Hispanos afrontan barreras de idioma en NY, según informe
El Diario – August 5, 2013, by Ruth E. Hernández - Las agencias del Gobierno estatal de Nueva York tienen importantes...
El Diario – August 5, 2013, by Ruth E. Hernández - Las agencias del Gobierno estatal de Nueva York tienen importantes carencias a la hora de facilitar el acceso a sus servicios a los más de $2 millones de personas y familias que no dominan el inglés, según un estudio presentado hoy.
“Todavía queda mucho por hacer para romper las barreras del idioma y asegurar que reciban una competente y consistente asistencia”, señala el “Informe de Acceso a Lenguaje”, que destaca que esta situación dificulta a estas personas el poder obtener servicios básicos como el carné de conducir o denunciar un crimen.
El estudio, de la organización Se Hace Camino Nueva York, es el primer informe que se publica luego de que, en 2011, el gobernador de Nueva York, Andrew Cuomo, firmara una orden ejecutiva para garantizar que inmigrantes reciban, en los seis idiomas más hablados, los servicios de agencias estatales que brindan ayuda directa a la comunidad.
“Con esta orden la administración del gobernador Cuomo no sólo tomó un paso importante para garantizar el acceso a servicios del gobierno a los que aún no dominan el inglés, sino que demostró liderazgo a nivel nacional en este asunto”, indica el informe de la entidad sobre las agencias que más en contacto están con el público.
Sin embargo, reveló que, un año después de entrar en vigor esta medida, los inmigrantes afrontan dificultades para tener acceso a servicios importantes como puede ser un carné de conducir, recibir los cupones de alimentos porque los formularios no han sido traducidos en su idioma o solicitar el desempleo, entre otros trámites, dijo a Efe Theo Oshiro, codirector de la organización.
Entre los hallazgos destaca, que pese a los esfuerzos de las agencias gubernamentales, la mayoría de los inmigrantes no están recibiendo documentos importantes traducidos en su idioma, tal y como estipula la orden ejecutiva.
Cita como ejemplo que en Buffalo sólo el 11 % de los hispanos afirma recibir la documentación en su idioma, mientras que en los pueblos de la región central del estado la cifra fue del 45 %.
Igualmente el estudio mostró que a través del estado sólo el 45 % de las agencias están brindando servicios de interpretación.
En específico, señala que en el Departamento de Vehículos de Motor, una de las agencias que más público atiende, sólo se ofreció información en los idiomas establecidos en el 32 % de los casos, mientras que en el Departamento del Trabajo esta cifra aumenta al 61 %.
También indica que en aquellas agencias en las que se brindó esta posibilidad, el público estuvo complacido con la calidad del mismo.
En cuanto a la Policía estatal, Oshiro explicó que aquellas personas que acuden en busca de ayuda tienen que esperar mucho tiempo y que “no tiene ni siquiera puesto en su página que puede brindar servicios” en varios idiomas.
Durante la evaluación, los autores descubrieron que el estado contrata a agencias locales en varios de sus condados para suplir servicios, y que éstas están exentas de cumplir la orden ejecutiva.
“Eso no es aceptable. No entendemos por qué no les cubre la orden ejecutiva”, dijo Oshiro.
Indicó además que, aunque las agencias del estado con sedes en la Ciudad de Nueva York, mejoraron en un 15 % los servicios que brindan, desde que entró en vigor la orden ejecutiva, “el estudio muestra que les está tomando tiempo” cumplir con ella, lo que, según Oshiro, no es aceptable porque tuvieron tiempo para prepararse.
Entre las recomendaciones que aporta el reporte figura mejorar el acceso de interpretación y la traducción, desarrollar y distribuir una guía de cómo mejorar los servicios y establecer colaboraciones con organizaciones que estén en contacto con la comunidad que no domina el inglés.
El informe se realizó en cooperación con la oficina del gobernador y, de acuerdo con Oshiro, los autores se reunirán con sus representantes para saber qué pasos van a tomar para cumplir con la orden ejecutiva.
“El estudio es una herramienta para que la oficina del gobernador haga lo que deben hacer”, afirmó.
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Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s Challenger Has a Chance
During the presidential primary, Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz has managed the...
During the presidential primary, Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz has managed the impressive feat of angering virtually every liberal in America. Bernie Sanders supporters think she displays a transparent biasfor Hillary Clinton. Party stalwarts, including Clinton fans, criticize the decision tohide primary debates on weekend nights, ceding hours of free media time to Republicans in the formative stages of the election. And in a recent interview with the New York Times Magazine, Wasserman Schultz insulted millennial women for being “complacent” about abortion rights. This is an incomplete list.
In two separate petitions, more than 94,000 people have demanded that Wasserman Schultz resign as DNC chair. But back in her district, in Hollywood, Florida, Timothy Canova has another idea: vote her out of office.
Last Thursday, Canova, a former aide to the late Sen. Paul Tsongas and a professor at Nova Southeastern University’s Shepard Broad College of Law, jumped into the Democratic primary in Florida’s 23rd congressional district. It’s Wasserman Schultz’s first primary challenge ever, and with frustration running high against her, it’s almost certain to draw national attention. But Canova first became interested in challenging Wasserman Schultz not because of her actions as DNC chair, but because of her record.
“This is the most liberal county in all of Florida,” Canova said in an interview, referring to Broward County, where most of Wasserman Schultz’s district resides (a small portion is in northern Miami-Dade County). But she more closely associates with her significant support from corporate donors, Canova argued. He listed several of Wasserman Schultz’s votes, such as blocking the SEC and IRS from disclosing corporate political spending (which was part of last month’s omnibus spending bill),opposing a medical marijuana ballot measure that got 58 percent of the vote in Florida, preventing the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau from regulating discrimination in auto lending and opposing their rules cracking down on payday lending, and supporting “fast track” authority for trade deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
“I think anyone who voted for fast track should be primaried. I believe that ordinary citizens have to step up,” Canova said.
Canova espouses many of the populist themes that attract the left: fighting corporate power, defending organized labor, and reducing income inequality. But this is not just a Bernie Sanders Democrat. You have to go back further. Tim Canova is a Marriner Eccles Democrat.
Eccles chaired the Federal Reserve during Franklin Roosevelt’s presidency. And Canova believes the central bank should revisit Eccles’s unorthodox strategies to jump-start a broad-based economic recovery. “In the 1930s, the regional Fed banks made loans directly to the people,” Canova said. “Instead of purchasing $4 trillion in Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities, [the Fed] could buy short-term municipal bonds and drive the yield to zero for state and local governments. They could push money into infrastructure, making loans to state infrastructure banks.” Canova has even suggested that the government create currency outside of the central bank, breaking their monopoly on the money supply, as President Abraham Lincoln did with the “Greenback” in the 1860s.
During World War II, FDR directed Eccles’s Fed to finance American war debt at low rates, eventually producing a stimulus that helped to end the Great Depression. It was a time when the Fed was far more accountable to democratically elected institutions, one that Canova looks back upon fondly. “People like to talk about the Fed’s independence, that’s really a cover for the Fed’s capture,” he said. “They look out for elite groups in society, and the hell with everybody else.”
A growing faction of progressives are beginning to return to their roots, asking whether Fed policies truly support the public interest. The Fed Up campaign, with which Canova has consulted, seeks to pressure the Fed to adopt pro-worker policies. A surprise movement in Congress just cut a 100 year-old subsidy the Fed handed out to banks by $7 billion. Even mainstream figures like economist Larry Summerswonder whether the Fed’s hybrid public/private structure, which critics believe makes it beholden to financial interests, makes sense.
Progressive debates on central banking are not as advanced here as in Europe, where British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn wants a “quantitative easing for people,” where the central bank injects money directly into the economy rather than filtering it through financial institutions. But Canova, who says his views were most influenced by an undergraduate economics professor who taught with one book—John Maynard Keynes’s General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money—bridges this gap. Twenty years ago this week, he wrote an op-ed for the New York Timesopposing the reappointment of Alan Greenspan as Fed chair because of his support for high real interest rates. If elected this fall, he would instantly become the strongest advocate in Congress for a people’s Fed.
While Debbie Wasserman Schultz has few known views on the Federal Reserve, Canova’s populism offers a strong counterweight to her corporate-tinged philosophy. And even before that contrast plays out, the hunger for any challenge to Wasserman Schultz is palpable.
“The money is coming in more rapidly than believable,” said Howie Klein, co-founder of Blue America PAC, which raises money for progressive Democrats. Wasserman Schultz has been on Klein’s radar since she, as chair of the “Red to Blue” campaign for electing House Democrats, refused to campaign against three Republicans in Florida because of prior friendships and their joint support for the state sugar industry.
Klein sent a Blue America fundraising email shortly after Canova’s announcement, and raised $7,000 within 12 hours, and over $10,000 at last count. The intensity of support reached beyond the PAC’s traditional donor base. “Our average donation is $45, but in this case we’re getting $3, $5,” Klein said. “For people who our donors have never heard of, it can take three-four months to do that. It’s just because ofDebbie Wasserman Schultz.”
Similarly, Canova says he’s seeing tens of thousands of visits to his website andFacebook page, suggesting support beyond south Florida. However, he wants to localize rather than nationalize the race. The district, initially drawn with Wasserman Schultz’s input when she served in the Florida state Senate, is now more Hispanic and less reliable for a politician who Canova believes has lost touch with her constituents.
“You talk to people at the Broward County Democratic clubs, they say she takes us for granted,” Canova said. The political model for his campaign is David Brat, another academic who took on a party leader—then-House Majority Leader Eric Cantor—and defeated him, on the grounds that Cantor ignored his district amid constant corporate fundraising.
If there’s one thing Wasserman Schultz can do, it’s raise money—that’s why she chairs the party. She will have a big cash advantage and the power of incumbency. But Canova thinks he can outmatch her by riding the populist tide. “There’s a tendency to get so down about the system, but this is an interesting moment we’re living in,” Canova said. “This is a grassroots movement. We’re tapping in without even trying yet.”
Source: The New Republic
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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Still important to let our senators know what we think
Still important to let our senators know what we think
What do Credo Action, MoveOn, Idaho Medical Advocacy, CPD Action, Daily Kos, People’s Action, Elizabeth Warren, Mom’s...
What do Credo Action, MoveOn, Idaho Medical Advocacy, CPD Action, Daily Kos, People’s Action, Elizabeth Warren, Mom’s Rising, Our Revolution, Change.Org, AARP, and the Economic Policy Institute have in common?
Well, possibly lots of things — each is an advocacy group working to change America.
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From Low Pay to High Stress: These Are the Absolute Worst Companies to Work for in America, According to Employees
From Low Pay to High Stress: These Are the Absolute Worst Companies to Work for in America, According to Employees
“American consumers have a love-hate relationship with drugstore chains and their pricey prescriptions, but it seems...
“American consumers have a love-hate relationship with drugstore chains and their pricey prescriptions, but it seems employees do as well. Disgruntled Walgreens employees site poor pay (cashiers are paid just $9 per hour) and other labor issues as major negatives. The Center for Popular Democracy tallied actual employee votes and named Walgreens the worst company in America. They’ve even been accused of promoting employees to salary positions to skirt overtime pay, resulting in employees earning less money per hour than their hourly counterparts.
Read the full article here.
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
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.
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Protest Matters: Senate Asks F.B.I. to Investigate Kavanaugh After Flake Is Confronted by Sexual Assault Survivors
Protest Matters: Senate Asks F.B.I. to Investigate Kavanaugh After Flake Is Confronted by Sexual Assault Survivors
The Senate Judiciary Committee abruptly halted the effort to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court on Friday,...
The Senate Judiciary Committee abruptly halted the effort to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court on Friday, agreeing to a request from Sen. Jeff Flake, an Arizona Republican, to delay a final vote for one week, to give the FBI time to investigate three allegations of sexual assault and harassment against the judge.
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Accountability of Charter Schools in Illinois Raises Questions
WTAX News Radio - February 2, 2015 - Charter schools in Illinois are in the cross hairs of a new report alleging a lack...
WTAX News Radio - February 2, 2015 - Charter schools in Illinois are in the cross hairs of a new report alleging a lack of accountability leading to between $13 million and $27 million in fraud.“At a time when (Chicago Public Schools are) crying broke, and public schools are grossly under-resourced, and there’s a public demand for transparency and accountability around every corner,” says Action Now executive director Katelyn Johnson, “it seems unconscionable that CPS and the state of Illinois would not invest in rigid financial oversight of charter schools.”Johnson’s group is supporting the Center for Popular Democracy in the report, “Risking Public Money.”Andrew Broy has a differing viewpoint. He’s the president of the Illinois Network of Charter Schools and dismisses the other two groups as union-funded and anti-charter to begin with.“The question” about accountability, he says, “is if there are challenges with an internal governing board, how do we uncover that and make sure it’s taken care of, and the current law equips districts with all the tools they need to make sure that happens.”Source
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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