this, corruption of American officials is a breeze. Consider, for example, Countrywide Financial's generous "Friends of Angelo" lending program -- named after its chief executive, Angelo Mozilo -- that gave discounted mortgages to influential members of Congress and their staffs before the housing bubble burst. No criminal or civil charges have ever been filed related to these loans.

Even before the Supreme Court's shameful 2010 "Citizens United" decision -- equating corporations with human beings under the First Amendment, and thereby shielding much corporate political spending -- Republican appointees to the court had done everything they could to blunt anti-bribery laws in the United States. In 1999, in "United States v. Sun-Diamond Growers," Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the court, interpreted an anti-bribery law so loosely as to allow corporations to give gifts to public officials unless the gifts are linked to specific policies.

We don't even require that American corporations disclose to their own shareholders the largesse they bestow on our politicians. Last year around this time, when the Securities and Exchange Commission released its 2013 to-do list, it signaled that it might formally propose a rule to require corporations to disclose their political spending. The idea had attracted more than 600,000 mostly favorable comments from the public, a record response for the agency.

But the idea mysteriously slipped off the 2014 agenda released last week, without explanation. Could it have anything to do with the fact that, soon after becoming SEC chair in April, Mary Jo White was pressed by Republican lawmakers to abandon the idea, which was fiercely opposed by business groups?

The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act is important, and JPMorgan should be nailed for bribing Chinese officials. But, if you'll pardon me for asking, why isn't there a Domestic Corrupt Practices Act?

Never before has so much U.S. corporate and Wall Street money poured into our nation's capital, as well as into our state capitals. Never before have so many Washington officials taken jobs in corporations, lobbying firms, trade associations, and on the Street immediately after leaving office. Our democracy is drowning in big money.

Corruption is corruption, and bribery is bribery, in whatever country or language it's transacted in.

Robert Reich, former U.S. Secretary of Labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of "Beyond Outrage," now available in paperback. His new film, "Inequality for All," was released in September. He blogs at http://www.robertreich.org.

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Regarding the GMC payment of bailout told as a good thing:

Let's see.......GM Financial, now ALLY has yet to pay off its bailout as its financial business was steeped in subprime loan fraud. Obama came in and bumped auto workers to $14 an hour.....poverty wages in order to pay for the downturn in auto sales caused by the massive corporate fraud bringing the economic collapse. So, Wall Street is super rich having stolen tens of trillions of dollars and the auto workers paid for the losses with their wages and benefits-----HOW IS THAT GOOD?

This was the most convoluted of conspiracies to defraud the American public in bailing out the worst of businesses while making it a bank that later GM comes back to buy. It boggles the mind!

As far as I can see GMAC/Ally has not paid its bailout and it looks like the crimes of this financial arm were paid for by workers.


6/01/2012 @ 5:17PM

GM Unloads $26 Billion in White-Collar Pensions; Could Union Workers Be Next?


General Motors said Friday it will offer 42,000 white-collar retirees in the U.S. a lump-sum payment in lieu of their monthly pension check and will transfer pension responsibility for 76,000 others to a group annuity plan managed by Prudential Insurance.

It’s the latest, and boldest, step to ease GM’s massive pension burden. Chief Financial Officer Daniel Amman said the changes would erase $26 billion from GM’s $134 billion worldwide pension obligation and “set the groundwork” for further actions. “It really comes down to risk reduction,” he said. “We want to remove this as an issue for us.”

GM no doubt would like to do something similar with its $71 billion pension plan for hourly factory workers and retirees, whose assets are $10 billion short of its obligations. During contract talks last fall, GM and United Auto Workers bargainers spent many hours discussing the pension plan, but no substantial changes were made. Amman told reporters Friday: “We’ve agreed to keep an open channel on that topic.” A UAW spokeswoman was not available for comment.

Pension accounting is a volatile business, and depends on market returns, discount rates and worker mortality rates. Despite steady cash and stock contributions over the years, as well as a shift toward a more stable asset mix, GM’s global pension plans are still $25 billion short of the company’s expected obligation to current and future retirees.

The transfer of about 25% of its total U.S. pension obligation to Prudential will cost GM $3.5 billion to $4.5 billion: $1 billion to “top off” the salaried plan’s assets before they are turned over, and $2.5 billion to $3.5 billion to cover a one-time premium payment to Prudential. (The actual amount depends on how many retirees opt to continue getting their monthly benefits from Prudential.) But it’s worth it: After GM pays off Prudential, it will have no further cash obligations tied to the transferred pensions.

GM, which emerged from bankruptcy in June 2009 after a government bailout, is trying to restore its financial credibility and raise its stock price so that the U.S. Treasury can sell its remaining stake in the automaker. Fitch Ratings Friday called the pension restructuring a “positive step” for GM, and said the company, with $31.5 billion in cash, could easily afford it. But Fitch took no action on the automaker’s debt rating, currently “BB.”

GM isn’t the first to try to unload a huge chunk of its pension debt. . In April, Ford said it would offer 90,000 of its retired engineers and office workers the chance to take a lump sum payment now and forgo their monthly pension checks for the rest of their lives. That program is just getting under way so it is too early to know how many people will accept.

GM’s offer comes with a twist, though: the option to continue receiving the same monthly benefits from Prudential through a group annuity plan. That could be more appealing to retirees worried about whether their money would last if they accepted a a lump-sum. Eligible retirees have until July 20 to decide on their payment options.  The transactions are expected to be completed by the end of 2012, and Prudential would then assume responsibility for the pensions in January 2013.

Amman said transferring salaried pensions to Prudential makes sense. “That is their core business. This allows us to spend more time and resources on our core business which is designing, building and selling world-class vehicles.”


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Below you see what was a systemically fraudulent bank allowed right away to escape in 2009

It appears to me that since GMAC was the source of billions of dollars in fraud,  that all of the profit made by this bank comes back to the public.

FOLLOW THE PROFIT MADE BY CORPORATIONS INVOLVED IN THE FRAUD BECAUSE IT IS YOUR RETIREMENT!

Some may think I'm being flippant but I am not.  The amount of fraud GMAC was involved would bring that much back to the people and GM workers!


Consumers Beware: Ally Bank is GMAC

By MyBankTracker  Fri May 15, 2009

GMAC Bank becomes Ally Bank

This morning the Wall Street Journal broke the news that today, Friday, May 15, 2009 GMAC LLC will rename itself to Ally Bank.

In becoming a bank holding company back in December, GMAC has taken the opportunity to differentiate themselves in the market by starting fresh – much needed in the banking industry itself.



Building on the foundation of GMAC, Ally is an online bank that looks to show the market that it truly understands what today’s customer is about.  With no monthly fees, no minimum balances and no minimum deposits, as well as 24/7 Customer Care Support and the ability to compare rates against its competitors directly, Ally looks to be the bank for a Web2.0 customer.



Ally Bank has taken a step toward transparency by allowing the consumer to compare Ally’s rates against competitors, such as other online banks ING Direct and HSBC Direct, as well as brick and mortar banks such as, Bank of America, Chase, and Wells Fargo. We applaud their progressive and positive approach in bringing transparency to banking.


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Propublica did a great piece on where the bailout money went.  This is just one of the last posts on the GMAC bailout and as you can see much of the bailout has yet to be paid.  So why is GM being toted as having paid off its debt?  Because a Bain's Capital spin-off of the assets in its financial wing allowed it to pretend none of that bailout was connected to them.  GM then went right back and bought GMAC/Ally having lost nothing but union pensions and wages!

VISIGOTHS THINK THIS ALL LOOKS SOMEWHAT LEGAL BUT RULE OF LAW DOES NOT ALLOW THE CONVOLUTED TWISTING OF RULES AND LAWS THAT HAPPENED IN THE FRAUD.  ROBO-SIGNING NOT ILLEGAL SAYS A MARYLAND COURT?  REALLY?


Propublica Bailout Tracker
Events


$5.93B Payback
Nov. 20, 2013 Partial Repayment

On November 20, 2013, Ally completed a private placement of an aggregate of 216,667 shares of its common stock for an aggregate price of approximately $1.3 billion and the repurchase of all outstanding shares of its Fixed Rate Cumulative Mandatorily Convertible Preferred Stock, Series F-2, held by Treasury, including payment for the elimination or relinquishment of any right to receive additional shares of common stock to be issued (the “Share Adjustment Right”). Ally paid to Treasury a total of approximately $5.93 billion for the repurchase of the Series F-2 Preferred Stock and the elimination of the Share Adjustment Right. As a result of the private placement, Treasury's common stock ownership stake was diluted from 73.8 percent to 63.45 percent. Treasury continues to own 981,971 shares of common stock in Ally.

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Remember, as with AIG, this corporation was soaring in profits from the subprime loan fraud and yet, it was spun off and bailed out.....think of the assets that could and should have been distributed.  Think about the auto workers who were left to pay the price of the massive mortgage fraud of which GMAC was deeply involved!

So, just last year....2012 we are made aware of the taxpayer losses along with the workers as the banks and this bank unit made out like the bandits they are!  At the same time Bernanke, the FED chief, has QE and 0% going full speed to get all those subprime loans off GMAC accounting records and free money created the ability for it to expand overseas ready to go!

THE GM WORKERS......NOT SO MUCH.

Profits in G.M.A.C. Bailout to Benefit Financiers, Not U.S.

By STEVEN M. DAVIDOFF
Harry Campbell Deal Professor August 21, 2012, 6:57 pm

Among the companies that were bailed out by the federal government during the financial crisis, perhaps the most intractable is proving to be the company formerly known as the General Motors Acceptance Corporation. It’s a case study in how bailouts can linger and profits, when they do come, flow not to the government but to the Warren E. Buffetts of the world.

G.M.A.C. was the financial arm of General Motors.

In the years leading up to the financial crisis, it was also G.M.’s most profitable unit, which tells you something about the auto industry at the time. The company earned more profit from lending money to customers than in selling cars.

In 2005, desperate to raise cash, General Motors sold a 51 percent stake in G.M.A.C. to the private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management. Cerberus beat out a rival, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, for the privilege, spurring BusinessWeek to write that Henry R. Kravis’s loss “has to sting.”

During the financial crisis, however, the sting was felt on the other side, as G.M.A.C. staved off collapse thanks only to a government infusion of $17.2 billion. The company was renamed Ally Financial — you have probably seen its catchy commercials on television. The Treasury Department owns 73.8 percent of Ally, with Cerberus retaining an 8.7 percent stake.

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Rescuing a financial arm of GM riddled with fraudulent loans by making it a bank!!!!! OH THAT'S A GOOD IDEA!
Remember, GMAC was a financial arm of GM....the two are separate corporations.


Warren correctly asks why an entity collapsing from broad fraudulent practices was being given the ability to operate as a government insured global bank.


MY POINT IN ALL OF THIS IS THAT ALL OF THIS IS ILLEGAL AND AS SUCH ALL OF THIS CAN BE MADE VOID.  WE SIMPLY NEED TO REINSTATE RULE OF LAW AND THAT IS DOABLE!

Lawmakers question GMAC rescue

By Binyamin Appelbaum
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, February 26, 2010

The federal government went to extraordinary lengths to save the auto financing company GMAC. It was the only bank to get three separate rounds of federal aid -- the most recent in December, even as the broader bailout was winding down -- and it is the only bank in which the government now owns a majority stake.

On Thursday, congressional investigators questioned whether all those efforts were a mistake. Members of the Congressional Oversight Panel, charged by Congress with policing the bailout, pressed Treasury Department officials to explain why the government did not let the company go bankrupt.

They also questioned whether the rescue of GMAC, achieved in part by making it a bank, had created a long-term situation in which the government guarantee of bank deposits was subsidizing sales at General Motors and Chrysler. GMAC is the primary source of financing for GM and Chrysler dealers, and a major source of loans for buyers of their vehicles.

Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard law professor who chairs the panel, said she understood GMAC's utility for GM and Chrysler.

"What I don't understand," she said, "is what the justification is for being an independent bank that takes deposits that has a backup from the United States government."


Ron Bloom, a senior adviser to Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, told the panel that the rescue of GMAC was necessary to save the automakers, and that the $17.2 billion price tag was a good deal for taxpayers. He said that no other lender or combination of lenders could have quickly replaced GMAC's role in the marketplace.

"Without orders for cars, GM would have been forced to slow or shut down its factories indefinitely to match the drop in demand," Bloom said in prepared testimony. "Given its significant overhead, a slowdown or stoppage in production of this magnitude would have toppled GM."

Under sharp questioning from panelists, Bloom conceded that GM might have survived, but said that the government did not want to take the risk.

But an independent expert, Christopher Whalen of Institutional Risk Analytics, told the panel that the failure of GMAC actually would have helped the auto industry.

"Solvent bank and non-bank competitors of GMAC would have been eager to capture both the floor plan and auto sales business," Whalen said.

GMAC fell into financial trouble in part because of its deep plunge into mortgage lending. Its problems then were compounded by the economic crisis.

In December 2008, the Bush administration invested $5.8 billion in the company and the Federal Reserve gave emergency approval for GMAC to become a bank holding company, allowing it to gather deposits to fund lending.

In May 2009, the Obama administration invested $7.5 billion, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. agreed to help GMAC raise a further $7.4 billion from investors by guaranteeing that it would cover any losses.

And in December, the government gave GMAC $3.8 billion in a third round of federal aid.

As a result of the interventions, the government now owns a 56.3 percent stake in the company.

Federal law draws a strong line between banking and commerce. The government bars manufacturers and other kinds of companies from owning banks, so that the federal guarantee of bank deposits is not abused as a cheap source of funding, allowing companies to take risks at federal expense. The federal guarantee increases the availability of loans; the separation of banking and commerce prevents companies from getting that money too easily.

Automakers have long relied on financing arms to facilitate sales, but until the government's rescue of GMAC, none of those arms had access to deposits as a funding source.

The company has pledged to diversify its operations. Michael A. Carpenter, GMAC's chief executive, told the panel that the company would be able to extend its business model to other manufacturers. He said the company was rebranding itself as "Ally" to emphasize that General Motors was no longer its primary focus. But GMAC also plans to shed its mortgage lending business, which will serve to increase its short-term focus on GM and Chrysler.

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Raise you hand if you understand that an automotive corporation should not have a branch that is involved in the mortgage loan industry!  EVERYONE.  So, we know from the start that the problem is with how GMAC was built.  So, the first thing Rule of Law would do is close GMAC and seize its assets for operating unlawfully in the mortgage business.  GMAC was indeed one of the worst in moving subprime mortgage loans and should have been prosecuted and again, seize its assets.

Rather it was bailed out because they said.....an automobile corporation had to have a financing branch.  GMAC was not only bailed out-----it was allowed to become a global bank.  Now, if you were a VISIGOTH and this was a scheme to make the corporation rich you would turn a finance corporation into a global bank.


This was in 2011 when people still thought that justice may be served and nothing happened!



GMAC Mortgage | Home Loans, Refinance, Mortgage Rates

ProPublica / By Paul Kiel

Mortgage Company Bailed Out By Taxpayers Is Caught Forging Documents to Foreclose on Them
August 1, 2011 |

GMAC, one of the nation's largest mortgage servicers, faced a quandary last summer. It wanted to foreclose on a New York City homeowner but lacked the crucial paperwork needed to seize the property.

GMAC has a standard solution to such problems, which arise frequently in the post-bubble economy. Its employees secure permission to create and sign documents in the name of companies that made the original loans. But this case was trickier because the lender, a notorious subprime company named Ameriquest, had gone out of business in 2007.

And so GMAC, which was bailed out by taxpayers in 2008, began looking for a way to craft a document that would pass legal muster, internal records obtained by ProPublica show.

"The problem is we do not have signing authority—are there any other options?" Jeffrey Stephan, the head of GMAC's "Document Execution" team, wrote to another employee and the law firm pursuing the foreclosure action. No solutions were offered.


Three months later, GMAC had an answer. It filed a document with New York City authorities that said the delinquent Ameriquest loan had been assigned to it "effective of" August 2005. The documentwas dated July 7, 2010, three years after Ameriquest had ceased to exist and was signed by Stephan, who was identified as a "Limited Signing Officer" for Ameriquest Mortgage Company. Soon after, GMAC filed for foreclosure.

An examination by ProPublica suggests this transaction was not unique. A review of court records in New York identified hundreds of similar assignment documents filed in the name of Ameriquest after 2008 by GMAC and other mortgage servicers.

The issue has attracted growing scrutiny in recent months as bloggers, consumer attorneys and media outlets have identified what appears to be part of a pattern of questionable assignments filed across the country.

GMAC, whose parent company renamed itself last year as Ally Financial, was at the center of what became known as the robo-signing scandal. The uproar began last fall after revelations that mortgage servicing employees had produced flawed documents to speed foreclosures. GMAC and other banks have acknowledged filing false affidavits in which bank officials claimed "personal knowledge" of the facts underlying thousands of mortgages. But GMAC and other servicers say they've since tightened their procedures. They insist that their records were largely accurate and the affidavits amounted to errors of form, not substance.

The issues surrounding the Ameriquest loan and others like it appear to be more serious.

"This assignment of mortgage has all of the markings of GMAC finding that it lacked a needed mortgage assignment in order to foreclose and just making it up," said Thomas Cox, a Maine foreclosure defense attorney.

In New York, it's a felony to file a public record with "intent to deceive."

"It's fraud," said Linda Tirelli, a consumer bankruptcy attorney. "I want to know who's going to do a perp walk for recording this."

No criminal charges have been filed in the robo-signing cases.

Asked by ProPublica about the document, GMAC acknowledged Stephan did not have authority to sign on behalf of Ameriquest. The bank said it is still planning to push ahead with foreclosure on the homeowner, who remains in the property.

Company spokeswoman Gina Proia said an internal review last fall into "suspected documentation execution issues" had flagged the loan as problematic and that GMAC is "determining what needs to be done in order to receive the necessary authorization."

"We will determine and complete the necessary steps to remediate and proceed with foreclosure," Proia said.

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So, the scheme goes full circle with GM buying back the business that caused it to go bankrupt only now, ALLY is a global bank that global GM now can use for its global sales.

HOW GLOBAL OF THEM!!!!


General Motors buys Ally Financial foreign operations
general motors financial logo


By Dan Roth Auto Blog

In a move that welcomes former pieces of General Motors back into the fold, GM Financial has reached a deal with Ally Financial, formerly GMAC, to buy a piece of the company's international operations. The $4.2 billion deal is for Ally's Latin America, Europe and China operations.

"GM is entering the most aggressive rollout of new vehicles in its history, and this acquisition will make us an even more formidable competitor by ensuring that competitive financing is available to our customers and dealers around the world," says General Motors CFO Dan Ammann. The ability to finance from a captive unit will let General Motors extend better loan terms to potential customers, which the automaker sees as key to closing a sales gap that's between 10 and 15 percent versus automakers who already have their own financing divisions.

GM will be handing over more than $2 billion in cash to GM Financial, and the unit will more than double its liabilities from $12 billion to $27 billion while also doubling its assets to about $33 billion. GM Financial expects to bolster its yearly pre-tax earnings by $300-$400 million. It will take at least six months to wrap this deal up, provided it gets approvals from various oversight agencies. For more information on the deal, check out the official press release below.
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October 30th, 2013

10/30/2013

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MARYLAND IS GROUND ZERO FOR ALL OF THIS AUTOCRATIC SURVEILLANCE AND SECURITY------ALL DEMOCRATS IN MARYLAND ARE NEO-LIBERALS SUPPORTING THIS----RUN AND VOTE FOR LABOR AND JUSTICE IN ALL ELECTION PRIMARIES!


I speak often of international activists working to track the loot VISIGOTHS have taken from Europe, UK, and the US.  You can bet that the Snowden affair will help out as NSA's main focus was industrial spying.....following money movements all over the world.  Now, you will say 'they were following terrorist money' and I will tell you 'no, they were following money moved to offshore accounts everywhere.

No one is naive enough to believe Capitol Hill is aghast by all of this.  They are all Insider Traders after all.  Hedge funds running the NSA doing something illegal they say? 

Below you see how Snowden did more than anyone in US history to staunch a takeover of US government by corporate and wealth forces bent on taking every last cent of public wealth and this surveillance/security system built with trillions of dollars was the way to do it.  He knew being a whistle blower at home would have made him a target, not a whistle blower so he did what was genius.....he made the nations of the world want to control and downsize this system for American citizens.  As much bluster the 1% will give as to this being nothing.....we will continue unabated they say.....it is a decisive.  Between the massive financial frauds that brought the world's economy down and now this most of the world want nothing to do with so criminal and corrupt a system of government and business.


Snowden outs NSA's "Follow The Money" international banking spies

Join thousands of others, and sign up for Naked Security's newsletter

by Lee Munson on September 16, 2013

According to a new report, referencing leaks from Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency (NSA) has been widely monitoring international banking and credit card transactions. The agency allegedly targeted customers of Visa Inc. as well as the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT).

According to Germany's Der Spiegel newspaper, information leaked by former NSA contractor Snowden shows that surveillance of financial transactions was carried out by a branch of the security agency known as "Follow The Money" (FTM).

The details of all the monitored transactions were then transferred to an NSA database called "Tracfin." Snowden claims that in 2011 that database held 180 million records of which 84% were related to credit card transactions.

Der Spiegel alleges that the NSA targeted transactions in Europe, the Middle East and Africa to:

collect, parse and ingest transactional data for priority credit card associations, focusing on priority geographic regions.

In response to that allegation the newspaper quotes a Visa spokesperson who, "ruled out the possibility that data could be taken from company-run networks," whilst Mashable has a quote from Visa security and privacy representative Rosetta Jones:

With respect to the claims in the Der Spiegel article, we are not aware of any unauthorized access into our network. Visa takes data security seriously and, in response to any attempted intrusion, we would pursue all available remedies to the fullest extent of the law. Further, it’s Visa’s policy to only provide transaction information in response to a subpoena or other valid legal process.


The NSA also spied on SWIFT, a network used by more than 10,000 banking institutions in over 200 countries. The system, used by the banks for sending transaction data in a secure manner, was spied upon on many levels according to the Der Spiegel report. One such way in which the NSA was accessing the information was described as reading "SWIFT printer traffic from numerous banks."

"A deep invasion of privacy"

According to the documents there seemed to be at least some concern over the collection of such financial data.

The UK's intelligence agency, GCHQ, queried the legal issues surrounding "financial data" and its own involvement in the program saying that, "The collection, storage and sharing of politically sensitive data is a deep invasion of privacy", and involved "bulk data" full of "rich personal information," much of which "is not about our targets."

Whilst this news may be further confirmation that the NSA is involved in widespread spying, it is probably not a huge revelation to many.

In fact the real surprise may be that the Tracfin database 'only' stored 180 million records, considering that SWIFT itself processes over 15 million transactions every day.


The whole point of having an intelligence agency is to monitor the actions of potential enemies and the money trail is often a very good starting point for any investigation. It appears that this financial monitoring was almost exclusively targeting non-US citizens anyway so few, if any, domestic laws would have been broken.


Furthermore, the US Treasury already has an agreement with SWIFT which affords it consensual access to international transaction records, as confirmed by former Homeland Security chief Juan Zarate and SWIFT's own CEO Leornard Schrank just a couple of months ago. This agreement is further backed up by a European treaty which came into effect on August 1, 2010.




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The one thing that will cause concern for these US spymasters is not Americans and their shouting.....they just ignore us since we never vote incumbents out of office.....it is Europe where a still working democracy will vote those corporate crooks out of office.  The neo-liberals and conservatives are taking a beating around Europe and the UK and this will accelerate this drive.  Place control back into the hands of labor and justice.....

IF WE CAN GET GOOD PEOPLE IN OFFICE AND NOT PLANTED NEO-LIBERALS FOR GOODNESS SAKE....we can turn this around in no time.  RULE OF LAW AND FREE PRESS IS ALL THAT IS NEEDED TO BRING TENS OF TRILLIONS IN CORPORATE FRAUD BACK AND GOVERNMENT WITH SOME INTEGRITY!



NSA Spying Will Continue Despite Snowden's Leaks, Experts Say

Oct. 30, 2013 By COLLEEN CURRY Colleen Curry
Reporter via World News

  Members of Congress were quick to react to news that the U.S. government has been surveilling the phone calls of foreign leaders, calling hearings and introducing legislation this week that called for tightening the U.S.'s ability to spy.

But despite the statements of Washington politicians, little change has really come from the information leaked by former intelligence employee Edward Snowden, who began telling intelligence secrets to journalists in June and has so far revealed how robustly the U.S. keeps an eye on its friends and enemies via technology.

And, according to former intelligence officials, changes are not likely to come anytime soon, regardless of how loudly Snowden's revelations reverberate around Washington.
OH REALLY?????
"Will this make any significant changes? I doubt it," said John Sano, a retired CIA official in the Clandestine Service. California Senator "Dianne Feinstein has legitimate outrage over this but saying we need to change the rules and actually creating a mechanism that will effectively change the rules and allow Congress to monitor it is a completely different story."

This week, politicians have come out in force to question the reach of National Security Agency tactics and, at the same time, to condemn Snowden for bringing it to their attention.

"It is abundantly clear that a total review of all intelligence programs is necessary so that members of the Senate Intelligence Committee are fully informed as to what is actually being carried out by the intelligence community," Feinstein, head of the Intelligence Committee, said Monday.

It marked the first time the government was provoked to action by Snowden's leaked information.

On Tuesday, a group of lawmakers in Washington introduced legislation known as the USA Freedom Act to reign in the NSA's phone surveillance..

At the same time, Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota questioned Department of Justice officials over Snowden during a congressional hearing on the spying.

"Was the leaker in question, Ed Snowden, was he a traitor?" Bachmann asked.

"You're asking me? Absolutely," said Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, head of the U.S. intelligence community.

"Absolutely," agreed Keith Alexander, director of the NSA.

"Yes, ma'am," said John Inglis, deputy director of the NSA.

The exchange highlights a litany of political and intelligence voices that have condemned Snowden for leaking information over the four months, even while they discuss the merits of the information he leaked.

Feinstein has said in the past that Snowden committed treason, joining a host of Washington politicians, including Sen. John McCain, who called Snowden a traitor. Even Rep. Nancy Pelosi, an often liberal voice, said Snowden's actions were criminal.

Snowden's defenders, including such varied voices as Glenn Beck and Michael Moore, have called him a hero and a whistle-blower. Glenn Greenwald, a journalist writing for The Guardian, has published many of Snowden's leaks.

"Every time there's a whistle-blower, somebody who exposes government wrongdoing, the tactic of the government is to try and demonize them as a traitor," Greenwald told ABC News' George Stephanopoulos.

The leaks began on June 5, when Greenwald revealed that the NSA collected millions of Verizon customers' telephone records, and the Washington Post published an article on PRISM, an Internet program that gave the government direct access to Google, Facebook, Apple and other major Internet companies.

Later, the Guardian revealed that the NSA and British intelligence agency Government Communications Headquarters surveilled foreign governments and their leaders, NSA employees had listened in on private calls, and the NSA had been looking at people's buddy lists and emails address books, among other secrets.

But former officials from the intelligence community say real change is unlikely to come because the programs are important and are working.

Sano noted that the U.S. already has agreements with some other English-speaking countries to not spy on them; at best, he said, that agreement may extend to some other countries, like Germany.

Gene Poteat, a retired senior CIA official, agreed, saying that other countries know about our surveillance and there will be no impetus to change. The real damage, he contends, has been from the media reports exposing the country's surveillance capabilities to the world.



______________________________________________

This is what the surveillance state does domestically so you can see how overseas they find all this autocratic overreach!

I constantly warn people that the intent with this securitization is to have in place a system that cuts off all communication if there is a large movement and/or revolution so it is critical to have public means of communication like the Post Office.  We know public media is captured so fight to keep the Post Office strong!

Partnership between Facebook and police could make planning protests impossible

Published time: October 25, 2013 18:15
Edited time: October 26, 2013 19:15 Get short URL Reuters / Kyle Carter

A partnership between police departments and social media sites discussed at a convention in Philadelphia this week could allow law enforcement to keep anything deemed criminal off the Internet—and even stop people from organizing protests.

A high-ranking official from the Chicago Police Department told attendees at a law enforcement conference on Monday that his agency has been working with a security chief at Facebook to block certain users from the site “if it is determined they have posted what is deemed criminal content,” reports Kenneth Lipp, an independent journalist who attended the lecture.

Lipp reported throughout the week from the International Association of Chiefs of Police conference, and now says that a speaker during one of the presentations suggested that a relationship exists between law enforcement and social media that that could be considered a form of censorship.

According to Lipp, the unnamed CPD officer said specifically that his agency was working with Facebook to block users’ by their individual account, IP address or device, such as a cell phone or computer.





Elsewhere at the conference, Lipp said law enforcement agencies discussed new social media tools that could be implemented to aid in crime-fighting, but at the price of potentially costing citizens their freedom.

“Increasingly in discussion in workshops held by and for top police executives from throughout the world (mostly US, Canada and the United Kingdom, with others like Nigeria among a total of 13,000 representatives of the law enforcement community in town for the event),  and widely available from vendors, were technologies and department policies that allow agencies to block content, users and even devices – for example, ‘Geofencing’ software that allows departments to block service to a specified device when the device leaves an established virtual geographic perimeter,” Lipp wrote. “The capability is a basic function of advanced mobile technologies like smartphones, ‘OnStar’ type features that link drivers through GIS to central assistance centers, and automated infrastructure and other hardware including unmanned aerial systems that must ‘sense and respond.’”

Apple, the maker of the highly popular iPhone, applied for a patent last year which allows a third-party to compromise a wireless device and change its functionality, “such as upon the occurrence of a certain event.”

Bloggers at the website PrivacySOS.org acknowledged that former federal prosecutor-turned-Facebook security chief Joe Sullivan was scheduled to speak during the conference at a panel entitled “Helping Law Enforcement Respond to Mass Gatherings Spurred by Social Media,” and suggested that agencies could be partnering with tech companies to keep users of certain services for communicating and planning protests and other types of demonstrations. A 2011 Bloomberg report revealed that Creativity Software, a UK based company with international clients, had sold geofencing programs to law enforcement in Iran which was then used to track political dissidents. US Senator Mark Kirk (R-Illinois) told Bloomberg that those companies should be condemned for being complicit in human rights abuses. And while this week’s convention in Philadelphia was for law enforcement agencies around the globe, it wouldn’t be too surprising to see American companies adopt similar systems.

“Is Facebook really working with the police to create a kill switch to stop activists from using the website to mobilize support for political demonstrations?” the PrivacySOS blog asked. “How would such a switch function? Would Facebook, which reportedly hands over our data to government agencies at no cost, block users from posting on its website simply because the police ask them to? The company has been criticized before for blocking environmentalist and anti-GMO activists from posting, but Facebook said those were mistakes. Let's hope this is a misunderstanding, too.”

Lipp has since pointed to a recent article in Governing magazine in which it was reported that the Chicago Police Department is using “network analysis” tools to identify persons of interest on social media.

“95.9 percent of law enforcement agencies use social media, 86.1 percent for investigative purposes,” Lipp quoted from the head of the social media group for the International Association of Chiefs of Police.



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Have you heard on mainstream media or corporate 'public' media that the outpouring of protest is huge in America?  They are too busy giving us business news to worry about mass social unrest.

Please report your local public media for corporate format.....they are allowing corporate funding be the primary support when public media requires mostly individual donors.  We can get rid of NPR/APM for their Wall Street all the time format or make them change.  IT IS CRITICAL NOT TO ALLOW OUR PUBLIC MEDIA BE CAPTURED BY CORPORATE INTERESTS!


Edward Snowden Endorses D.C. Protest Against NSA in Rare Public Statement Surveillance whistle-blower: 'Join us in sending the message: Stop Watching Us'


By Steven Nelson

October 24, 2013


Edward Snowden, right, is backing a Saturday protest against dragnet surveillance practices supported by many politicians, such as Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., left.

Former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden urged Americans to protest against the massive phone and Internet surveillance programs he exposed in a rare public statement Thursday.

Snowden is living in exile in Russia, where he was granted temporary asylum on Aug. 1 after a dramatic month-long stay in Moscow's international airport. He's wanted by U.S. authorities for alleged theft of government property and alleged violations of the Espionage Act of 1917.

Since being granted asylum, the whistle-blower has largely shunned media attention. But in his Thursday statement, he recommends participation in the Saturday protest organizers hope will be the largest anti-surveillance demonstration in U.S. history.

[READ: Anti-Surveillance Protesters Will Rally on Patriot Act's Birthday]

Members of the Stop Watching Us coalition, which is hosting the protest, include the American Civil Liberties Union, the Mozilla Foundation, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Green Party, the Libertarian Party, social news website Reddit, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Demand Progress and Students for Liberty.

"In the last four months, we've learned a lot about our government," Snowden says in the statement. "We've learned that the U.S. intelligence community secretly built a system of pervasive surveillance. Today, no telephone in America makes a call without leaving a record with the NSA. Today, no Internet transaction enters or leaves America without passing through the NSA's hands. Our representatives in Congress tell us this is not surveillance. They're wrong.

"Now," he says, "it's time for the government to learn from us. On Saturday, the ACLU, EFF, and the rest of the StopWatching.Us coalition are going to D.C. Join us in sending the message: Stop Watching Us."

Documents released by Snowden in June revealed that the administration of Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama had been vacuuming up the phone records of all Americans with secret court orders and, allegedly, working with major Internet companies to access user information.

[WATCH: Celebrities Join Anti-Surveillance Campaign]

In addition to domestic surveillance, documents about spying on the leaders of Brazil, France, Germany, Mexico, as well as on international businesses and other U.S. allies have prompted sequential furors as they are reported by media outlets with access to documents distributed by Snowden.

The House of Representative narrowly rejected on July 24 an amendment by Rep. Justin Amash, R-Mich., that would have ended the NSA's collection of all Americans' phone records. That amendment fell 12 votes short of passing.

Surveillance programs are expected to get another bout of legislative attention later this year. Supporters of the programs, including Obama, say NSA agents don't rifle through files on ordinary Americans and claim NSA surveillance led to information on 54 terror plots since 2001. NSA Director Keith Alexander admitted during an Oct. 2 Senate committee hearing only 13 cases were related to the U.S. The role of NSA surveillance in disrupting publicly disclosed plots has been disputed.

In a bid to raise awareness for the Saturday protest near Congress, the Stop Watching Us coalition on Wednesday released a video featuring actor John Cusack, documentary filmmaker Oliver Stone, Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg and others denouncing the surveillance programs. An online petition by the coalition has more than 577,000 signatures.

______________________________________________
IF YOUR INCUMBENT IS NOT SHOUTING LOUDLY AND STRONGLY AGAINST ALL OF THIS....THEY ARE NEO-LIBERALS AND NEED TO GO.  STOP ALLOWING A CAPTURED DNC CHOOSE YOUR CANDIDATES!


You can hear how this has an effect on Wall Street just by listening to MarketPlace Money/American Public Media---they know Wall Street will be brought down in all this as people understand that they are behind the NSA.



Wednesday, Oct 30, 2013 08:30 AM EST

Senate candidate: Snowden is a whistle-blower, not a criminal

The long-term Maine ACLU director tells Salon she can beat Susan Collins, and calls out Congress for NSA complicity

By Josh Eidelson  Salon
  Arguing that the “intelligence community now faces a trust deficit,” and backed by 60 co-sponsors, House Patriot Act author Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., and Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., Tuesday introduced a “USA Freedom Act” to restrict National Security Agency spying. That move came amid high-profile, bipartisan congressional criticism of reported U.S. spying on world leaders including Germany’s Angela Merkel. Among the critics of surveiling Merkel was Maine Sen. Susan Collins, a three-term Republican who’s chaired the Homeland Security Committee and now serves on the Intelligence Committee.

But Collins’ 2014 challenger Shenna Bellows – who directed the Maine ACLU for eight years before last week becoming the first declared contender for the Democratic nomination – says that’s not good enough. In a Tuesday afternoon interview, Bellows told Salon that politicians have “trampled on the Constitution,” and called for Edward Snowden to “be treated as a whistle-blower and not a criminal.” She also called out Congress for preferring “to scold the White House in public but codify NSA spying.” A condensed version of our conversation follows.

Sen. Collins put out a statement saying … that she’s not aware of a justification for collecting intelligence on Chancellor Merkel, and that she would be telling the German ambassador that “it was wrong” for the administration to do that. What’s your reaction to that?

We absolutely need to stop listening in on phone calls of allies like Angela Merkel. But we also need to stop spying on millions of Americans.

What do you make of the comparative attention that those two kinds of surveillance get?

… It’s certainly concerning to international relations to learn that we were spying on the phone conversations of some of our closest allies. But it’s equally important to address the issue of spying on millions of ordinary Americans.

Where would you draw the line on who the U.S. should be spying on?

advertisementI support measures to repeal the Patriot Act and prohibit the NSA from engaging in bulk data collection. The federal government should only be gathering information about Americans when there are specific and articulable facts that are actually relevant to a terrorism investigation …

Are there foreign leaders, or categories of foreign leaders, that you think it is appropriate for the U.S. government to be surveiling?

I think we need a paradigm shift in our surveillance – in our approach to surveillance. For the last decade, policymakers in Washington have trampled on the Constitution and Bill of Rights, creating a constitutional crisis. This paradigm of “Total Information Awareness” undermines our democracy and threatens international relations. We need a Church [Committee]-style investigation into the nature and extent of our surveillance practices. And we need meaningful reforms to restore our constitutional freedoms and restore our trust.

In June, the president said, “You can shout ‘big brother’ or ‘program run amok,’ but if you actually look at the details, I think we’ve struck the right balance.” What do you make of that kind of comment?

NSA spying is out of control, and it undermines our democratic freedoms and is threatening our international relations and security. We can be both safe and free. We can protect our constitutional freedoms and our security.

When this gets talked about as a balance between security and liberty – is that a frame that you accept?

Benjamin Franklin famously said they who “give up essential liberty” to obtain “a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” We do not have to sacrifice our fundamental freedoms to be safe. Privacy is important as an individual liberty and as a building block in community trust. When the government spies on its own people, we the people lose trust in government … It’s a false choice to suggest that we need to sacrifice our constitutional freedoms for security.

What’s your assessment of the president’s record on civil liberties?

In areas of voting rights and marriage equality, President Obama has been a wonderful leader. In the area of privacy, Republicans and Democrats at all levels have failed the American people in passage of measures like the Patriot Act and in allowing these NSA spying abuses.

Here in Maine, we worked with Republicans and Democrats alike. We had a truly interesting coalition that included libertarians and progressives. And that’s why we were one of two states in the country to prohibit law enforcement from tracking people using their cellphones … We came together and did not compromise our principles, but rather stayed united in our shared values of support for the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. We need to continue to do that in Washington. And the bill put forward by Sen. Patrick Leahy and James Sensenbrenner is a step in the right direction in terms of restoring checks and balances.

How does President Obama’s record compare to that of President Bush on the issue of privacy?

What I think that we see over the last decade is that under both the Bush administration and the Obama administration we have — the government has allowed NSA spying to expand unchecked. And Congress has repeatedly, after passing the Patriot Act, Congress has repeatedly reauthorized these practices. Back in 2008, I led a coalition here in Maine to investigate the nature and extent of telecommunications companies’ involvement in surveillance of the phone calls of millions of Americans.

And we brought forward a complaint to the Public Utilities Commission here in Maine. [We] were moving with a state level investigation into the nature and extent of surveillance of Mainers’ telephone communications. Congress responded by passing a bill prohibiting the state from engaging in these investigations. So I think what we have seen are a series of policy decisions that have trampled on the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. What we have been able to do for Maine is demonstrated a different way.

President Obama – is he “trampling on the Constitution”?

I think it’s up to Congress to do its job and put in place checks and balances to preserve our constitutional freedoms and keep our country safe. It’s not enough for Congress to scold the Obama administration and then fail to act.

In the time since the Patriot Act was passed, has that law made Americans more safe?

There have been numerous reports from inside and outside of government that indicate that the Patriot Act has significantly undermined our constitutional freedoms without increasing public safety. We need to repeal the Patriot Act and stop NSA spying. We can be both safe and free, and this total information awareness paradigm represented by the Patriot Act and NSA spying undermines our freedoms and our security.

What’s your view of the role that Edward Snowden and the information that he released have played in shaping this debate?

I think Edward Snowden has played a very important role. I think we need more protection for whistle-blowers so that we can have an open conversation about what’s appropriate. His revelations have been a catalyst for a national conversation that we really need to have.

Should he be punished?

You know, Daniel Ellsberg wrote a really interesting Op-Ed in which he talked about how his revelations in the Pentagon Papers would not have been possible under current law that prohibits whistle-blowers from coming forward. And the ACLU and other civil liberties groups have been involved in Snowden’s defense, and I think his revelations have created a really important conversation. We have too much secrecy surrounding these programs …

Do you believe that Snowden should be either charged with a crime or detained by the U.S. government?

I do not think that speaking out about matters of national import should be criminalized.

Your career included organizing to try to stop the Patriot Act. What did you learn from that experience – what struck you about that political fight?

What I learned was the importance of reaching out across ideological lines and backgrounds to work together. At the ACLU we worked with very unusual partners. I helped organize a coalition that included the American Library Association and Veterans of America working together to try to rein in the abuses of the Patriot Act. And that became a model for the work that I did here in Maine …

You mentioned …

I want to go back to the Snowden question. Snowden is absolutely a whistle-blower and should be treated as such. His revelations revealed government illegality and abuse of authority and we as a country depend upon truthful information about what the government is doing, particularly … when activity infringes on individual rights. So we could not have had a properly informed public debate about spying without Snowden’s leaks. Now unfortunately there are exceptions in the federal whistle-blower protection act that do not provide for effective avenues internally to report illegal activity. So I think that Snowden should be treated as a whistle-blower and not a criminal.

Do you believe we’re going to see more Edward Snowdens soon?

What I think that we need to do at the federal level is improve our whistle-blower laws so that when intelligence community employees see government illegality or violations of the Constitution, they can speak out safely.

You mentioned legislation sponsored by congressman Sensenbrenner … How much do you think the politics on these issues have changed since the period immediately after 9/11?

What we experienced here in Maine over the last decade is truly bipartisan support for restoration of our constitutional freedoms. So it’s really exciting to see today the introduction of the USA Freedom Act by congressman Sensenbrenner, who was the lead author of the Patriot Act, and by Democrat Patrick Leahy, who voted for the Patriot Act. And I think that demonstrates that people can change their minds.

Now one of the problems with the original Patriot Act is the secrecy surrounding its implementation. The ACLU is handling a case on behalf of a librarian in Connecticut who was served with an order under the Patriot Act. And the gag provision on the Patriot Act prohibited that librarian from meeting with his members of Congress when the Patriot Act was being reauthorizing to discuss that order …

One of the things that comes up in these debates … is that you have politicians … referencing information that is classified, often to defend these programs. How much of the intelligence information that is currently classified do you think should be?

I think we have a real problem with too much government secrecy … Time and time again, groups like the ACLU have challenged the constitutionality of some of these programs and the government has defended the programs under the doctrine of state secrets, and has blocked judicial review of the surveillance practices. We have gone too far – or, Congress has gone too far in allowing the actions of these spy agencies to be hidden from public view.

Congressman Rogers, who chairs the House Intelligence Committee, said that if people in France knew what was being intercepted, they would be “popping champagne corks” because “it’s a good thing” and “it keeps the French safe.” What’s your reaction to that?

The challenge here with government secrecy about these programs is that it prohibits a full and fair debate of what is necessary or appropriate. The government secrecy around the Patriot Act and NSA spying programs deprive policymakers and the public of the crucial information to make decisions about whether the information being collected is appropriate or not.

But I also think that what we’ve seen over the last few months is that increased public awareness about the nature and extent of NSA spying has led to … broad bipartisan opposition to what’s being perceived as abuse of power.

It’s sometimes argued that the Obama administration in particular gets a pass [on surveillance], whether from elected Democrats or from some liberal organizations, because of [Obama] being a Democrat … Do you think that’s a fair critique?

Its been really interesting to watch the reactions of members of Congress who are scolding the White House in public, but then willing to support the NSA spying, Patriot Act, and other surveillance measures in their votes. It’s unacceptable for Congress to scold the White House in public but codify NSA spying … We need to hold all of our elected leaders accountable for the decisions that we have made that have infringed upon our constitutional freedoms and undermined our democratic institutions …

As a Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Susan Collins has an opportunity to correct her past support of the Patriot ACT and NSA spying, to begin to restore constitutional freedoms.

… Why is the next step for you to run for the U.S. Senate?

Our democracy is too important for good people to stay on the sidelines …

Are you going to be the Democratic nominee?

Yes.

Are you going to then beat Susan Collins?

[Laughs] Yes …

I’m building a different kind of campaign. It’s a grass-roots campaign … grass-roots movements are really the only way real change has ever happened.



0 Comments

October 25th, 2013

10/25/2013

0 Comments

 
We are living in dangerous times as we are dealing with government that thinks it can suspend Rule of Law, allow looting of the US Treasury with massive corporate fraud, rewrite the US Constitution, all while building a Stalin-style surveillance system.  All of this from Clinton and Obama and Congressional neo-liberals running as democrats!

Below you see the changes just this year in how your government sees you, the public, as the enemy and truth as a weapon.  These are people you have re-elected for decades and it is this handing off of politics to incumbents that has created this environment of entitlement and impunity.  One thing for sure----when 300 million people WAKE UP!----and they will, we will return to a first world democracy.

Please do not allow all of the flurry of laws aimed at fear and retaliation to dissent dissuade you from shouting out and organizing.  We are growing in numbers and will be coming out strong against the status quo.  We see restrictions on where we can gather in protest, where we can voice our dissent, who can be allowed to be a citizen journalist, and when truth will be considered a crime.

We know these global politicians think bringing a first world country to third world values will happen with neo-liberals in control of the democratic party but I have my doubts.  It is much harder to bring civilized people down then to bring developing worlds up.  There are tons of actions in Washington and your neck of the woods.  Please get out, get organized, and build a network of communication in your communities that does not involve corporate media----


SUPPORT THE POST OFFICE WITH NEWSLETTERS!



Feinstein has been shown to have been enriched by Insider Trading and represents the area known as ground zero for the subprime mortgage fraud and for-profit education frauds. She is on committees involved with the NSA-----THIS IS ONE BAD CHICK. NEO-LIBERAL ANYONE?


Sen. Feinstein’s Proposed Bill Would Incriminate Anyone Speaking Against NSA’s Spying and Courts
By Admin on October 22, 2013 5 by Ali Papademetriou

California lawmaker and member of the United States Senate committee, Diane Feinstein has let it be known that she strongly supports the National Security Agency and its surveillance programs. The agency has caught much heat from the American people after whistleblower Edward Snowden leaked documents showing that the NSA spies on millions of citizens through their phone data.

Last weekend, she published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, claiming that the 9/11 attacks could have been prevented had the NSA surveillance programs been alive beforehand. “We would have detected the impending attack that killed 3,000 Americans,” she wrote.

Then on Monday, she stated that the NSA’s bulk compilation of phone records is actually “not surveillance” and is rather just a necessary device by means of fighting terrorism. Her statement was made in an op-ed, which was published by USA Today.

She also asserted that the agency’s actions have been “effective in helping to prevent terrorist plots against the US and our allies.”

Senators Ron Wyden and Mark Udall, both of whom are also members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, wrote a letter to NSA director Keith Alexander, criticizing him by detailing, “Saying that ‘these programs’ have ‘disrupted dozens of potential terrorist plots’ is misleading if the bulk phone records collection program is actually providing little or no value.” They also detailed how the NSA has only stopped a few pieces of terror plots over the years – contradictory to Senator Feinstein’s assertions.

It was also reported by the Guardian that Senator Feinstein is anticipating introducing legislation, which would criminally punish those who make critical statements about the NSA and its secret courts.

Feinstein’s bill comes just in time in the agency’s favor, considering both the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) have active lawsuits against the NSA for its unconstitutional surveillance of US citizens.

Update 6:06PM: Guardian hyperlink fixed to Feinstein’s upcoming introduction of new bill.

Image Reference

AP Photo/Luis M. Alvarez


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You know if neo-liberals think they can throw us out of public meetings for trying to comment they will go crazy over just 'who is a journalist' and how that will limit speech.  Remember, the problem is that government at all levels is committing crimes and is systemically corrupt.  The solution is outing the problems and getting rid of the politicians who are creating this suspension of Rule of Law

VOTE ALL INCUMBENTS OUT OF OFFICE!!


Memo To Dick Durbin: All Americans Are Journalists


 Posted 07/09/2013 07:18 PM ET
First Amendment: Is our constitutional right to publish something going to be decided by the likes of Sen. Dick Durbin? If so, our republic and the liberty it guarantees are in trouble.

Late last month, Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, wrote a column for the Chicago Sun Times in which he conceded that "Everyone, regardless of the mode of expression, has a constitutionally protected right to free speech."

But that doesn't mean Durbin accepts that there is an absolute freedom of expression.

"When it comes to freedom of the press," he continued, "I believe we must define a journalist and the constitutional and statutory protections those journalists should receive."

And who is to define who is and isn't a journalist? Durbin and his colleagues, of course.

Congress, when controlled by Democrats, already has the mainstream media under its thumb. So it's not ABC, NBC, CBS, the New York Times and the Washington Post that Durbin is worried about. It's the bloggers, tweeters and Facebook users that he wants to control.

Durbin suggests this is all about laws that protect journalists from being "compelled to disclose sources or documents unless a judge determines there is an extraordinary circumstance or compelling public interest."

But, as he says, 49 states already have laws that do this.

With the mainstream press in their pockets, what Durbin and others truly fear are citizen journalists and the free and open dissemination of ideas that threaten the political class' agenda.

They don't want bloggers rabble-rousing against ObamaCare and Dodd-Frank. They hate the idea of Twitter being alight with criticisms of the left's efforts to have government "do good things."

They resent citizens using message boards to condemn the White House's attempts to redistribute wealth, its imperial tendencies, its miserably failed foreign policy and its growing list of scandals.

And they certainly want to chill discussions of how the political left has abandoned — after once being a reliable defender of it — the First Amendment.

With cellphones, pads and laptops in every home and car, we are all journalists ready to document, report, record and discuss.

Washington hasn't the moral authority to say who is and who isn't a journalist. The First Amendment was written to stop the government from doing exactly that.


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HERE YOU GO......JOURNALISTS AND WHISTLE BLOWERS TO GOVERNMENT CRIME ARE MORE AND MORE BEING LABELLED 'TERRORISTS' AND 'TRAITORS' WITH LARGE SENTENCES ATTACHED TO ORDINARY ACTIONS OF REPORTING CRIME!




NSA Chief: Reporters Must Be Stopped

Accuses Media of Creating 'Dramatic, Convenient Lie'

by Jason Ditz, October 24, 2013

NSA Chief Gen. Keith Alexander gave a long interview today with the Pentagon’s “Armed With Science” blog, calling on the world to find some way to stop international media outlets from reporting about his agency’s surveillance programs based on leaked documents.

“We ought to come up with a way of stopping it. I don’t know how to do that,” Alexander insisted, saying that the ability of media outlets to report on the NSA “just doesn’t make sense” to him.

The focus of Alexander’s comments to the military blog was insisting that all media reports on the NSA were a “dramatic, convenient lie,” followed by an admonition for troops not to “give into the hype” and to trust the NSA unconditionally.

Alexander’s comments during the NSA scandal have mostly been blanket denials, and even after some of those denials have been proven flat out untrue he has stuck to that story. He seems to still be holding out hope that after months of confirmed reports based on official documents, everyone will somehow be convinced to forget about everything and just trust him.



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As it becomes easier to be sent to jail for ordinary protest we see that indefinite detention is now legal....OR SO THEY SAY.  We are already seeing people sent to jail for little reason then made to sit in jail for months before trial.  Funding for public defense was cut in Maryland just for this reason.  It is all done to make protest and dissent onerous-----too hard for most people to do.  THIS IS AUTOCRATIC LAW.

YET, WE ARE SEEING THE SAME INCUMBENTS RUNNING WITH NO LABOR AND JUSTICE CHALLENGE!



Obama signs NDAA 2013 without objecting to indefinite detention of Americans

Published time: January 03, 2013 17:01
Edited time: May 15, 2013 14:24 Get short URL US President Barack Obama (AFP Photo/Brendan Smialowsky)

  President Barack Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act of 2013 on Wednesday, giving his stamp of approval to a Pentagon spending bill that will keep Guantanamo Bay open and make indefinite detention for US citizens as likely as ever.

The president inked his name to the 2013 NDAA on Wednesday evening to little fanfare, and accompanied his signature with a statement condemning a fair number of provisions contained in a bill that he nevertheless endorsed.

The NDAA, an otherwise mundane annual bill that lays out the use of funds for the Department of Defense, has come under attack during the Obama administration for the introduction of a provision last year that allows the military to detain United States citizens indefinitely without charge or trial for mere suspicions of ties to terrorism. Under the 2012 NDAA’s Sec. 1021, Pres. Obama agreed to give the military the power to arrest and hold Americans without the writ of habeas corpus, although he promised with that year’s signing statement that his administration would not abuse that privilege.

In response to the controversial indefinite detention provision from last year, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-California) introduced an amendment in December 2012 that would have forbid the government from using military force to indefinitely detain Americans without trial under the 2013 NDAA. Although that provision, dubbed the “Feinstein Amendment,” passed the Senate unanimously, a select panel of lawmakers led by Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Michigan) stripped it from the final version of the NDAA two week later before it could clear Congress. In exchange, Congress added a provision, Sec. 1029, that claims to ensure that “any person inside the United States” is allowed their constitutional rights, including habeas corpus, but supporters of the Feinstein Amendment say that the swapped wording does nothing to erase the indefinite detention provision from the previous year.

“Saying that new language somehow ensures the right to habeas corpus – the right to be presented before a judge – is both questionable and not enough. Citizens must not only be formally charged but also receive jury trials and the other protections our Constitution guarantees. Habeas corpus is simply the beginning of due process. It is by no means the whole,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) said after the Feinstein Amendment was removed.

“Our Bill of Rights is not something that can be cherry-picked at legislators’ convenience. When I entered the United States Senate, I took an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution. It is for this reason that I will strongly oppose passage of the McCain conference report that strips the guarantee to a trial by jury,” Sen. Paul added.

Although the Pres. Obama rejected the indefinite detention clause when signing the 2012 NDAA, a statement issued late Wednesday from the White House failed to touch on the military’s detainment abilities. On the other hand, Pres. Obama did voice his opposition to a number of provisions included in the latest bill, particularly ones that will essentially render his promise of closing the Guantanamo Bay military prison impossible.

Despite repeated pleas that Gitmo will be closed on his watch, Pres. Obama failed to do as much during his first term in the White House. Thanks to a provision in the 2013 NDAA, the Pentagon will be unable to use funds to transfer detainees out of that facility and to other sights, ensuring they will remain at the top-secret military prison for the time being.

“Even though I support the vast majority of the provisions contained in this Act, which is comprised of hundreds of sections spanning more than 680 pages of text, I do not agree with them all. Our Constitution does not afford the president the opportunity to approve or reject statutory sections one by one,” Pres. Obama writes.

Congress, claims the president, designed sections of the new defense bill “in order to foreclose my ability to shut down the Guantanamo Bay detention facility.”

“I continue to believe that operating the facility weakens our national security by wasting resources, damaging our relationships with key allies and strengthening our enemies,” he says.

Elsewhere, the president claims that certain provisions in the act threaten to interview with his “constitutional duty to supervise the executive branch” of the United States.

Before the 2013 NDAA was finalized, it was reported by the White House that Pres. Obama would veto the legislation over the provisions involving Guantanamo Bay. Similarly, the White House originally said the president would veto the 2012 NDAA over the indefinite detention provisions, although he signed it regardless “with reservations” on December 31 of that year.

Since authorizing the 2012 NDAA, the president has been challenged in federal court by a team of plaintiffs who say that the indefinite detention clause is unconstitutional. US District Judge Katherine Forrest agreed that Sec. 1021 of the 2012 NDAA violated the US Constitution and granted a permanent injunction on the Obama administration from using that provision, but the White House successfully fought to appeal that decision.

Commenting on the latest signing, American Civil Liberties Union Executive Director Anthony Romero says, "President Obama has utterly failed the first test of his second term, even before inauguration day.”

“His signature means indefinite detention without charge or trial, as well as the illegal military commissions, will be extended,” adds Romero. "He also has jeopardized his ability to close Guantanamo during his presidency. Scores of men who have already been held for nearly 11 years without being charged with a crime--including more than 80 who have been cleared for transfer--may very well be imprisoned unfairly for yet another year. The president should use whatever discretion he has in the law to order many of the detainees transferred home, and finally step up next year to close Guantanamo and bring a definite end to indefinite detention."


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We all need to be aware of the extent of these anti-protesting laws! As we see people are being carted out by security and jailed for simply interrupting a public meeting. This is big in Maryland as the public not only cannot participate in policy-writing but we are being silenced in public meetings.

This article does a good job highlighting details of the bill you may not know. It is why police demand you leave a protest in many normally safe areas.


Wednesday, August 1, 2012 - Washington Times

"Anti-Occupy" law ends American's right to protest

Wednesday, August 1, 2012 - Leading Edge Legal Advice for Everyday Matters by Paul Samakow



WASHINGTON, D.C., August 1, 2012 — I was stunned upon hearing a news report about a protest going on in China. Teachers, parents with their young, school-age children and pro-democracy activitists (one estimate was 90,000 people) marched in Hong Kong to government headquarters last Sunday to publicly protest a new required “Patriotism” class, to be taught in the school system starting in 2015. The protestors think that the effort of the Chinese government here is to brainwash their kids in favor of communism. 

What stunned me was that this protest, in China, against the government’s upcoming policy, at the government headquarters, would not now be tolerated here in the United States of America.

Thanks to almost zero media coverage, few of us know about a law passed this past March, severely limiting our right to protest. The silence may have been due to the lack of controversy in bringing the bill to law: Only three of our federal elected officials voted against the bill’s passage. Yes, Republicans and Democrats agreed on something almost 100%. 

We have lived through a number of protests, large and small, and if we are like most, we shrug because the protestors or their message is either irrelevant or objectionable to us, and does not affect us. This non-interest is the case even when some of the protestors and some of their messages are highly objectionable.

Recent example Number One are the military funeral protests by the Westboro Baptist Church. This very small, anti-gay group from Topeka, Kansas says that God is punishing the United States for accepting gay rights by killing US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. They protested at the funeral of Elizabeth Edwards, wife of former presidential candidate John Edwards, because she supported gay rights. Our Supreme Court upheld the rights of these bigots to continue their protests. We hated the opinion while we recognized its correctness.

The First Amendment to our Constitution guarantees us the rights of free speech and assembly. A fundamental purpose of our free speech guarantee is to invite dispute. Protests can and have been the catalyst for positive change. Thus while we despise that protestors can burn our flag as protected political speech, and we hate that Neo-Nazis can march down our streets, we recognize the rights of these groups to do what they do and we send our troops across the world to fight for these rights. 

Last year’s “occupy movement” scared the government. On March 8, President Obama signed a law that makes protesting more difficult and more criminal. The law is titled the Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act, and it passed unanimously in the Senate and with only three “no” votes in the House. It was called the “Trepass Bill” by Congress and the “anti-Occupy law” by everyone else who commented.

The law “improves” public grounds by forcing people - protestors - elsewhere. It amends an older law that made it a federal crime to “willfully and knowingly” enter a restricted space. Now you will be found guilty of this offense if you simply “knowingly” enter a restricted area, even if you did not know it was illegal to do so. The Department of Homeland Security can designate an event as one of “national significance,” making protests or demonstrations near the event illegal.

The law makes it punishable by up to ten years in jail to protest anywhere the Secret Service “is or will be temporarily visiting,” or anywhere they might be guarding someone.  Does the name Secret tell you anything about your chances of knowing where they are?  The law allows for conviction if you are “disorderly or disruptive,” or if you “impede or disrupt the orderly conduct of Government business or official functions.”  You can no longer heckle or “boo” at a political candidate’s speech, as that would be disruptive.

After you swallow all of this and correctly conclude that it is now very easy to be prosecuted for virtually any public protest, you should brace yourself and appreciate that it is even worse. Today, any event that is officially defined as a National Special Security Event has Secret Service protection. This can include sporting events and concerts. 

The timing of the law was not coincidental. The bill was presented to the Senate, after House passage, on November 17, 2011, during an intense nationwide effort to stop the Occupy Wall Street protests. Two days before, hundreds of New York police conducted a raid on the demonstrators’ encampment in Zucotti Park, shutting it down and placing barricades.

This law chips away our First Amendment rights. Its motivation is 100 percent politically based, as it was designed to silence those who would protest around politicians giving speeches. Both Republicans and Democrats agreed they did not want hecklers at their rallies. If you want to protest a politician speaking to a crowd now, you can do so maybe a half mile or so away.

We used to have a right of access to streets, sidewalks, and public parks to  engage in political discussion and protest. The government should be able to impose reasonable limits to ensure public order, but that power must have a limit; it must never be used to quell unpopular opinion or to discriminate against disfavored speakers.  Protestors must be allowed to be in the same place at the same time as the speaker they oppose. The presence of a Secret Service Agent (remember, how do we know they are there?) should not prevent us from lawfully, non-violently organizing and demonstrating against a cause or a speaker we disfavor. 

Write to Congress. Protest this anti-protest law.

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Rather than litigate we need to send these neo-liberals packing.  Anyone running as a democrat voting to end US citizen's ability to protest IS NOT A DEMOCRAT-----GET RID OF THEM BY RUNNING AND VOTING FOR LABOR AND JUSTICE!



Occupy and the Right to Protest Could litigation over the Occupy movement strengthen First Amendment rights for protesters?

Laura Bolt April 13, 2012   The Nation

On the morning of November 17, UC Davis students participating in a peaceful protest of rising tuition costs, in solidarity with the Occupy movement, were informed that they were to remove their tents from the quad on which they had been camping. The protesters had spent only one night there, but the university said the encampment was a health and safety violation. The students’ first instinct was to engage in a dialogue with the university; students requested that the administration cite the standards they were violating, but by that afternoon no details had been provided to them, so the students decided to continue to “occupy the quad.”

About the Author Laura Bolt Laura Bolt is an editorial intern at The Nation. A native of Washington, DC, she has written also for Washington City... That occupation, however, did not last long. At around 3 pm, police in riot gear arrived on campus, threatening to “shoot” students who refused to leave. As students were pulled up from the ground at random, their hands violently tied behind them, twenty-five students remained peacefully seated in the center of the quad. A crowd of onlookers began to accumulate. In a scene that would go viral, thanks to cell phone videos, officers stepped within a few feet of the seated protesters, shook cans of pepper spray—“like cans of aerosol paint,” according to the students’ complaint—and doused the protesters. UC Davis student David Buscho described the experience as “absurdly painful…we were in a state of collective shock.”

Now that the shock has worn off, nineteen of these students, supported by the ACLU of Northern California, are fighting back with a lawsuit filed against UC Davis administration and officials that alleges that its actions violated the students’ First Amendment rights. An attorney for the plaintiffs, Mark Merin, believes that the police had no right to get involved in the protest, asserting that the “right of general assembly is enshrined in the constitution and should not be interfered with by police.”

While the nineteen plaintiffs in this case are seeking compensatory and putative damages, the suit also asks for a statement from the court that the First Amendment rights of the protesters were violated, and that there be a serious effort to reform the campus practices that led to that violation. Merin believes campus policies should be revised to grant students an opportunity to appeal the decision if the university moves to quash protest.

Cases like this are not without precedence. In 1972, in the case of Jeanette Rankin Brigade v. Capitol Police, the Center for Constitutional Rights represented several Vietnam War protesters who had been arrested while demonstrating on Capitol grounds. CCR asserted that the federal statute under which they had been arrested, which prohibited congregating in a group in Capitol property, was unconstitutional. A district court, in a decision that was later affirmed by the Supreme Court, ruled the statute unconstitutional, stating that “it would be difficult to imagine a law that more plainly violates the principle that First Amendment freedoms need breathing space to exist.” In 2008, in the case of Kunstler v. City of New York, the New York Police Department awarded anti-war protesters $2 million after they filed suit for unlawful arrest and excessive detention, violating their First, Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights. Merin acknowledges that these are good precedents for the UC Davis case, signaling that free speech in general, and protests in particular-should be protected under the law.

The UC Davis case is just one in a series of recent lawsuits brought about by Occupy movement protesters asserting that their rights have been violated. Last October, protesters who where arrested while on the Brooklyn Bridge filed a civil rights complaint against the city, Mayor Bloomberg, and NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly, alleging that they were lured onto the bridge in order to be arrested. Two women who were pepper sprayed in a now-infamous episode involving NYPD officer Anthony Bolgona sued Bologna, the city and the NYPD in February. Just last week, two protesters who were arrested during an action against Merrill Lynch offices in Washington, DC, sued its Metropolitan Police Department for violating their First Amendment rights and accused them of false arrest. All of these cases are pending.

The stakes of this case go beyond the UC Davis campus. As the winter freeze on Occupy Wall Street begins to thaw, a victory for the UC students could have a major impact on upcoming protest opportunities, including the NATO Summit in Chicago, the Republican National Convention in Tampa and the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, all happening the coming months. As the OWS movement continues to inspire protests and strengthening of protest rights, these cities have already began enacting draconian anti-protest statutes. Unrealistic permits and insurance requirements, restrictions on banners and handheld items and the creation of specific “free speech zones” are all components of the anti-protest backlash these cities are experimenting with in anticipation of the demonstrations that will certainly be coming over the summer. While any decision the court makes in the UC Davis case would be unlikely to directly alter the anti-protest statutes that have already been passed, the implication for the climate of free speech and First Amendment laws in this country could be significant.

Michael Risher of the ACLU says that victories in these kinds of cases not only strengthen First Amendment rights, but also serve to assure people interested in demonstrating that their voice will be heard in a safe and respectful manner. He hopes the UC Davis suit will help to serve as a counterweight against the scenes of violence from protests around the country, which may frighten people away from protesting, as “self-censorship threatens the First Amendment.” Risher believes the UC Davis case will not only be an affirmative change how things work on the UC Davis campus but will also be a defensive move against “aggressors of the First Amendment” and make police think twice before employing violence.

Buscho, a senior at UC Davis, hopes that the case will achieve a “paradigm shift,” in which “society can see protesters and free speech as important to civil society.” He sees this moment as an opportunity to change public discourse about protests and solidify the notion that people engaging in peaceful protest should not be subject to police intervention and brutality. A recent Rasmussen report showed that 51 percent of likely voters view protesters as a “public nuisance,” a number that could perhaps fall if free speech rights were strengthened, thereby allowing protests to take place in a more civil manner.

Beyond a shift in public perception of protests, Baher Azmy, legal director for the Center for Constitutional Rights, hopes that cases like this will also effect change on an institutional level. He notes that there is an increasing level of police interaction with peaceful protesters in a more and more militaristic way. “There is a momentum to that kind of aggressive response,” he says, “unless litigation challenges that.” While it is not a perfect solution, Azmy notes that cases like the one at UC Davis, not only cost the aggressors money, but also generate publicity that could facilitate a deeper institutional change, in which police departments may alter how they train their officers.

The Center for Constitutional Rights has been part of this kind of change before, when they represented Democracy Now!’s Amy Goodman and two of her producers in suing the Minneapolis and St. Paul police departments, as well as the US Secret Service, based on their aggressive conduct during the 2008 Republican National Convention. The case, which was settled in October 2011, included not only $100,000 in compensation but also an agreement from the cities to train their police on First Amendment rights.

With these cases accumulating and publicity growing, Azmy believes that this kind of reform could even reach the police departments of Chicago, Tampa and Charlotte, before future lawsuits cost them time, money, and damaged reputations.

As protesters across the country stand (or sit) for what they believe in over the next few months, the UC Davis case could affect what kind of conditions they are met with. Right now, in Merin’s words, “when law enforcement gets involved you have no options—submit or be arrested.” If suits like this are successful and seep into public consciousness and police training, spaces where everyone has a voice would be more likely. 


0 Comments

September 24th, 2013

9/24/2013

0 Comments

 
Baltimore and Maryland teacher's unions should be front and center in organizing town halls on all these education policies.  Common Core and Race to the Top need to be included in these teacher's union public forums!


Do any Maryland residents know that this important process is happening regarding education? Who will be the one's that comment?



CODE OF MARYLAND REGULATIONS
TITLE 13A
STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION
OPPORTUNITY FOR PUBLIC COMMENT


In accordance with State Government Article, §§10-130—10-139, Annotated Code of Maryland, the Maryland State Department of Education is currently reviewing and evaluating the follow chapters of COMAR Title 13A:

Subtitle 01 STATE SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 13A.01.01 State Board of Education 13A.01.02 State Superintendent of Schools 13A.01.03 State Department of Education 13A.01.04 Public School Standards 13A.01.05 Appeals to the State Board of Education
Subtitle 02 LOCAL SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 13A.02.01 Local Boards of Education 13A.02.03 Local Administrative and Supervisory Staff 13A.02.04 Tobacco-Free School Environment 13A.02.05 Maintenance of Effort 13A.02.06 General Financial Aid to Local School Systems 13A.02.07 Annual Audits of Financial Statements and Federal Awards 13A.02.08 Recognition of Employee Organizations 13A.02.09 Closing of Schools
Subtitle 03 GENERAL INSTRUCTIONAL PROGRAMS 13A.03.01 Standards for Kindergarten Programs 13A.03.02 Graduation Requirements for Public High Schools in Maryland 13A.03.04 Test Administration and Data-Reporting Policies and Procedures 13A.03.05 Administration of Home and Hospital Teaching for Students
Subtitle 04 SPECIFIC SUBJECTS 13A.04.01 Programs in Technology Education 13A.04.02 Secondary School Career and Technology Education 13A.04.03 Driver Education Programs 13A.04.04 Religious Education 13A.04.05 Education That is Multicultural 13A.04.08 Program in Social Studies 13A.04.09 Program in Science 13A.04.10 Program of Instruction in the World of Work Competencies 13A.04.12 Program in Mathematics 13A.04.13 Program in Physical Education 13A.04.14 Program in English Language Arts 13A.04.16 Programs in Fine Arts
13A.04.19
Program in Cosmetology 13A.04.20 Program for Barbers
Subtitle 05 SPECIAL INSTRUCTIONAL PROGRAMS 13A.05.01 Provision of a Free Appropriate Public Education 13A.05.02 Administration of Services for Students with Disabilities 13A.05.03 Programs of Adult Education 13A.05.04 Programs for Library Media Services 13A.05.05 Programs of Pupil Services 13A.05.06 Programs for Migrant Education 13A.05.07 Programs for Non-English and Limited-English Proficient Students 13A.05.08 Approved Paid Work-Based Learning Programs 13A.05.09 Programs for Homeless Children 13A.05.10 Automated External Defibrillator Program in High Schools
Subtitle 06 SUPPORTING PROGRAMS 13A.06.01 Programs for Food and Nutrition 13A.06.02 Prekindergarten Programs 13A.06.05 School Supplies and Equipment 13A.06.06 Safety Equipment 13A.06.07 Student Transportation
Pursuant to the Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE) Work Plan submitted to and approved by the Joint Committee on Administrative, Executive, and Legislative Review, MSDE will evaluate the need to retain, amend, or repeal any provisions of these regulations based on whether they:
• Continue to be necessary for the public interest?
• Continue to be supported by statutory authority and judicial opinion?
• Are obsolete or other appropriate for amendment or repeal?
• Are effective in accomplishing their intended purpose?

The Maryland State Department of Education would like to provide interested parties with an opportunity to participate in the review and evaluation process by submitting comments on these regulations. The comments may address any concerns about the regulations. If the comments include suggested changes to the regulations, please be as specific as possible and provide language for the suggested changes.

Comments should be directed to Anthony L. South, Executive Director, Office of the State Board of Education, 200 West Baltimore Street, Baltimore, Maryland 21201-2595, by fax to 410-333-6033, or by e-mail to StateBoard@msde.state.md.us. Comments must be received by January 31, 2014.


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The only way this made national news was that a private individual at the meeting used her own video camera to film this incident and then released it to national press.  All of the local media present would have and some still are silent and would never have released this much information.

WE MUST DEMAND FREE MEDIA AND OPEN PUBLIC FORUMS IN ORDER TO RETURN TO A DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY!




Robert Small, Maryland Parent, Arrested At School Meeting After Questioning Common Core (VIDEO)

The Huffington Post  |  By Hunter Stuart Posted: 09/23/2013 2:39 pm EDT  |  Updated: 09/23/2013 3:09 pm EDT

A Maryland parent was thrown out of a school meeting and arrested after questioning a new state-led education standards initiative. He has been charged with assaulting a police officer and disrupting a school function and could go to jail for 10 years if convicted. Amateur video of the incident has gone viral online over the past few days.

"I want to know how many parents here are aware that the goal of Common Core standards isn't to prepare our children for full-fledged universities, it's to prepare them for community college," 46-year-old parent Robert Small shouted Thursday night during a school meeting between parents, teachers and administrators that was held by the Maryland State Department of Education in Towson, a suburb of Baltimore.

His interjection was greeted with applause.

Small, who has two kids in the area's public schools, went on to briefly explain his opposition to the Common Core, an education initiative incentivized by the federal government and designed to "establish a single set of clear educational standards for kindergarten through 12th grade [students]," according to the initiative's official website.

An off-duty Baltimore police officer moonlighting as a security guard arrived to escort Small from the meeting. When Small didn't immediately follow the officer, the officer yanked him forcefully toward the aisle, prompting gasps from the audience.

"Parents, take control," Small says as he is led out of the room. As the officer pulls out handcuffs, Small can be heard saying, "I'm not an activist, I'm a parent. I have a right to speak."

The meeting, which was held in order to explain the Common Core to parents, according to The Baltimore Sun, was conducted in a format where school administrators selected pre-submitted questions from parents.

Small is charged with two misdemeanors: assaulting an officer and disrupting a school function, Baltimore County Police told The Huffington Post over the phone Monday.

Although Small does not appear to be touching the officer in the video, the police report says he "continued to yell and pushed the officer" once the pair was out of view of the camera, Baltimore police spokesperson Elise Armacost told HuffPost. "That is the basis for the assault charge."

Small faces up to 10 years in jail for the assault charge alone.

When contacted by The Huffington Post, the Maryland State Department of Education declined to comment, saying the incident fell under the local police department's jurisdiction. The Baltimore County Department of Education did not respond to our request for comment.

________________________________________________


Cortly Witherspoon and Sharon Black arrested at City Hall Activists sought meeting with Rawlings-Blake about police brutality
Brew Editors August 6, 2012 at 10:49 pm

Rev. Cortly “C.D.” Witherspoon, outside Central Booking, after arrest at Baltimore City Hall.

Baltimore police arrested two longtime political activists today and charged them with trespassing after they tried unsuccessfully to deliver a letter – about the closing of recreation centers and fire stations and alleged police abuses – to Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake.

Rev. Cortly “C.D.” Witherspoon, president of the local chapter of the Southern Leadership Conference, and Sharon Black, an organizer with the Baltimore All Peoples Congress, had been leading an afternoon rally of about 75 people outside City Hall.

According to Baltimore photographer and videographer William Hughes, the two were arrested after they refused to leave City Hall:

“I was there for the whole rally, which began at 3 PM at the Shot Tower. Then, they marched to City Hall, past Police H/Q. I saw Sharon and CD, inside the City Hall. They were trying to get permission to go up the Mayor’s Office. They were allowed up to the office and met with a rep. I was back outside by then.”

Activist Sharon Black being escorted to Central Booking today after being arrested at City Hall for trespassing. (Photo by William Hughes)

The mayor declined to meet with them and they insisted, according to their phone messages to the crowd outside, on a personal meeting. When they refused to leave, they were arrested.

Organizers have been talking in recent weeks about the letter they planned to send to Rawlings-Blake demanding “an emergency meeting” to talk about police-involved shootings in Baltimore, among other issues.

Among the cases of alleged misconduct they cited today was that of David Yim, a disabled man shot by police in April, and Thomas Threatt, whose beating during an east Baltimore jobs protest was captured on video.

_____________________________________________

Maryland totally ignores Public meeting laws and as we see above want to eliminate even public comment at public forums.

Look at the law that gives a few hundred dollars in fine and public shaming.  These neo-liberals laugh at being outed at City Hall for illegal behavior so this is nothing.  Do you know that in Baltimore if you are late in paying 3 parking tickets the police will tow your car and fees will add up to hundreds of dollars?  Fines of over a thousand for standing up to shout out at a public meeting?

THIS IS BREAKING THE LAW......


Bill would toughen Maryland Open Meetings law enforcementMeasure would require fines, public shaming for improper meetings


April 13, 2013|By Erin Cox, The Baltimore Sun

New laws passed by the Maryland General Assembly late last week would put stricter penalties and an element of public shaming behind the state's open-meetings laws.

State lawmakers said public officials have been able to flout the rules without significant consequences.

"It has no enforcement whatsoever," said Del. Dan Morhaim, a Baltimore County Democrat who sponsored the bill to toughen open-meetings laws. "This is the first bill that actually creates some enforcement."

Maryland's public officials are barred from conducting public business behind closed doors, but the penalties for doing so in the past have been a rarely levied fine and a written notice that Morhaim said was often ignored.

The bill came out of a series of hearings this summer, during which a committee of state lawmakers found that sometimes officials take a written advisory about violations from the Open Meetings Compliance Board and "just throw it away."

Raquel Guillory, a spokeswoman for Gov. Martin O'Malley, said he is reviewing the bill.


The measure would increase fines for breaking the open-meetings law from $100 to $250. It would also require a public body to announce at its next meeting that the compliance board found it had broken the law. Each member of the group that violated the law would have to sign a statement acknowledging the misconduct.

Morhaim said he drafted the legislation before two Maryland institutions were separately accused last year of holding illegal meetings.

In one incident, the University System of Maryland's board signed off on the University of Maryland, College Park's move to the Big Ten Conference. In another, the Morgan State University Board of Regents voted to terminate the school president's contract — a decision it later reversed.

A Morgan spokesman has said school officials do not believe the vote violated the law. University System of Maryland officials acknowledged the breach but said that the group was "confused" and "overlooked" the law.

Those cases "drew a lot of attention to the fact that there are no teeth to our open-meetings laws," said Common Cause Maryland's executive director, Jennifer Bevan-Dangel.

Another bill passed by the legislature would require public officials to be trained on how to follow the open-meetings law.

That measure, introduced by Republican Del. Anthony O'Donnell, was praised by Common Cause and other watchdog groups.

"If citizens can't see the decisions that are made, they can't hold their elected officials accountable," Bevan-Dangel said. "And then voters can't make educated decisions at the polls if they don't know what their elected officials are doing."



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    Cindy Walsh is a lifelong political activist and academic living in Baltimore, Maryland.

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