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YouTube - Domestic Workers United Rally For Bill Of Rights in NYC 4/26/09 - 0 views

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    Every day, 200,000 domestic workers in New York, mostly women of color, make it possible for others to work. But these nannies, elderly caregivers, and housekeepers are excluded from the most basic labor laws (including the National Labor Relations Act), and isolated with no power or leverage to negotiate. They endure long hours, low wages and sometimes emotional and physical abuse. New York State is considering historic legislation that would provide protections to domestic workers for the first time! The New York Domestic Workers Bill of Rights is the first of its kind nationally and will set a precedent for labor standards for domestic workers around the country Stand with domestic workers by calling Albany legislators to help pass the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights! Call Speaker of the Assembly Sheldon Silver at (518)-455-3791 and Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith at (518)-455-2701 and say: "My name is __________, and I live in ___________ New York. I'm calling to urge you to help pass the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights Bill numbers A1470/S2311 this legislative session. Tomorrow, hundreds of domestic workers and their supporters will come to Albany for a day of action and education. Please work with them to move the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights to the floor for a vote." Then find your own representatives and let them know you want them to support the Bill of Rights: http://assembly.state.ny.us/mem/ http://www.senate.state.ny.us/senateh... In the wake of the economic crisis, the conditions facing domestic workers have worsened. Facing alarming rates of lay-offs, cut wages and extended hours, without notice, severance pay or any safety net, now more than ever - domestic workers need the Bill of Rights. For 5 years, domestic workers have come together across communities to organize for dignity and respect, and demand the passage of a Domestic Workers Bill of Rights in New York State, which would include: * Notice of termination * Severance pay, sick
The Ravine / Joseph Dunphy

Sources: U.S. widens probe of Chicago police torture - Chicago Breaking News - 0 views

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    The investigation reported is one of those connected to Burges. Do you notice ... 1. That the authorites are just looking into the members of Burge's crowd, as if they were the only problem on the CPD. Please. Dealing with these thugs is a nice start, but it's only a start. One is left wondering, though, if this is where it will end. 2. That this wasn't exactly late breaking news or unknown in Chicago - the Reader did a series of articles on these fun, fun people back in the 90s, and word had hit the street long before then. Why wasn't anybody looking into this, then? That last question being rhetorical, of course, for reasons I'll get to, in a second. 3. That the human rights abuses mentioned took place during the 1980s, meaning that prosecution has been stalled for so long that, even if caught, most of the offenders will escape justice. 4. When, some years back, I and a few other demonstrators were on the street in Chicago, trying to raise a little consciousness about the issues surrounding the death penalty in Illinois, mentioning this very case, there's a reaction to which we became accustomed. The man on the street seeing absolutely nothing wrong with torturing confessions out of those accused of crimes. This is why, below, you see me suggesting that I was not surprised to see popular acceptance of the Bush administration's lavish use of torture. As a society, we had been there before, and hadn't seemed to be in any great hurry to get anywhere better.
thinkahol *

FDL Book Salon Welcomes Lawrence Lessig, Republic, Lost: A Declaration for Independence... - 0 views

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    If, as Lessig conclusively demonstrates, Congress is indifferent to the will of the people and to democratic debate - because it has been captured by monied interests to whose interests it exclusively attends - then the people lose the ability to affect what government does in any realm. It doesn't make much difference which problem you believe is most pressing: this is the dynamic that lies at the heart of it. Inaction on climate issues is due to the power of polluters and energy companies; the power of the private health insurance industry blocks fundamental health-care reform; endless war and civil liberties abuses are sustained by the power of the surveillance and National Security State industries; and a failure to achieve real Wall Street reform is due to the fact that, as Sen. Dick Durbin amazingly acknowledged about the institution in which he serves, "the banks frankly own the place." Without finding an effective way to address that overarching problem, the only recourse for citizens becomes either passive acceptance of their powerlessness (i.e., apathy and withdrawal) or disruption and unrest fomented outside of the electoral system (the driving ethos of OccupyWallStreet).
thinkahol *

FDL Book Salon Welcomes Bruce Fein, American Empire Before the Fall | Book Salon - 0 views

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    There's no doubting the conservative bona fides of Bruce Fein. A high-level Justice Department lawyer in the Reagan administration in the 1980s and previously a resident scholar with the Heritage Foundation, he is a long-time advocate for uncompromising right-wing political principles. Yet paradoxically, Fein has been, and remains, one of the most eloquent and incisive political voices over the last decade. He was one of the earliest and most emphatic critics of Bush and Cheney's radical abuses of executive power. Two weeks after The New York Times revealed in December, 2005, that Bush had ordered the NSA to illegally eavesdrop on Americans without the warrants required by law, Fein used his column in the right-wing Washington Times to warn that "Mr. Bush has adamantly refused to acknowledge any constitutional limitations on his power to wage war indefinitely"; to scorn as "war powers nonsense" the theories assembled "to defend Mr.
thinkahol *

The Tory/Lib-Dem Government endorses actual change - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com - 0 views

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    Over the past couple years, I've written numerous times about the serious left-right coalition that had emerged in Britain -- between the Tories and Liberal Democrats -- in opposition to the Labour Government's civil liberties abuses, many (thought not all) of which were justified by Terrorism. In June of 2008, David Davis, a leading Tory MP, resigned from Parliament in protest of the Government's efforts to expand its power of preventive detention to 42 days (and was then overwhelmingly re-elected on a general platform of opposing growing surveillance and detention authorities). Numerous leading figures from both the Right and Left defied their party's establishment to speak out in support of Davis and against the Government's growing powers. Back then, the Liberal Democrats' Leader, Nick Clegg, notably praised the right-wing Davis' resignation, and to show his support for Davis' positions, Clegg even refused to run a Lib Dem candidate for that seat because, as he put it, "some issues 'go beyond party politics'."
The Ravine / Joseph Dunphy

Op-Ed Columnist - Forgive and Forget? - NYTimes.com - 0 views

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    Paul Krugman says something about Obama's statement that there would be no widespread investigation of Bush administration abuses that should be common sense, but sadly isn't, and so badly needs to be said. Found on Furl.
The Ravine / Joseph Dunphy

Cop gone wild- Lying and making threats just part of his job - 0 views

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    Another police officer who didn't know he was being taped.
Skeptical Debunker

Time for Democrats to take a risk - CNN.com - 0 views

  • Reconciliation was created through the Budget Reform Act of 1974 in an effort to streamline the budget process, strengthen the ability of Congress to make tough decisions regarding deficits, and to make legislative decision-making more efficient. Congress quickly expanded on the types of measures that could be considered under reconciliation until 1985 and 1986, when the Senate passed rules proposed by Sen. Robert Byrd that limited what could or could not be included when using this process. Before moving forward, Democrats must consider two questions. The first is whether using reconciliation to pass health care is legitimate or an abuse of the process. Republicans have charged that this would be akin to forcing the program through the chamber rather than passing the bill through negotiation and compromise. On this question, the answer is easy. Reconciliation has been as much a part of the Senate in the past three decades as the filibuster. According to an article that was published in The New Republic, Congress passed 22 reconciliation bills between 1980 and 2008. Many important policy changes were enacted through this process, including the Children's Health Insurance Program, COBRA (which allows people who switch jobs to keep their health care), student aid reform, expansions in Medicaid and several major tax cuts. NPR's Julie Rovner reported that most of the health care reforms enacted in the past two decades have gone through reconciliation. President Ronald Reagan was one of the first presidents to make aggressive use of reconciliation when he pushed through his economic program in 1981. Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker said then that speed had been essential because "Every day that this is delayed makes it more difficult to pass. This is an extraordinary proposal, and these are extraordinary times." Presidents Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush all used reconciliation as well. It is worth noting that these presidents, particularly George W. Bush, also made use of sweeping executive power to circumvent Congress altogether. The second question is more difficult and it involves perceptions. If the Democratic leadership wants to use this tactic, they have to convince enough members of their own party that this won't scare off independent voters. This argument was harder to make in 2009 than in 2010. But after a year of dealing with paralysis in the Senate and highly effective Republican obstruction, more Democrats are coming on board. The leadership must be proactive in responding to the criticism about reconciliation. They will have to explain that reconciliation is a legitimate process by pointing to the history. They will also have to connect the dots for voters frustrated with the ineffective government by explaining that the constant use of the filibuster has turned the Senate into a supermajority institution where both parties have found it extraordinarily difficult -- virtually impossible -- to pass major legislation.On this point, Republicans and Democrats actually agree. Indeed, as Democrats make this decision, Kentucky Republican Senator Jim Bunning is objecting to a unanimous consent order and single-handedly preventing the Senate from passing an important bill to assist unemployed workers.
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    After the Republicans and Democrats met at the White House summit on health care, it was clear that the parties are very far away from a bipartisan agreement. Indeed, few participants walked away with the sense that they were any closer to a deal. The White House did make clear that it was willing to move forward on health care without Republican support. The choice now becomes whether Democrats should use the budget reconciliation process to pass some parts of health care legislation. According to recent reports, Democrats are considering having the House pass the bill that was already approved in the Senate and then dealing with a package of additional reforms through reconciliation.
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    Get that? The current "god" of conservatism - Ronald Reagan - used reconciliation aggressively. So if it was good enough for him ...
The Ravine / Joseph Dunphy

Boston Globe Online / Nation | World / Man detained six hours for carrying blade - 0 views

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    Stories we shouldn't forget ... a few days after 9/11, a traditional sikh from Virginia is arrested for ... dressing like a traditional sikh. Quoting ... "At the police station, Singh was fingerprinted, strip searched, and photographed, and he said that instead of interrogating him, the police asked him questions like 'Why do you look like this?'" Racism, diluted by little other than cultural intolerance.
The Ravine / Joseph Dunphy

The MTTLR Blog: Taking Down a Bully, But Taking the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act Too Far? - 0 views

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    Criticism of the decision in the Lori Drew case.
The Ravine / Joseph Dunphy

Democracy Now! | Chicago's Abu Ghraib: UN Committee Against Torture Hears Report on How... - 0 views

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    Another post about the Burges case in Chicago.
The Ravine / Joseph Dunphy

JUSTICE: Ex-Chicago cop Burge arrested in torture cases | Chicago Cop Watch - 0 views

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    See previous bookmark on my profile. Jon Burges, who has been found to have "solved crimes" by having suspects tortured into confessing, tripped across the law against perjuring oneself on the stand. What a shame. :)
The Ravine / Joseph Dunphy

Human Rights at Home: The Chicago Police Torture Archive - 0 views

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    Chicago's "finest", hard at work.
The Ravine / Joseph Dunphy

Epilepsy Fdn.-Michigan Man Arrested During Seizure - 0 views

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    Another great moment in modern American law enforcement. Man gets bludgeoned and tasered by the police for having an epileptic seizure.
The Ravine / Joseph Dunphy

Washington Times - The 'Orwellian' Bush administration - 0 views

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    About the Bush administration's attack on separation of powers
thinkahol *

"The Legacy of Bin Laden" by Immortal Technique | XXLMAG.COM - 0 views

  • However, if national security means protecting the abuse of power and the negligence of authority, then it is not the security of a nation that is being protected, but the indulgences of the corrupt.
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    The rapper takes an insightful look at what the news of Osama Bin Laden's death means for the U.S. now and from a historical perspective in this critical breakdown…
The Ravine / Joseph Dunphy

Truthdig - Truthdig Podcast - You Have No Rights - 0 views

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    What was becoming of civil liberties during the recently departed Bush administration. Doesn't address the uncomfortable question of whether this is a continuation of trends seen during the Clinton administration.
Michael Haltman

Compromising the integrity of the Constitution by those who feel they can (Video) - Nat... - 0 views

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    Who will protect the Constitution?
The Ravine / Joseph Dunphy

Neal Rodriguez: BART Cop Needs to Be Held without Bail - 0 views

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    More about the young man who was shot and killed while face down on the pavement, "execution style", as the author says, by a transit cop on BART, the San Francisco Bay Area's rapid transit system. Perhaps I'm missing something, but weren't the police supposed to be enforcing the laws, including the one against murder?
The Ravine / Joseph Dunphy

Is Your Boss a Psychopath? | Fast Company - 0 views

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    You've long suspected, and now somebody thinks he knows. If he's right, what does that say about lassez faire?
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