Candidates Ready for GOP Debate: Alleged NY Backers of Hate Rhetoric
NEW YORK - Protestors called out some prominent New Yorkers ahead of tonight's GOP presidential candidate debate,...
NEW YORK - Protestors called out some prominent New Yorkers ahead of tonight's GOP presidential candidate debate, accusing them of funding a network of groups that promote anti-immigrant hate speech. Connie Razza, director of strategic research for the Center for Popular Democracy Action, said those allegations are confirmed in a new report that identifies New Yorker Barbara Winston as a financial contributor and board member of groups that, for example, worked to restrict undocumented immigrants' access to driver's licenses in the wake of the 9-11 attacks.
"When Donald Trump talks about deporting all of the undocumented immigrants in the United States," she said, "he's really picking up the platform that these wealthy New Yorkers have been investing in, over years." We reached out for comment to Bruce Winston Gem where Barbara Winston serves as president. Asked to respond to the allegation that Barbara Winston funded hate speech organizations, a manager there said, “No, it is not true.” Immigrant advocates say they protested in front of the Harry Winston Jewelers on Fifth Avenue Tuesday, because they say Barbara Winston owns that property.
Daniel Altschuler, managing director of the Make the Road Action Fund and co-editor of the report, "Backers of Hate in the Empire State," said it calls on nonprofit groups, political parties and the news media to sever ties with the New Yorkers cited in the report and the groups they are allegedly funding. "These are folks that have been buttressing the anti-immigrant infrastructure in this country," he said. "It identifies these folks, and demands that they be held responsible for promoting this kind of anti-immigrant rhetoric and false facts." Razza said it has been a major goal of these anti-immigrant groups to get their views front and center in prime-time slots such as tonight's GOP debate. "These wealthy New Yorkers are providing funding both to this anti-immigrant hate network and to the Republican Party," she said, "and starting to mainstream anti-immigrant hate in a way that's really dangerous."
The report is online at cpdaction.org. - See more at: http://www.publicnewsservice.org/2015-10-28/immigrant-issues/candidates-...
Source: Public News Service
Internal Emails Show ICE Agents Struggling to Substantiate Trump’s Lies About Immigrants
Internal Emails Show ICE Agents Struggling to Substantiate Trump’s Lies About Immigrants
As hundreds of undocumented immigrants were rounded up across the country last February in the first mass raids of the...
As hundreds of undocumented immigrants were rounded up across the country last February in the first mass raids of the Trump administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials went out of their way to portray the people they detained as hardened criminals, instructing field offices to highlight the worst cases for the media and attempting to distract attention from the dozens of individuals who were apprehended despite having no criminal background at all.
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An Imperfect Victory for New York Workers
An Imperfect Victory for New York Workers
Millions of New Yorkers are celebrating a deal this week to raise the state’s minimum wage. The deal puts a better...
Millions of New Yorkers are celebrating a deal this week to raise the state’s minimum wage. The deal puts a better future in sight for families around the state and sends a powerful signal to other states considering wage hikes of their own.
The deal is a testament to the power of organizing. Today’s headlines would be unimaginable just a few years ago. When New York Communities for Change organized the first fast food worker strike – almost four years ago – people thought we were crazy.
As the federal government repeatedly stalled on a meaningful increase to the nationwide minimum wage, it seemed that higher wages were out of reach.
In response, fast-food and other low-wage workers rose up to fight for better wages and a better quality of life, sparking a movement that spread to cities and towns across the nation.
It is no coincidence that the Fight for $15 began right here in New York City. The level of inequality in our city has long been one of the worst of the country – and has grown to historic proportions in recent years.
According to a 2014 Census Bureau survey, the top 5 percent of Manhattan households made 88 times as much as the poorest 20 percent. And as of last year, workers earning minimum wage could not afford median rent in a single neighborhood in New York City.
Wages have long failed to keep pace with the growing cost of living. In fact, the Economic Policy Institute found that the statewide wage of $9.00 per hour was well below what it would be if it had simply kept pace with inflation since 1970. The same study found that, accounting for both inflation and a higher cost of living, the minimum wage today would match its 1970 value if it reached $14.27 per hour this year – nearly the level agreed on by the New York State Legislature.
Governor Cuomo made the right move last year by mandating higher wages for fast-food workers – those on the front lines fighting for reform. But leading industry by industry risked neglecting too many workers. In order to truly create change, the rules must apply equally to everybody. Last week’s deal did that, letting workers across the economy finally dream bigger than the next paycheck.
The deal is a victory for New York City workers. However, it bypasses hard-working families in Upstate New York. While over a million low-wage workers in the city will see their wages rise to $15 per hour by the end of 2018, those in Long Island will only reach $15 in almost six years and those upstate will need to wait five years only to reach $12.50. Although the deal allows wages to rise to $15 after that, the rate will depend on review and inflation and could take years.
It is a painfully long stretch given the growing cost of living north of the city. The New York State Comptroller, for example, has found housing costs skyrocketing, with at least one in five people in every county – including those far upstate like Warren and Monroe – spending more than a third of their salary on rent. In some counties half of residents must spend that much. With added expenses like utilities and food, it leaves little room to save up for college or retirement.
It is imperative that legislators now finish the job and give all New Yorkers a chance at a living wage.
Just days before Albany finalized its deal; California showed us that a $15 wage statewide is possible. Our state must fulfill the promise of Fight for $15 statewide and let all workers adequately provide for themselves and their families. Otherwise New Yorkers will continue doing what they have been doing for almost four years: risking everything to provide a better life for their families.
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By JoEllen Chernow &. Jonathan Westin
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Líderes del Congreso reanudarán negociación con la Casa Blanca sobre futuro de “Dreamers”
Líderes del Congreso reanudarán negociación con la Casa Blanca sobre futuro de “Dreamers”
Grupos como “United We Dream”, “Women´s March” y “CPD Action” reiteraron hoy que, en las próximas primarias, apoyarán a...
Grupos como “United We Dream”, “Women´s March” y “CPD Action” reiteraron hoy que, en las próximas primarias, apoyarán a candidatos rivales que estén dispuestos a proteger a la comunidad inmigrante, si los demócratas no cumplen su promesa a los “Dreamers.”
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Scaffold Law Debate Heats Up Over Dueling Reports on Safety and Costs
Legislative Gazetter - April 21, 2014, by Matthew Dondiego - A new report released last Thursday by a pro-labor, pro-...
Legislative Gazetter - April 21, 2014, by Matthew Dondiego - A new report released last Thursday by a pro-labor, pro-immigrant rights advocacy group criticizes the construction industry for using what they call misleading figures and cherry picking data to lobby against the state's controversial "scaffold law."
The scaffold law is a century-old law in place to protect worker's rights. Under the law, contractors and property owners serving as contractors are responsible for providing a safe work environment for their employees or become liable for any on-site injuries and accidents.
Opponents of the law point out that contractors are fully liable for workers' injuries even if it is determined the worker is at fault. Opponents say it is outdated and causes construction costs to rise due to the increased costs of insurance premiums. Supporters of the law say it provides common sense protection for workers performing a dangerous job and maintain that contractors are not held liable in court if proper safety precautions are in place.
The new report, titled Fatally Flawed and released by the Center for Popular Democracy, which is supported financially by the New York State Trial Lawyers Association and labor unions, is a scathing criticism of a Rockefeller Institute study — which is frequently referenced by the construction industry — that concluded the scaffold law resulted in an additional 667 work site injuries and adds about $3 billion in additional costs to construction projects in New York state each year.
According to last week's report, the oft-cited Rockefeller Institute study is "fundamentally biased" and calls the New York Civil Justice Institute, which paid $82,800 to commission the Rockefeller study, "a poorly-disguised front group" for the construction industry aligned Lawsuit Reform Alliance of New York. According to the report, the Lawsuit Reform Alliance of New York and the New York Civil Justice Institute share the same address, 19 Dove St, Suite 201, Albany, N.Y., and the same telephone and fax numbers.
"This [Rockefeller Institute] study was bought and paid for by the construction industry," Josie Duffy, a staff attorney for the Center for Popular Democracy. "This is a direct result of people who do not like the scaffold law for business reasons, paying for this report to be released."
On the claim that the scaffold law contributed an additional 667 injuries, the report says the Rockefeller Institute "confuses correlation with causation."
This claim, according the Center for Popular Democracy, is based on worker injury rates in "sub-sectors and non-construction industries," such as warehouse work, transportation, roofing, residential building construction, manufacturing, wholesale trade and utilities industries, and are compared to the rest of the nation.
"The authors assert that these differences are greater in New York and attribute these greater differences entirely to the scaffold law," the new report reads. "There is simply no basis to conclude that the scaffold law is the cause of these differences. Indeed, the authors provide no justification for comparing injury rates in construction with injury rates in less hazardous industries, or using those differences as a proxy for the impact of the scaffold law."
Duffy bluntly says that the scaffold law does not cause an increase in workplace accidents. She says the Rockefeller Institute's study, which was released in February, lacks factual evidence that the law makes work sites more dangerous and "that number is coming from nowhere."
"To me, that is the most egregious part of this whole report," Duffy said.
Despite the strong words used in the report and by Duffy, Tom Stebbins, executive director of the Lawsuit Reform Alliance of New York, says that the Rockefeller report "conclusively" found the law made construction sites more dangerous for workers.
He said that absolute liability for contractors creates "perverse incentives" for workers.
"Workers are not incentivized because they are never held responsible and contractors are not incentivized because they are guilty in nearly every circumstance," Stebbins said. "Only by apportioning liability to fault, as is done in every other state and every other part of our civil justice system, can we maintain balance and improve safety."
According to Stebbins, the report released by the Center for Popular Democracy last week is a "political hit piece, with no statistical merit or actual research of any kind. They cannot get researchers to back up their opinions, because the facts do not support the scaffold law."
Stebbins argues that absolute liability causes the insurance markets to treat sites with sterling safety records the same as companies with less stringent safety precautions. Opponents of the scaffold law say that absolute liability holds the company liable for the worker injuries regardless of who is actually found to be at fault.
Duffy however, said that companies are not automatically found to be liable for injuries sustained by workers on construction sites and are typically safe from injury-related costs so long as they had the proper safety precautions in place.
"What absolute liability means is that you have to pay for the costs of the injuries … and that's only going to happen if you're breaking the law," she explained. "What this law says is there has to be some level of protection for workers."
According to Duffy, under the law companies still hold the right to argue their case in court and they are not automatically found responsible for every injury.
"It's important that employers get to have their voices heard in law, I support that this law allows people to get their voices heard on both sides and that's a very, very real protection," she said "Nothing happens automatically in this law and you can't even be taken to court unless your breaking the law in the first place."
The report also criticizes the Rockefeller Institute for failing to take into consideration certain conditions in New York that may affect the injury rates in the state. Such measures include New York generally has more high-level construction works which may drive up injury rates and New York construction workers are more likely to be union workers and therefore are more likely to report injuries. According to the report, Texas has one of the lowest construction injury rates yet is among the highest in construction fatality rates.
According to the report, "Such low-injury-rate states have artificially suppressed the US injury rate, which the paper nonetheless compares to the New York rate."
"This is a law that protects construction workers. Construction workers are doing a really difficult job and they're doing it every day and they are growing our economy," Duffy said. "Construction workers are literally the bread and butter of what makes New York City, New York City … and this is a state of construction."
Assemblyman Francisco Moya, a Democrat from Queens, said the Center for Popular Democracy's report "injected some truth into the politically-charged debate surrounding the scaffold law."
"Many untruths have been lobbed at the scaffold law in an attempt to dismantle it. This report makes clear that those untruths have unfortunately been crafted by parties who have a financial interest in watering down workplace protections," Moya, a staunch supporter of the law, said in an e-mail. "When it comes to life and death decisions about workplace safety, there's no room for politics. It has to be about facts. And the fact is that the Scaffold Law protects workers. That's the real bottom line."
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Who’s truly rebuilding the Democratic Party? The activists.
Who’s truly rebuilding the Democratic Party? The activists.
In June 2010 I made a very bad tweet that I came to regret. (Hard to imagine, I know.) I yelled at the disability...
In June 2010 I made a very bad tweet that I came to regret. (Hard to imagine, I know.) I yelled at the disability rights group Adapt.
I’d come to DC to attend a conference of progressive leaders, “America’s Future Now.” And while I knew a lot about financial reform, I didn’t know enough about politics, activism, or the Democratic Party.
Read the full article here.
Newark Police first in N.J. to refuse to detain undocumented immigrants accused of minor crimes
The Star-Ledger – August 15, 2013, by James Queally - The Newark Police Department has become the first law enforcement...
The Star-Ledger – August 15, 2013, by James Queally -
The Newark Police Department has become the first law enforcement agency in New Jersey to refuse the federal government’s requests to detain people accused of minor crimes who are suspected of being in the U.S. illegally, according to immigration advocates.
In enacting the policy, Newark becomes the latest city to opt out of the most controversial part of the “Secure Communities” program implemented by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency in 2011, which allows the agency to ask local police to hold any suspect for up to 48 hours if their immigration status is called into question.
In the past two years, cities and states across the nation, including New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, Massachusetts and Connecticut, have adopted similar policies. Earlier this week, Orleans Parish sheriffs also said they will stop honoring the detainer requests.
“Secure Communities” was designed to enhance ICE’s ability to track dangerous criminals who are undocumented immigrants. Under the policy the Department of Homeland Security reviews fingerprints collected by local police during an arrest, which then allows ICE to issue the detainer requests. Immigration advocates, however, argue the policy has been misused, leading to the deportation of people accused of low-level offenses and inhibits collaboration between police and people who are undocumented.
Udi Ofer, the executive director of the state chapter of the ACLU, said Newark’s policy was a collaborative effort between the city, the ACLU and several immigrants rights groups.
“With this policy in place, Newark residents will not have to fear that something like a wrongful arrest for a minor offense will lead to deportation,” said Ofer. “It ensures that if you’re a victim of a crime, or have witnessed a crime, you can contact the police without having to fear deportation.
Newark Police Director Samuel DeMaio signed the directive on July 24. Newark will no longer comply with ICE requests to hold suspects accused of crimes like shoplifting or vandalism.
City police will continue to share fingerprint information with federal investigators, according to DeMaio, who said the department received only eight detainer requests in 2012.
“If we arrest somebody for a disorderly persons offense and we get a detainer request we’re not going to hold them in our cell block,” he said. “I don’t know if we’ve ever gotten a detainer request on a guy with a misdemeanor.”
An ICE spokesman declined to comment directly on the policy. But immigrants rights advocates hailed the move as an olive branch to undocumented immigrants, who often hesitate to cooperate with police who are investigating serious crimes in their community for fear of deportation.
That fear has been evident in a series of community meetings in the Newark’s immigrant-heavy Ironbound neighborhood, which began after “Secure Communities” was implemented in New Jersey last year, said East Ward Councilman Augusto Amador.Amador has been present for a number of those sessions, and said the culture of fear created by the program stopped many undocumented immigrants from reporting crimes committed against them in the area.
“I agree totally with the policy,” he said. “The Newark Police Department already has enough problems to worry about, rather than being involved with matters that don’t belong to them.”
A representative for Mayor Cory Booker’s administration said the policy is a smart move that strengthens ties with city residents and maintains a relationship with ICE.
“The Newark Police Department’s policy improves community relations, while saving taxpayer money and ensuring that city, state, and federal officials continue to share critical information needed to prosecute criminals and keep our streets safe,” said city spokesman James Allen.
Nisha Agarwal, deputy director of the Center for Popular Democracy, said ICE has misused the “Secure Communities” policy in other areas, and Newark’s directive will slowdown the agency if it attempts to start deportation proceedings against someone for a small-scale offense.
“They often will (issue) detainers in cases where it’s really minor, when the person is not a threat to society in any way,” she said.
New Jersey has one of the country’s largest immigrant populations and the state is home to more than 500,000 undocumented immigrants, according to Amy Gottlieb, director of the American Friends Service Committee. Gottlieb said she hopes to see other New Jersey law enforcement agencies echo Newark’s policy.
“Any detainer policy where people are aware that the police department is acting in support of the immigrant community is going to be helpful for police and immigrant relations,” she said.
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What We Know About Trump and Clinton's Treasury Picks
What We Know About Trump and Clinton's Treasury Picks
Clinton has been defending herself from accusations that she is too cozy with Wall Street since the primaries, when an...
Clinton has been defending herself from accusations that she is too cozy with Wall Street since the primaries, when an obscure U.S. senator from Vermont built a movement in part by blasting her for collecting chunky speaking fees from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS). Trump has carried on with that line of attack, telling an Iowa rally in late September, "if she ever got the chance, she'd put the Oval Office up for sale." So it may seem odd that Trump's campaign finance chair and apparent favorite for the Secretary of the Treasury, according to a Fox Business report on November 3rd, is second-generation Goldman Sachs partner Steve Mnuchin.
There is less clarity about who Clinton would nominate if she won, perhaps because she has to contend with skepticism of capitalism-as-usual among fans of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, without veering too far to the left of the general electorate. Two names tend to pop up, however: Facebook Inc. (FB) COO and Lean In author Sheryl Sandberg, followed by Federal Reserve Board Governor Lael Brainard. Other possibilities include TIAA CEO and Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL, GOOG) board member Roger Ferguson.
Trump: Mnuchin
Steve Mnuchin may not seem to be the obvious choice to fashion economic policy for a populist, anti-establishment campaign like Trump's. Before taking over as the Republican's campaign finance chair in May, Mnuchin pursued a varied career as an investment banker, hedge fund manager, retail bank owner and film producer. (See also, Trump Announces New Economic Advisory Team.)
After graduating from Yale, where he roomed with Sears Holdings Corp.'s (SHLD) current CEO Edward Lampert, Mnuchin cut his teeth at Salomon Brothers. He joined Goldman Sachs, where his father was a partner, in 1985. According to a 2012 Bloomberg profile, Mnuchin was "front and center" when instruments such as collateralized debt obligations and credit default swaps were created. Fairly or unfairly, such exotic securities carry a whiff of the financial crisis, as does Goldman Sachs' mortgage department, which Mnuchin headed for a spell before becoming chief information officer in 1999.
He left Goldman Sachs in 2002 to work at his college roommate's hedge fund. The next year he started another fund with George Soros, and a year after that he formed Dune Capital with two other Goldman alums. This period marked the beginning of Mnuchin's Hollywood career, with Dune Capital's production wing funding dozens of films including Mad Max: Fury Road, American Sniper and Avatar.
Mnuchin's biggest financial opportunity came with the collapse of the subprime mortgage bubble. "In 2008 the world was a scary place," Mnuchin told Bloomberg in 2012. The market for mortgage-backed securities, with which he was intimately familiar, had collapsed, and no one seemed able to assign a value to assets such as IndyMac, a bank the FDIC had taken over. Mnuchin and a consortium of private equity investors he managed to woo over, including Soros, bought it on the cheap. The deal included a loss-sharing agreement with the FDIC. They renamed the bank OneWest and began foreclosing on borrowers, attracting criticism from campaigners who portrayed it as overly zealous and possibly driven by a profit incentive – born of the loss-sharing agreement – to foreclose rather than pursuing other options. (See also, Lessons Learned from the Banking Crisis.)
Mnuchin has donated to Clinton in the past, as has Trump. Speaking to Bloomberg in August, though, he was on message: "she's obviously raised a ton of money in speaking fees, in other things, from special interest groups. This campaign is focused on people who want to help rebuild the economy."
Clinton: Sandberg, Brainard or Ferguson
Clinton suggested at a town hall meeting in April that she plans to fill half of her cabinet with women. Most reports regarding her pick for Treasury secretary, a position that has never been filled by a woman, mentioned Facebook's Sheryl Sanderberg and the Fed's Lael Brainard. Another, less-frequently mentioned name is Roger Ferguson, who would be the first African-American to hold the job.
Sandberg
Sandberg has Treasury Department experience. Before becoming one of the most successful women in notoriously macho Silicon Valley, she served as chief of staff to Bill Clinton's Treasury Secretary Larry Summers. She received her BA and MBA from Harvard in the 1990s and spent a year at McKinsey & Co. She worked for Summers, who had been her professor at Harvard, from 1996 to 2001, which offered her the experience of dealing with the Asian financial crisis. She spent the next seven years as a vice-president of Google, then Mark Zuckerberg hired her away as Facebook's chief operating officer. Within two years she had turned the company profitable. In 2012 she became the first female member of Facebook's board. (See also, Who Is Driving Facebook's Management Team?)
Sandberg has also become an icon for some feminists for her 2013 book Lean In – and its attendant hashtag – which documents the barriers women face in the workplace while encouraging them to dispense with internalized barriers, fears and excuses that hold them back. Despite a generally enthusiastic reception, some critics have labeled the book as elitist: the opportunity to network at Davos may have made Sandberg's barrier-breaking easier. (See also, Sheryl Sandberg's Latest Speech Goes Viral.)
Brainard
Lael Brainard spent part of her childhood in communist East Germany and Poland with her diplomat father. She studied at Wesleyan and went on to get a masters and a doctorate in economics from Harvard. She taught at MIT's Sloan School of Management and worked at McKinsey before joining the Clinton administration as deputy director of the National Economic Council. She went to work at the Brookings Institution during the Bush administration, then served in Obama's Treasury as undersecretary for international affairs. At that time, that position – often described as the Treasury's top diplomat – was the highest Treasury post a woman had held. (See also, Fed's Brainard Urges Caution on Interest Rate Hike.)
Brainard has been a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors since June 2014, where she's attracted praise from progressives and deep suspicion from conservatives for appearing to depart from the central bank's technocratic, apolitical norms. She engaged with "Fed Up" activists protesting plans to tighten monetary policy at August's Jackson Hole meeting. (See also, Rising U.S. Labor Productivity Cements Fed Hike.)
Brainard also gave the maximum amount of $2,700 to Hillary Clinton's campaign. That decision earned furious condemnation from Republican members of the House Financial Services Committee during Fed chair Janet Yellen's September testimony, which came just two days after Trump accused the Fed of "doing political things" at the first presidential debate. Yellen defended Brainard's donation, saying she had not violated the Hatch Act, which prohibits federal employees in the executive branch from engaging in certain political activities.
Ferguson
Roger Ferguson earned a BA, JD and Ph. D in economics from Harvard then worked as an attorney in New York from 1981 to 1984. He spent the following 13 years at McKinsey, then joined the Fed Board of Governors in 1997. He became vice chair two years later, and rumors began to swirl in 2005 that he would be the next chair. Bush nominated Ben Bernanke instead, and Ferguson resigned shortly after Bernanke's term began the following February.
In 2008 he became president and CEO of Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association-College Retirement Equities Fund (TIAA-CREF, since shortened to TIAA). He has been a board member of Alphabet since June 2016.
By David Floyd
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Luchando por los inmigrantes el 4 de Julio
Luchando por los inmigrantes el 4 de Julio
Al congregarnos el 4 de Julio para conmemorar nuestro primer paso hacia la libertad, debemos reconocer los valiosos...
Al congregarnos el 4 de Julio para conmemorar nuestro primer paso hacia la libertad, debemos reconocer los valiosos aportes de los inmigrantes a nuestra nación. Es la historia de nuestro país. Es una parte intrínseca de nuestro carácter nacional, de nuestra grandeza. Como nación, debemos invitar a todas las personas elegibles a dar su primer paso hacia la libertad y convertirse en ciudadanos.
Lea el artículo completo aquí.
As the federal government fails the people of Puerto Rico, local governments and states must step up
As the federal government fails the people of Puerto Rico, local governments and states must step up
Given the likelihood that even more Puerto Ricans will resettle on the mainland the Center for Popular Democracy and...
Given the likelihood that even more Puerto Ricans will resettle on the mainland the Center for Popular Democracy and Local Progress have published a policy guide, the first of its kind, offering a roadmap for cities and states to address the immediate needs of their new constituents.
Read the full article here.
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