Campaign News

Over the last two years, the Fed Up Campaign has routinely brought a coalition of low-wage workers to Jackson Hole, Wyoming to protest Federal Reserve hike rates amidst the unequal “economic recovery.” The Jackson Hole event is invite only, closed to the public and costs $1,000 per person to attend.

It appears that this year, Janet Yellen and company went out of their way to ensure there would be no such protests diverting the attention of the nation's most esteemed economists.

According to a formal complaint filed by Ady Barkan, the Campaign Director for the Fed Up Campaign, to the DOJ and the Department of the Interior, “In early May, members of our coalition made three separate reservations for a total of 13 rooms at the Lodge for the nights of August 24, 25, and 26. We paid for the rooms. We requested and paid for rollaway beds that would allow us to sleep three guests to a room, for a total of 39 guest accommodations.

On July 26, my colleague Ruben Lucio received a phone call and then a follow-up email from Zachary Meyers, the Director of Hotel Operations at the Company, informing us that the Company would not honor our paid-for reservations and we could no longer stay at the Lodge. Meyers informed Lucio of a “reservations system glitch that caused the overbooking of Jackson Lake Lodge affecting your reservations” and explained that “the system issue caused us to take reservations for rooms that we don’t actually have inventory to honor. I’m very sorry for the unfortunate mishap with our systems at GTLC that led to this regrettable situation.”

The complaint also states that of the 18 rooms that were affected by the supposed “glitch,” all 13 rooms that were allocated to the Fed Up Coalition were coincidentally all cancelled. Of course, the hotel denied any knowledge that these rooms were protesting the oligarchs at the Fed.

“There is no legitimate explanation for the Company’s decision. As Klein explained to me, the Company books out its conference and sleeping rooms on a first-come first-serve basis. However, faced with an alleged computer glitch that affected only the three nights we were present, the Company decided to honor reservations made after ours and cancel our reservations. Our reservations constituted only 3 percent of the rooms at Jackson Lake Lodge (13 out of 385), yet the Company decided that our group would bear 72 percent of the total burden for its mistake (13 rooms out of 18 overbooked reservations). This is egregious disparate treatment.

In addition, Klein’s stated rationale for selecting our 13 rooms for cancellation is an explicit and intentional targeting of our First Amendment right to assemble on government property: he selected us precisely because we are a group of multiple guests. Because we were arriving in groups of 5, 5, and 3 rooms, we would not be allowed at the Lodge. (Yet Klein notably did not remove rooms from the reservation block belonging to the Kansas City Federal Reserve, even though its block was far larger than ours and would have been even “easier” to cancel.)”

According to the Intercept, the Fed Up coalition is still planning to attend the conference. “They still expect 120 members, their largest contingent ever, to attend the proceedings, but they will have to stay in alternative accommodations that are a 20- to 30-minute drive away, separate from symposium guests and the press.”

We are sure that the Fed, already criticized for its lack of diversity, had no say in this mysteriously convenient “glitch.”

By Tyler Durden

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Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced the formation of a police accountability task force Tuesday. 

In a Monday press release, the mayor said the five-member body — which he will appoint, and which will be advised by former Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick — "will review the system of accountability, oversight and training that is currently in place for Chicago's police officers," according to the Chicago Tribune.

"The shooting of Laquan McDonald requires more than just words," Emanuel said in a statement. "It requires that we act."

The announcement came one week after a Cook County judge compelled the city to release video footage of the Oct. 2014 killing of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, which was captured on a patrol car dash camera but kept under wraps for 13 months. 

McDonald's killer, Officer Jason Van Dyke, shot the teenager 16 times in front of multiple witnesses but was charged with first-degree murder only last week. The sluggish circumstances of the release have since drawn accusations of an administrative cover-up. Van Dyke was released from jail Monday after posting ten percent of his $150,000 bail. 

Mayor Emanuel also fired Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy on Tuesday, in response to calls from the public and some officials to have him removed. Meanwhile, the video's release has set off a week of protests in Chicago, as questions remain regarding next steps.

Jason Van Dyke is the first Chicago police officer to be charged with first-degree murder for an on-duty incident in 35 years, a fact that has elicited doubt Emanuel's task force will yield substantive results.

"Our first thought is that this [task force] can't be a substitute for what's really needed here, which is a full-scale federal investigation of the Chicago Police Department with subpoena power," Ed Yohnka, Director of Communications and Public Policy at the ACLU of Illinois, told Mic. "Whatever this task force does, what we've witnessed in this and other instances is a fundamental breakdown in the ability of police to protect the public, and the public's faith in CPD."

Others echoed Yohnka's skepticism. "Appointing a committee to look into an issue is a tried-and-true tactic elected officials long have employed to buy time and breathing room when faced with a scandal or crisis," wrotethe Chicago Tribune. "[It] gives Emanuel something else to talk to reporters and the public about other than the ... video."

Indeed, it's unclear how effective police accountability task forces in other cities have been. An Inspectors General was appointed in Los Angeles, New York City and New Orleans have uncovered systemic abuses and identified problems that shoddy or nonexistent data collection had rendered invisible over the past decade. Seattle has a 15-member community police commission, appointed by the mayor, to review oversight and accountability processes. 

However, "there is no clear evidence that these oversight bodies alone are effective in obtaining meaningful reforms," according to a Justice in Policing report and toolkit from the Center for Popular Democracy and PolicyLink, both policy advocacy organizations.

Yohnka suggested to Mic that a more tried route to change in Chicago would require a U.S. Department of Justice investigation. "That confidence needs to be restored, that someone in power is actively looking into this," he said. "But it's systemic. This issue pervades multiple superintendents and multiple people in terms of leadership in the department. It requires a systemic approach to accountability, transparency and how law enforcement operates."

One such DOJ examination of the Ferguson, Missouri, Police Department published in March laid bare a hotbed of racist law enforcement practices that yielded reform suggestions amidst a national conversation around racism and policing. This is not a unique phenomenon. According to the Washington Post, the DOJ has launched 67 investigations into police departments across the U.S. over the past decade, 24 of which were closed without reform agreements, and just 26 of which resulted in "binding agreements tracked by monitors."

Results have been mixed. The long-term effect of these agreements are not tracked by the DOJ, making it hard to tell if they actually work. 

"We don't tend to evaluate .?.?. after we have left," Vanita Gupta, principal deputy assistant attorney general of the department's civil rights division, told the Post. "There's a limit to how much we can .?.?. remain engaged with a particular jurisdiction given our limited re­sources."

This leaves little precedent for a positive outcome in Chicago — a city with a staggering recent history of police abuse. Over the past decade, the city has spent $500 million on legal costs and settlements stemming from law enforcement misconduct, including $5 million paid out to Laquan McDonald's family in April. 

That same month, Chicago set up a $5.5 million fund to compensate victims of former-CPD Commander John Burge, who tortured and sexually abused more than 100 mostly black arrestees during his tenure with the department. The case of Dante Servin, an off-duty officer who fired into a crowd and killed 22-year-old Rekia Boyd in 2012, was also dismissed in April because state's attorney Anita Alvarez — whose office has a history of questionable conduct — charged him with a crime the judge deemed too  severe for what he did.

The McDonald case has also been plagued by scandal, including allegations that police officers tampered with surveillance tape that captured the shooting from a nearby Burger King, resulting in 86 minutes of footage gone missing.

Some have suggested the mere appearance of police accountability can have positive effects, lending legitimacy to law enforcement bodies that had formerly lost the trust of their communities. But in the case of Chicago, it may be too late for that. 

"The reality is, we're kind of past the point of cosmetics here," said Ed Yohnka. "There's been this fundamental breakdown in terms of trust. Whether we're talking the Burge incidents or the millions of dollars in payouts to victims, there really needs to be a much broader look at what is going on."

Source: Mic

It’s time to ramp up our resistance to the Trump-Ryan agenda on health care. We scored our biggest legislative victory so far on March 24, when Speaker Paul Ryan called off his bid to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA), because he didn’t have the votes. This was an inspiring, hard-fought win for everyone who believes health care is for all...

Read full article here.

In part one of this two-part posting, I looked at the gender bias at the Federal Reserve, showing how men vastly outnumber women in key posts at Federal Reserve Banks throughout the United States despite the Fed's Congressional mandate.  In part two of this posting, I want to take an additional look at the Fed's bias; its failure to represent the economic diversity of America.

For those of you that either didn't read part one or who are unaware of the Federal Reserve's organizational setup, here is a graphic from a report by the Center for Popular Democracy showing the link between the Federal Reserve and its Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) and its district banks known as Federal Reserve Banks:

Here is a map showing the regions covered by each of the 12 district banks (Federal Reserve Banks) and the 24 branches within each district:

Note that Alaska and Hawaii are covered by the San Francisco district.

If we start at the top of the organizational chart, the seven members of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors are appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate for a 14-year term of office.  The President (and Senate) also confirm two members of the Board to be Chair (currently Janet Yellen) and Vice Chair for four year terms.  The FOMC consists of 12 members; the seven aforementioned Board members, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and four other regional Federal Reserve Bank presidents on a rotating, one-year term basis. The Federal Reserve Banks form an important link between the Federal Reserve and their local economy and help to dictate the Federal Reserve's monetary policies.  Each of the twelve district banks has their own president and boards of directors (nine directors in total for each bank); in addition, each of the 24 district branches has its own directors (seven directors in total for each branch).  The Board of Directors for each Reserve Bank are appointed in two ways; the majority are appointed by the Reserve Bank and the remainder are appointed by the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors.  The directors for each district bank then appoint their own president and vice president.  It all sounds rather nepotistic, doesn't it? 

By law, under the Federal Reserve Reform Act of 1977, the Boards of Directors of the Federal Reserve are to be

"...elected with due but not exclusive consideration to the interests of agriculture, commerce, industry, services, labor and consumers.". 

That is, each of the leaders/directors of the world's most influential central bank and its district banking system are to represent a wide variety of each of the economic sectors that make up the American economy.

The report by the Center for Popular Democracy compares the economic sector representation during the period from 2006 to 2010 when the Government Accountability Office examined the composition of the Federal Reserve Bank Boards and the present.  Here is a graphic showing the past and present composition:

In both 2006 to 2010 and 2016, directors from the banking sector filled over one-third of the board seats, growing by 3 percentage points over the timeframe of the study.  In combination, in 2016, representatives from the commercial and industrial sector and the banking sector filled 68 percent of seats, up from 63 percent in 2006 to 2010.   The service sector's representation fell from 26 percent of seats to 18 percent and agriculture and food processing saw their representation fall from 6 percent of seats to 3 percent.  Interestingly, even though they are relatively poorly represented compared to the other sectors, the number of directors affiliated with consumer and community organizations rose from 3 percent to 8 percent.

For your illumination, here are a few of the Directors for each of the Federal Reserve Banks that you can get a sense of who is dictating America's monetary policies:

If you are interested in who is on the boards of the other Federal Reserve Banks, please see the original report.

Interestingly, during the "financial crisis" of 2008, there was some question about directors' independence and actions taken by the Federal Reserve banks since there was at least the perception of conflicts of interest when director-affliated institutions took part in the Federal Reserve System's emergency programs.  With a preponderance of representation from the banking and commercial sectors, it certainly doesn't take a genius to figure out which sectors of the economy will likely be favoured by Federal Reserve policies should there be another "financial crisis", does it? 

By A Political Junkie

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