Meet the Two-Story, Top Hat Wearing, Cigar-Chomping Inflatable Pig
WNYC - December 4, 2013, by Stephen Nessen - Across New York City, small groups of pro-union activists, supporting various causes, are holding flash demonstrations. What they have in common is a...
WNYC - December 4, 2013, by Stephen Nessen - Across New York City, small groups of pro-union activists, supporting various causes, are holding flash demonstrations. What they have in common is a belief that the pro-labor momentum that began with Bill de Blasio’s election will lead to higher wages for workers and a union-friendly administration.
Customers sipping coffee and reading the paper at the Grand Café, outside of Grand Central Terminal had their quiet morning smashed by a dozen protesters and the Rude Mechanical Orchestra marching band. They claimed four workers were unfairly fired for organizing.
Over at the High Line, where condos can sell for millions of dollars, another labor group that represents building workers, unfurled a banner that read: "High Line Living, Low Wage Workers," in front of a building they say pays its workers a starting wage of $13.37 an hour.
And on the Upper East side, protesters inflated a nearly 2-story, bloated, top-hat-wearing, cigar chomping pig outside the home of Cablevision director Vincent Tese. They complained about Cablevision's alleged anti-union busting tactics.
Buoyed by Bill de Blasio’s narrative about income inequality in the city , protesters claim on their website that “The sun is setting on a city run by the and for the 1 percent.
While protests are planned for the rest of the week, any changes that might happen will have to wait until after the new mayor takes office in January.
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Will Maria response energize CT Puerto Rican voters?
A year after Hurricane Maria ravaged Puerto Rico, there is a debate about whether the storm has created political winds that will prompt Connecticut’s Puerto Ricans to shed their reputation as...
A year after Hurricane Maria ravaged Puerto Rico, there is a debate about whether the storm has created political winds that will prompt Connecticut’s Puerto Ricans to shed their reputation as unlikely voters.
Read the full article here.
Protesters Demand a Voice in Selection of Next President of Philadelphia ‘Fed’
CBS Philly - December 15, 2014, by Steve Tawa - Just as the Federal Reserve is about to hold a key policy meeting in Washington, DC, a group of activists is calling for a more transparent process...
CBS Philly - December 15, 2014, by Steve Tawa - Just as the Federal Reserve is about to hold a key policy meeting in Washington, DC, a group of activists is calling for a more transparent process to replace Charles Plosser, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
The group, which staged a march this morning from Independence Hall to the Federal Reserve at Sixth and Arch Streets, says the Fed’s replacement process is dominated by major financial firms and corporations.
Members of Action United, the Philadelphia Unemployment Project, and Pennsylvania Working Families say there are no community, labor, or consumer representatives on the board of directors of the Philadelphia Fed, so working folks are shut out of the process.
They are part of a grass-roots coalition across the country that met last month with Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen, demanding that the central bank hear the concerns of ordinary Americans as it prepares to raise interest rates.
Who are those ordinary Americans?
“The unemployed, the underemployed, the working and barely-working working class,” says Kendra Brooks of Action United.
“We just need some people at the Fed to step up and pay attention to us,” adds Chris Campbell (far right in photo), a graduate of Orleans Technical Institute who has been doing multiple odd jobs to scrape together income.
Dawn Walton, who had been one day away from becoming a permanent worker with benefits at a local auto dealership when she was laid off after 89 days, said, “And now (we’re) out here pounding the pavement with millions of other people. It looks like there’s no way out.”
While the unemployment rate has declined to a six-year low, the activists challenge the Fed to visit poorer neighborhoods in Philadelphia and elsewhere before raising rates, because many are not experiencing a recovery.
Plosser, the Philadelphia Fed president since 2006, was among those known as a “hawk” for casting dissenting votes against the Fed’s prolonged low-rates policies.
The Philadelphia Fed says it is following a process for the selection of the bank’s next president outlined by Congress, and its senior executives have met with representatives of groups who have expressed interest in the process.
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Advocates Demand More Money for Opioid Crisis
Today, advocates for expanded funding to address opioid misuse will take to the Capitol to push Congress for $45 billion for treatment and overdose prevention. While President Donald Trump...
Today, advocates for expanded funding to address opioid misuse will take to the Capitol to push Congress for $45 billion for treatment and overdose prevention. While President Donald Trump declared the opioid epidemic a federal public health emergency last month, his administration hasn’t asked for additional money to help states address the crisis, and Congress hasn’t made any moves or come up with its own emergency authorization, either.
Read the full article here.
Health Care Activists Protest at Senator's Offices in the Capitol - Photo
Health Care Activists Protest at Senator's Offices in the Capitol - Photo
Activists protest against the Republican health care repeal-and-replace legislation at U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz's office in the Russell Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill July 19, 2017 in Washington...
Activists protest against the Republican health care repeal-and-replace legislation at U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz's office in the Russell Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill July 19, 2017 in Washington, DC. Organized by the Center for Popular Democracy, Housing Works, National Nurses United and other organizations, dozens of people were arrested for protesting against the GOP attempts to end Obamacare.
See the photo here.
Charter School Oversight Lacking, Report Says
Epoch Times - May 18, 2014, by Petr Svab - Due to poor oversight charter schools lost over $100 million to waste, fraud, and abuse over the past 20 years, according to a report by two anti-charter...
Epoch Times - May 18, 2014, by Petr Svab - Due to poor oversight charter schools lost over $100 million to waste, fraud, and abuse over the past 20 years, according to a report by two anti-charter non-profits.
The $100 million cited by the report is an aggregation of audit and prosecution results on local, state, and federal levels.
The Center for Popular Democracy, and Integrity in Education, are both relatively new organizations, formed in 2012 and 2014 respectively. Both have a track record of opposing charter schools.
Charter schools are publicly funded but privately run. They operate under “charters” issued for five years that require them to measure up to goals the schools set, including academic goals.
The federal Department of Education’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) stated in 2010 that local agencies issuing the charters “often fail to provide adequate oversight needed to ensure that Federal funds are properly used and accounted for.”
There are three such agencies in New York State: State University of New York, Board of Regents, and the New York City Department of Education. None of them responded to an immediate request for comment.
Between January 2005 and September 2013 the OIG opened 62 charter school investigations, resulting in 40 indictments and 26 convictions of charter school officials.
New York did relatively well. The report cites only two cases of fraud or mismanagement. One dealt with the East New York Preparatory Charter School in Brooklyn. It was ordered to close in 2010 after revelations that the school’s founder named herself a superintendent and gave herself a $60,000 raise.
Another school mentioned was the Niagara Charter School in Buffalo, where the State Education Department found “pervasive appearance of financial mismanagement and less-than ethical behavior,” including spending on plane tickets, restaurant meals, and alcohol, and over $100,000 spent on no-bid consulting contracts.
With the charter school sector growing, the report argues that charter-issuing organizations often lack the resources to do proper oversight. Just last year, over 600 charter schools opened across the nation. There are an estimated 6,400 charter schools enrolling over 2.5 million students, according to the report.
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Superdelegate system to come under fire at Democratic National Convention
Superdelegate system to come under fire at Democratic National Convention
Top progressive groups — including MoveOn and the Daily Kos — are taking on the Democratic establishment’s “undemocratic” superdelegate system in a fight that threatens to disrupt the party’s...
Top progressive groups — including MoveOn and the Daily Kos — are taking on the Democratic establishment’s “undemocratic” superdelegate system in a fight that threatens to disrupt the party’s national convention next week in Philadelphia.
A coalition of 14 left-wing organizations announced Thursday that 50 members of the DNC Rules Committee have co-sponsored an amendment filed shortly before midnight Thursday to end the practice of awarding superdelegate status to top officials, lawmakers and other insiders.
The proposal threatens to force the party’s hand on an issue that has dogged Democrats throughout the primary season, driven by supporters of Sen. Bernard Sanders, Hillary Clinton’s chief rival for the presidential nomination.
Leading the fight is Rhode Island state Rep. Aaron Regunberg, a member of the DNC Rules Committee, who said Thursday that the campaign to reform the system is “catching fire.”
“Superdelegates disempower voters, they are less diverse than our overall delegates, and they are wildly unpopular,” Mr. Regunberg said in a statement. “The time has come to end the archaic and undemocratic superdelegate system once and for all — and that starts Saturday in Philadelphia.”
The skirmish has the potential to sully the image of party unity that Democrats hope to convey in contrast to the infighting that has characterized the Republican National Convention, which wrapped up Thursday night.
The Democrats will gather Monday through Thursday at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia.
Mrs. Clinton’s commanding lead with superdelegates was a sore point throughout the primary race with Sanders voters, who accused the Democratic establishment of using superdelegates to tip the scales for the former secretary of state.
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, has defended the system, which was instituted in 1982 to serve as a moderating influence on the presidential nominating process after disastrous defeats in 1972 and 1980.
The congresswoman from Florida has argued that the 712 superdelegates, who make up about 15 percent of total delegates, are free to change their minds about candidates and that the setup improves the convention’s racial balance.
The Congressional Black Caucus is staunchly opposed to abolishing the system, arguing in a letter last month to party leaders that the practice allows elected officials to avoid the “burdensome necessity of competing against constituents” for slots.
Even so, critics of superdelegates insist that the preference system benefits white men. A Pew Research Center study released May 5 found that 58 percent of this year’s Democratic superdelegates are men and 62 percent are white, while only 20 percent are black and 11 percent are Hispanic.
“We have always been the party of the hard-working, the voiceless, and the downtrodden; but by upholding the special privileges of superdelegates, we are betraying the people we fight for to service an unjust, archaic, and anti-democratic institution,” Maine state Rep. Diane Russell said in a statement.
Despite their egalitarian image, Democrats have far more superdelegates than do Republicans. The Republican Party’s 168 superdelegates, about 7 percent of the total, are bound to vote in accordance with the majority of delegates in their states.
The Associated Press estimates that 602 superdelegates have thrown their support behind Mrs. Clinton, compared with 48 for Mr. Sanders. Mrs. Clinton also has 2,205 pledged delegates for a total of 2,807, more than the 2,383 needed to secure the presidential nomination.
Organizers said the proposed amendment has won support from backers of both Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Sanders. Other leading Democrats who have expressed support for reform include House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.
One reason: The measure is not retroactive, meaning it will not affect the outcome of this year’s contest.
The 50 members co-sponsoring the amendment represent more than 25 percent of the 187-member committee, a critical threshold under the rules.
If at least 25 percent of those members follow up by voting Saturday in favor of the amendment, the panel will be required to issue a “minority report” and bring the issue to the convention floor, organizers said.
A letter to the Democratic National Committee posted this week on the EndSuperdelegates.com website gathered nearly 125,000 signatures in less than 48 hours in support of reform.
“The superdelegate system is unrepresentative, contradicts the purported values of the party and its members, and reduces the party’s moral authority,” said the letter.
The 14 groups involved in the campaign are Courage Campaign, Credo, Daily Kos, Demand Progress, Democracy for America, the Center for Popular Democracy, MoveOn, National Nurses United, NDN, The Other 98%, Presente.org, Progressive Change Campaign Committee, Progressive Democrats of America, and Social Security Works.
By VALERIE RICHARDSON
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Progressive Activists Protest For A Cause You Should Hear More About, But Won't
More than a dozen community activists picketed the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia this week,...
More than a dozen community activists picketed the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia this week, protesting what they say is the bank president’s refusal to meet with them to discuss how Fed monetary policy affects real people.
The roughly 15 activists are members of ACTION United, an organization representing low-income people of color in Philadelphia. ACTION United is affiliated with the national Fed Up campaign, a coalition of progressive groups advocating Fed monetary policies that prioritize full employment and shared economic prosperity.
Fed Up and ACTION United planned Tuesday's protest because they say that Philadelphia Fed President Patrick Harker reneged on a promise to meet, and allow group members to give him a tour of low-income neighborhoods where they are active. The activists point to a video in which Harker appears to commit to the meeting in a conversation with ACTION United organizer Kendra Brooks at the annual Jackson Hole symposium in August.
When Brooks followed up, Theresa Singleton, the Philadelphia Fed’s vice president and community affairs officer, said in an email obtained by HuffPost that a meeting was not in the cards, because the bank is reluctant to work with “just one organization."
Instead, Singleton invited Brooks to Tuesday’s community development briefing for low- and moderate-income community stakeholders. Singleton also said Fed staff would “design and organize” their own community tour.
That response rankled Fed Up and ACTION United members. The Federal Reserve has a dozen regional banks, and the activists have met or have planned meetings with all of the regional Fed leaders except Philadelphia's since the campaign began in August 2014. They want a meeting -- and they want it to take place in an economically distressed community of color -- not in the Fed’s offices.
So they decided to pressure the Philadelphia Fed with a protest, featuring Fed Up’s trademark “What recovery?” signs and green "Whose Recovery?" T-shirts.
ACTION United also sent Brooks to the community development briefing, where she and several nonprofit executives and bankers who work with low- and moderate-income earners spoke with Harker and Singleton.
Brooks said she was mostly pleased with what she heard from Harker and other Fed officials, who she said sounded genuinely committed to researching the conditions in communities the Fed serves and finding ways to improve “economic autonomy” in the Philadelphia region.
“The outcome of the meeting was much better than we anticipated, but going in, we did not know the information that we knew coming out.” Brooks said. “We hope he will continue to keep the doors open for organizations like ours and our coalition. And that we will continue to be a part of that conversation and not excluded.”
But Brooks noted that the Fed officials did not discuss how monetary policy and the Fed’s adjustment of interest rates disproportionately affects low-income workers and communities of color.
For the Fed Up campaign, the exclusion of monetary policy reaffirms that nothing short of a meeting between Harker and activists will suffice.
“We appreciate and accept the invitation to discuss community development and research, but this is not a substitute for the promise President Harker made to Fed Up,” said Shawn Sebastian, a policy advocate and staff attorney for the Fed Up campaign. “President Harker promised to speak with working families in the black neighborhoods of Philadelphia about their experiences -- where unemployment is double white unemployment. Harker promised to discuss how his monetary policy decisions can build a true full employment economy that works for everyone.”
Philadelphia Fed spokeswoman Marilyn Wimp, in an email to HuffPost, didn't address a question about whether Harker reneged on his promise to meet with protesters. She instead pointed to Tuesday's briefing as evidence of Harker's interest in reaching out to diverse parts of the community.
But the list of the Tuesday briefing’s attendees reveals that Brooks was the only stakeholder from a group with a position on Fed interest rates.
Crafting monetary policy is a main responsibility of the Federal Reserve regional banks. Regional Fed presidents occupy five of the 12 seats on the Federal Open Market Committee, responsible for adjusting the Fed’s benchmark interest rates. Lately, they have accounted for half of the committee’s votes, because the Senate has failed to approve presidential nominees for two of the seven seats reserved for members of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors in Washington.
The FOMC keeps its benchmark interest rates low when it is more concerned about full employment, and raises them to curb excessive inflation when the economy has grown enough to drive up prices.
Fed Up wants the central bank to maintain current low interest rates for the near term, which will allow economic demand to continue to grow, benefitting workers with more jobs and higher wages. The campaign applauded the Fed’s decision to leave rates unchanged in September.
But Fed Up leaders said they're worried about the Philadelphia Fed and the role its president may play in future monetary policy decisions. The Philadelphia region's previous Fed president, Charles Plosser, who left the post in March, was an outspoken inflation hawk.
Harker, who will serve a one-year term on the FOMC in 2017, was a member of the Philadelphia Fed board’s search committee for a new president, recusing himself once he became a candidate.
Harker’s views on monetary policy are not yet known. He is a former trustee of the Goldman Sachs Trust, which Sebastian and other Fed Up critics said they worry will make him more sympathetic to financial institutions' concerns about inflation.
Source: Huffington Post
Tobacco giant pours $10 million into effort to defeat Colorado tax increase on its products
Tobacco giant pours $10 million into effort to defeat Colorado tax increase on its products
Gary Kubiak taken to the hospital after Broncos’ loss to Atlanta in Denver
Broncos defense toppled after Falcons finally find a made-to-order blueprint to beat them
Ask Amy: Sisters...
Gary Kubiak taken to the hospital after Broncos’ loss to Atlanta in Denver
Broncos defense toppled after Falcons finally find a made-to-order blueprint to beat them
Ask Amy: Sisters’ maternal support affects relationship
Nixon-era proposal to give “basic income” to all people springs back to life
Poll: Should Colorado voters pass medical aid in dying?
Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump trade charges, insults in second presidential debate
Nearly $35 million has been poured into Colorado’s statewide ballot initiatives so far this year, according to campaign finance reports filed this week, with a tobacco giant accounting for $10 million of that in its effort to defeat a tax increase on its products.
Combined with $1.7 million collected by proponents of the tobacco tax, which would fund various health-related initiatives, that makes Amendment 72 the most costly race so far at $11.7 million. The medical aid-in-dying measure, Proposition 106, has been a distant second at $6.6 million with proponents raising $4.8 million and opponents gathering $1.8 million.
SEPTEMBER 29, 2016 Hickenlooper endorses higher minimum wage, aid in dying, cigarette tax
SEPTEMBER 23, 2016 9 statewide ballot initiatives you’ll see on Election Day
Still, it could have been more. Much, much more.
“There are a number of intense fights, but this year will be known for what’s not on the ballot, what might have been if TABOR, fracking and wine-and-beer had gone forward,” said independent political analyst Eric Sondermann, noting that the three contentious issues could easily have doubled or tripled what has been raised so far. “Television would be truly unwatchable.”
Some fundraising snapshots:
Amendment 69
Proponents of the effort to create a state-run health care system, dubbed ColoradoCare, have raised their money — $369,233 so far — almost entirely by relatively small donations, many under $100. The opposition’s $4 million has attracted six-figure support from health care players like HealthONE and Centura Health, as well as the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce.
2016 COLORADO BALLOT MEASURES
• Amendment 69: ColoradoCare
• Amendment 70: Minimum Wage
• Amendment 71: Constitutional changes
• Amendment 72: Cigarette taxes
• Proposition 106: Aid-in-dying
• Proposition 107: Presidential primaries
• Proposition 108: Unaffiliated voters
• Amendment T: Slavery reference
• Amendment U: Property taxes
• Ballot Issue 4B: Arts funding
Amendment 70
Substantial chunks of the $3.1 million for the measure that would raise the state’s minimum wage — an effort that has surfaced in various forms across the country — come from national groups such as the New York-based Center for Popular Democracy Action Fund, which has given $650,000, and unions such as Service Employees International Union, which has given $250,000. Opponents have raised considerably less, with many contributors coming from the restaurant industry. But their effort also has attracted out-of-state donors such as the anti-“Big Labor” Workforce Fairness Institute, which gave $250,000.
Amendment 71
A political Who’s Who of interests has coalesced around the attempt, dubbed Raise the Bar, to make amending the state constitution much more difficult. But some energy industry players stand out. Protecting Colorado’s Environment, Economy, and Energy Independence, an oil-and-gas financed group that amassed millions of dollars anticipating a battle over proposed fracking measures that failed to make the ballot, instead has poured $2 million into the measure so far. Vital for Colorado, a coalition of business interests that advocates for oil and gas development, along with the Colorado Petroleum Council and Whiting Petroleum Corp., have combined for nearly another $1 million.
Campaign finance reports for the three committees listed as opposing the initiative have reported only about $1,000 in contributions.
Amendment 72
Fundraising for the effort to pass the tobacco tax has delivered $1.7 million in several five- and six-figure chunks from health care entities such as Children’s Hospital Colorado and the American Heart Association, while University of Colorado Health and University Physicians, Inc. have led the way with $250,000 each. Opposition — in two $5 million donations — comes from Virginia-based Altria Client Services and its affiliates, part of the group that owns Philip Morris.
“The fact that they’re investing and now reinvesting, they see some glimmer of opportunity or they’d not be playing at that magnitude,” Sondermann said. “That said, they remain underdogs — though big-money underdogs.”
Proposition 106
Proponents of the medical aid-in-dying initiative have a substantial edge, with nearly all of their funding coming from the Compassion and Choices Action Network, a Denver-based but nationally active organization that works to protect and expand end-of-life options. Leading the largely faith-based opposition to the proposition is the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Denver, which has contributed $1.115 million, while dioceses across the country have pitched in to varying degrees. In the latest reporting cycle, the Colorado Springs archdiocese contributed $500,000.
Propositions 107 and 108
The measures to create a state presidential primary and also allow unaffiliated voters to cast ballots in party primaries have raised $3.7 million — notably $950,000 from Davita CEO Kent Thiry — against no discernible opposition at this point.
“If an opposition campaign is going to come together,” Sondermann said, “the time is now — if not past tense.”
Two referred measures, to clean up language in the state constitution referring to slavery and to provide a minor property tax exemption, have faced no organized opposition and raised very little money.
Two more reporting periods remain before the November election.
________
Issue contributions
Total for all initiatives as of Oct. 3 report: $34.77 million
Amendment 72 — Tobacco tax
Yes: $1.7 million
No: $10 million
Total: $11.7 million
Proposition 106 — Medical aid-in-dying
Yes: $4.8 million
No: $1.8 million
Total: $6.6 million
Amendment 69 — ColoradoCare
Yes: $369,233
No: $4.0 million
Total: $4.37 million
Amendment 70 — Minimum wage
Yes: $3.1 million
No: $1.2 million
Total: $4.3 million
Amendment 71 — Tougher to amend constitution
Yes: $4.1 million
No: $980
Total: $4.1 million
Propositions 107/108 — Presidential primary/independents vote in primaries
Yes: $3.7 million (including $805k loan)
No: $0
Total: $3.7 million
Amendment T — Clean up language referring to slavery
Yes: $15,129
No opposition
Amendment U — Exempt certain interests from property tax
$0
No committee for or against
By KEVIN SIMPSON
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Group calls on Charlie Dent to pass immigration reform
WFMZ-TV – August 20, 2013, by Will Lewis -
ALLENTOWN, Pa. – A group rallying for immigration reform is taking its message to Lehigh Valley Congressman Charlie Dent and other Republicans....
WFMZ-TV – August 20, 2013, by Will Lewis -
ALLENTOWN, Pa. – A group rallying for immigration reform is taking its message to Lehigh Valley Congressman Charlie Dent and other Republicans. They want action now but no action will be taken until Congressional leaders return to Washington in September.
“I am one of millions of children that had to be separated from their parents because of a broken immigration system,” said Tatiana Tooley, a community activist speaking to the group.
This group hopes Senate Bill 744, immigration reform, is the first topic Congress discusses.
“If the GOP supports this, the GOP is making a statement that they truly value family unity,” added Tooley.
Lehigh Valley Congressman Charlie Dent says he does support immigration reform. He also knows the issue is a complicated one.
“Immigration reform will be dealt with,” said Dent. “It will be dealt with a bit differently than the Senate which chose to take up one massive bill. The House will deal with this in pieces.”
Senate Bill 744 has already passed and some wish congressional leaders would look at that piece of legislation first before coming up with a new set of rules.
“If they have another bill it will take more time,” said organizer, Fernando Vazquez.
“We’ve gotten away from a dialogue and we’ve polarized on not only this issue but a lot of issues,” said Allentown Mayor Ed Pawlowski. “We’ve polarized on one side or the other. that’s not how good government works.”
The people say waiting means more children separated from their families, and more people waiting to live the American dream.
“We have to deal with this thing responsibly,” said Dent. “I think we can and I think we can get there. But it’s going to be a lot of work.”
“The new leader could be Charlie Dent and one way to show leadership is passing this bill,” added Vazquez. “Because many people will vote for a Republicans, they need to remember that.
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