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February 13, 2012

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Republican presidential candidates slam SOPA, Protect IP

January 20, 2012 By Leave a Comment

In response to question from CNN's John King, Republican presidential candidates find little to love in SOPA or Protect IP.

All four Republican presidential candidates today denounced a pair of controversial Hollywood-backed copyright bills, lending a sharp partisan edge to yesterday’s protest against the legislation by Wikipedia, Google, and thousands of other Web sites.

The bills are “far too intrusive, far too expensive, far too threatening (to) the freedom of speech and movement of information across the Internet,” former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney said during tonight’s CNN debate in South Carolina.

Romney’s rivals offered similar criticisms of the Senate measure, Protect IP-scheduled for a floor vote next week-and the House bill called the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA.

Former House speaker Newt Gingrich said that while he’s “weighing” the bills, having “the government start censoring the Internet on behalf of giant corporations” is exactly the wrong thing to do. Former senator Rick Santorum said that while there is a “role” for the government in protecting intellectual property, SOPA and Protect IP go “too far.”

Rep. Ron Paul, the libertarian-leaning Texas Republican, publicly opposed SOPA long before nearly any other member of Congress, as CNET reported in November. Paul said tonight that “the Republicans unfortunately have been on the wrong side of this issue”-SOPA’s author is Texas Rep. Lamar Smith, Hollywood’s favorite Republican-and he’s glad to see that changing.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, calls Protect IP an “extremely important” piece of legislation, and is planning a floor vote for next Tuesday despite objections from Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell. The Kentucky Republican warned today that there are “serious issues” with the bill.

Wikipedia’s English-language pages went completely black on Wednesday with a splash page saying “the U.S. Congress is considering legislation that could fatally damage the free and open Internet” and suggesting that readers contact members of Congress. (See CNET’s FAQ on the topic.)

Here’s an excerpt from the transcript of the debate, conducted by CNN’s John King:

KING: Let’s continue the economic conversation with some input from a question from Twitter. If you look up here you can see it, CNNDebate.

“What is your take on SOPA and how do you believe it affects Americans?”

For those who have not been following it, SOPA is the Stop Online Piracy Act, a crackdown on Internet piracy, which is clearly a problem. But opponents say it’s censorship. Full disclosure, our parent company, Time Warner, says we need a law like this because some of its products, movies, programming, and the like, are being ripped off online.

Let me start with you, Mr. Speaker. There’s two competing ends, two engines, even, of our economy here at on this.

How do you deal with it?

GINGRICH: Well, you’re asking a conservative about the economic interests of Hollywood.

(APPLAUSE)

GINGRICH: And I’m weighing it. I’m weighing it. I’m not rushing in. I’m trying to think through all of the many fond left- wing people who are so eager to protect.

On the other hand, you have virtually everybody who is technologically advanced, including Google and YouTube and Facebook and all the folks who say this is going to totally mess up the Internet. And the bill in its current form is written really badly and leads to a range of censorship that is totally unacceptable.

Well, I favor freedom. And I think that if you — I think we have a patent office, we have copyright law. If a company finds that it has genuinely been infringed upon, it has the right to sue. But the idea that we’re going to preemptively have the government start censoring the Internet on behalf of giant corporations, economic interests, strikes me as exactly the wrong thing to do.

(APPLAUSE)

KING: Mr. Speaker, Governor Romney, these companies complain — some of them are based in Hollywood, not all of them are — that their software, that their publishing, that their movies, that their shows are being ripped off.

ROMNEY: I think he got it just about right. The truth of the matter is that the law, as written, is far too intrusive, far too expensive, far too threatening, the freedom of speech and movement of information across the Internet. It would have a potentially depressing impact on one of the fastest growing industries in America, which is the Internet, and all those industries connected to it.

At the same time, we care very deeply about intellectual content that’s going across the Internet. And if we can find a way to very narrowly, through our current laws, go after those people who are pirating, particularly those from off shore, we’ll do that.

But a very broad law which gives the government the power to start stepping into the Internet and saying who can pass what to whom, I think that’s a mistake. And so I’d say no, I’m standing for freedom.

(APPLAUSE)

KING: I mean, it’s a big issue in the country right now.

Congressman Paul and Senator Santorum, your views on this one quickly.

PAUL: I was the first Republican to sign on with a host of Democrats to oppose this law. And we have worked -

(APPLAUSE) PAUL: We have had a concerted effort, and I feel like we’re making achievement. This bill is not going to pass. But watch out for the next one.

And I am pleased that the attitude has sort of mellowed up here, because the Republicans unfortunately have been on the wrong side of this issue. And this is a good example on why it’s good to have somebody that can look at civil liberties and work with coalitions and bring people together. Freedom and the Constitution bring factions together. I think this is a good example.

(APPLAUSE)

KING: Those who support the law, Senator, argue tens of thousands of jobs are at stake.

SANTORUM: I don’t support this law. And I agree with everybody up here that is goes too far. But I will not agree with everybody up here that there isn’t something that can and should be done to protect the intellectual property rights of people.

The Internet is not a free zone where anybody can do anything they want to do and trample the rights of other people, and particularly when we’re talking about — in this case, we’re talking about entities offshore that are doing so, that are pirating things. So, the idea that the government — that you have businesses in this country, and that the government has no role to try to protect the intellectual property of people who have those rights in this country from people overseas pirating them and then selling them back into this country, it’s great.

I mean, I’m for free, but I’m not for people abusing the law. And that’s what’s happening right now, and I think something proper should be done. I agree this goes too far.

But the idea that, you know, anything goes on the Internet, where did that come from? Where in America does it say that anything goes? We have laws, and we respect the law. And the rule of law is an important thing, and property rights should be respected.

KING: All right.

Gentlemen, I want to thank you.

Source:

Photo credit: CNN

Filed Under: America, Censorship, Justice and Fairness, Law, Protests, SOPA/PIPA

Leadership for Social Change Lecture: Behind the Swoosh

December 15, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Jim Keady, theologian, activist, educator and former elected official, is the founding director of Educating for Justice, Inc.

This interactive multi-media presentation details the month Keady spent in an Indonesian factory workers slum living on $1.25 a day, a typical wage paid to Nike’s subcontracted workers.

Along with personal accounts, the presentation includes the latest information on Nike’s labor and environmental practices and challenges the audience to deal in human terms with the women, men, and sometimes children, who are the foundation of global manufacturing.

For more information regarding Jim Keady and his organization, please visit www.teamsweat.org or on facebook at www.facebook.com/teamsweat.

Filed Under: An Alternative World, Justice and Fairness Tagged With: , ,

Georgia Democrat Proposes Drug Testing For Lawmakers

December 12, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Democratic Georgia state Rep. Scott Holcomb has introduced legislation to the General Assembly that would require lawmakers to pass a drug test before taking office.

The usual bill was filed last week in response to a proposal to drug test welfare applicants, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

“This bill is really very simple,” Holcomb said in a statement. “If the General Assembly is going to pass laws requiring struggling, jobless Georgians to pay for drug tests as a precondition to receiving state benefits, then members of the General Assembly should lead by example and take the tests first.”

Random tests would also be mandated by the bill, which lawmakers would be required to pay for with their personal funds.

Following the example set by Florida and Missouri, Georgia state Sen. John Albers (R) introduced a bill that would require all applicants of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) welfare program to pass a drug test.

“Whether you work to receive compensation or collect government assistance, the same standards should apply,” Albers explained to Patch.com in November. “If individuals are receiving aid at the taxpayer’s expense, citizens have the right to know how their funds are being appropriated.”

Under the proposed legislation, applicants who failed the mandatory drug test would be ineligible for TANF benefits for one month. If they failed a second time, they would be ineligible for three months. Applicants who failed three times would be ineligible for three years unless they successfully completed a drug treatment program.

“I would prefer the General Assembly focus on the issues that are most important to Georgians,” Holcomb said. “But, if the General Assembly is going to make drug testing for state benefits a major issue when we return in January, then legislators need to be the first in line.”

The American Civil Liberties Union has decried the laws as discriminatory and other critics of drug testing TANF applicants have said it places vulnerable children at risk. The program is meant to help families so that children can be cared for in their own homes, and requires parents to participate in work-related activities.

 

Source: https://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/12/07/georgia-lawmaker-proposes-legislative-drug-testing-bill/

Filed Under: America, Democracy, Drugs, Health, Justice and Fairness, Law, Politicians Tagged With:

An Open Message to Police & Military

December 12, 2011 By Leave a Comment

This is a message to the Police, to the military, to the TSA, to Homeland Security and to members of every other enforcement arm of the government.

https://waitingforthestorm.com

 

Filed Under: Justice and Fairness, Military, Police, Sanctions, Warning

Two Million Strike in UK!!

December 1, 2011 By Leave a Comment

 

 

Filed Under: Justice and Fairness, Money, Politicians, Politics, Protests, Social Unrest, Unions, United Kingdom Tagged With: ,

Wall Street Banks Earned Billions In Profits Off $7.7 Trillion In Secret Fed Loans Made During The Financial Crisis

November 28, 2011 By Leave a Comment

In the lead-up to the financial crisis that crippled the American economy and plunged the country into a recession, the Federal Reserve made trillions in undisclosed loans to struggling banks and financial institutions, according to official documents obtained by Bloomberg News. Six of the country’s largest banks then turned those loans into more than $13 billion in previously undisclosed profits.

The total cost of the Fed loans amounted to $7.77 trillion, and unlike the funds made available by the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), the loans came with virtually no strings attached for the banks:

The amount of money the central bank parceled out was surprising even to Gary H. Stern, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis from 1985 to 2009, who says he “wasn’t aware of the magnitude.” It dwarfed the Treasury Department’s better-known $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP. Add up guarantees and lending limits, and the Fed had committed $7.77 trillion as of March 2009 to rescuing the financial system, more than half the value of everything produced in the U.S. that year.“TARP at least had some strings attached,” says Brad Miller, a North Carolina Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, referring to the program’s executive-pay ceiling. “With the Fed programs, there was nothing.”

In one month, Morgan Stanley — one of the most vulnerable financial companies at the time — took $107 billion in secret loans, enough to pay off a tenth of the nation’s delinquent mortgages. The loans, like those made to other institutions, were never reported to Morgan Stanley’s shareholders or the taxpayers who subsidized them.

Other banks drew similar loans without disclosing them. Bank of America, for instance, held $86 billion in public debt on the day then-CEO Ken Lewis declared his company “one of thestrongest and most stable major banks in the world.” Bank of America’s Fed borrowing peaked at $91.4 billion in February 2009; at the same time, it benefited from $45 billion in TARP loans.

And even while members of Congress were working to overhaul the nation’s financial regulatory system, the banks and the Fed kept them in the dark about the loans. Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), one of the architects of the Wall Street reform act that eventually became law, and former Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH), the GOP’s lead negotiator on TARP, told Bloomberg they were unaware of the specifics of such loans.

Had Congress had such information, members of both parties would have changed their votes to favor Wall Street reform, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) said. Former Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND), meanwhile, said knowledge of the loans could have led to a push to reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act, which prohibited banks from owning investment companies and vice versa, thereby limiting their size and vulnerability to such crises.

The secret nature of the loans, however, instead helped Wall Street work to “preserve a broken status quo” that allowed its biggest banks to grow even larger than they were before the crisis. The nation’s largest banks have turned more in profit in the last 30 months than they did in nearly eight years preceding the crisis, all while spending millions to derail significant reform legislation. And since the Dodd-Frank Act became law, they have spent millions more to weaken its rules and prevent certain regulations from taking effect. Bank lobbying, in fact, is now on pace to reach a record high this year.

Source: https://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/11/28/376430/wall-street-banks-fed-loans-secret/

Filed Under: America, Banks, Corporations, Corruption, Crime, Federal Reserve, Financial Crisis, Justice and Fairness, The Hidden Empire, Wealthy Elite

Trans-Pacific Partnership Destroys National Economies

November 28, 2011 By Leave a Comment

The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) is a “free trade” currently under negotiation between NZ and 8 other countries, the U.S., Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam.

Trade is only a minor part of the agreement. That’s just a clever branding exercise. A TPPA would be an agreement that guarantees special rights to foreign investors, and large Corporations. If these negotiations succeed they will create a mega-treaty across 9 countries that will put a straight-jacket around what policies and laws our governments can adopt for the next century — think GM labelling, foreign investment laws, price of medicines, regulating dodgy finance firms, NZ content on TV and so forth.

After the treaty is signed, if a new New Zealand sovereign law is deemed unsuitable by one of those Corporations, they will be able to SUE New Zealand in an International Court.

Basically we’ll totally lose our sovereignty. CORPORATOCRACY will reign supreme.

In the video here, Japanese journalist and author Gemki Fujii puts the case against TPP from his perspective in Japan:

Filed Under: Asia-Pacific, Corporations, Justice and Fairness, Law, Politics, Rights Tagged With: ,

Supreme Court To Decide Whether Lawsuits Require Harm

November 26, 2011 By Leave a Comment

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – In a dispute pitting big business against consumer groups, the Supreme Court hears arguments Monday on whether a person has to suffer legal harm to sue a company over an alleged kickback it got.

Cleveland home buyer Denise Edwards sued her title insurance company under a 1974 federal real estate settlement law that bars kickbacks and certain referral fee arrangements.

At issue is whether Edwards has the legal right to sue, even though she does not claim the alleged kickback affected the price, quality or any other aspects of her real estate settlement service.

Edwards paid First American Financial Corp $455 for title insurance as part of a home purchase in 2006 while the seller paid an additional $273.

She alleges that First American had an arrangement with her Ohio settlement agency to refer title insurance business exclusively to First American — the alleged kickback.

Her attorneys argued that Congress in adopting the 1974 law created a sufficient basis for her to sue and that courts have long recognized an individual’s interest to receive services free of kickbacks or other conflicts of interest.

Edwards has the support of 11 states, the National Consumers League and the consumer advocacy organization Public Citizen.

Backing the title company are organizations representing home builders, title insurance companies, mortgage bankers, Realtor and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

BROAD OR NARROW?

Kevin Walsh, a University of Richmond assistant law professor, said the arguments could provide clues on whether the justices are likely to rule broadly or narrowly.

“A broad ruling could either vindicate or constrict statutory damages provisions in laws designed to protect information privacy, to regulate debt collection and to set standards for credit reporting,” he said, citing some other laws that could be affected.

A narrow ruling based on the history of legal regulation of conflicts of interest would not necessarily affect other laws, he said.

The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case after conflicting rulings by U.S. appeals courts on the issue.

Celeste Hammond, director of the Center for Real Estate Law at the John Marshall Law School in Chicago, said in a written preview of the case for the American Bar Association that both sides viewed the dispute as significant for two reasons.

The first is whether an individual home buyer has the legal right or standing to sue for three times the charges paid for settlement services without alleging specific injury, she said.

Second, if Edwards can sue, then the case goes back to lower courts in California to determine if it can proceed as a class action, she said. The Supreme Court is not considering the class-action issue.

The Supreme Court case is First American Financial Corp v. Edwards, No. 10-708.

(Reporting by James Vicini, Editing by Howard Goller)

Source: https://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/11/26/supreme-court-to-decide-whether-lawsuits-require-harm

Filed Under: Corporations, Corruption, Justice and Fairness, Law

Occupy: Demonstrators Plan To Occupy Retailers On Black Friday

November 25, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Some demonstrators are planning to occupy retailers on Black Friday to protest “the business that are in the pockets of Wall Street.”

Organizers are encouraging consumers to either occupy or boycott retailers that are publicly traded, according to the Stop Black Friday website.

The goal of the movement is to impact the profits of major corporations this holiday season.

“The idea is simple, hit the corporations that corrupt and control American politics where it hurts, their profits, ” states the Occupy Black Friday Facebook page.

A few of the retailers the protesters plan on targeting include Neiman Marcus, Amazon and Wal-Mart.

Their website states the following:

“Keep in mind that we are not occupying small businesses or hardworking people - we must make a distinction between the businesses that are in the pockets of Wall Street and the businesses that serve our local communities.

We are NOT anti-capitalist. Just anti-crapitalist.

Below is a shortlist for publicly traded large businesses to Occupy or to boycott on Black Friday. Luckily, most of them don’t have good presents anyway. If you want to see the top 100 retail businesses for 2010 to boycott, click here.

On Black Friday, Occupy or Boycott:

- Amazon.com (yes, we have to stay away from Amazon, too!) [AMZN 188.99 -3.35 (-1.74%) ]

- AT&T Wireless [ATT 27.21 0.17 (+0.63%) ]

- Burlington Coat Factory

- Dick’s Sporting Goods (I was surprised, too!) [DSG-FF 28.505 -0.43 (-1.49%) ]

- Dollar Tree [DLTR 76.61 -0.48 (-0.62%) ]

- The Home Depot [HD 36.52 -0.58 (-1.56%) ]

- Neiman Marcus

- OfficeMax [OMX 4.25 -0.24 (-5.35%) ]

- Toys R’Us [JPM 28.38 -1.03 (-3.5%) ]

- Verizon Wireless [VZN 95.50 1.20 (+1.27%) ]

- Wal-Mart [WMT 56.64 -0.21 (-0.37%) ]

Solidarity!”

This is not the first time the demonstrators have taken action against corporations by using their money as weapon for change.

Consumer Nation - Holiday Edition - A CNBC Report

On Nov. 5th many demonstrators participated in “Bank Transfer Day” and moved their money from banks to credit unions.

 

Source: https://www.readersupportednews.org/news-section2/320-80/8562-demonstrators-plan-to-occupy-retailers-on-black-friday

 

Filed Under: Consumer, Corporations, Justice and Fairness, Occupy

American Freedom Riders Against Israeli Apartheid

November 25, 2011 By Leave a Comment

London, (Pal Telegraph) - Josh Ruebner views the parallels between the US Freedom Riders of the early 1960s and the current Palestinian Freedom Riders who have begun a non-violent campaign against the segregated transport systems and apartheid conditions endured by Palestinians under Israel’s brutal military occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Fifty years ago, Freedom Riders braved beatings and arson by supremacists intent on maintaining apartheid in the Jim Crow South. By challenging segregated transport through non-violent action, these African American and white activists set in motion a process that ultimately dismantled segregation. While the struggle for racial justice continues, at least this shameful chapter of formal racial discrimination is history.

“Freedom”, “Dignity”, “We Shall Overcome”

Reflecting on this anniversary, Member of the House of Representatives John Lewis, one of the main organizers of the Freedom Rides, noted that they “changed America. Before the movement … people were afraid… That fear is gone. People can walk, live, work and play with a sense of dignity and a sense of pride.”

“Fired by the same drive for dignity and pride [as the Freedom Riders], six Palestinian non-violent activists last week boarded an Israeli settler bus to draw the world’s attention to the segregated transport systems and apartheid conditions they endure under Israel’s brutal 44-year military occupation…”

Fired by the same drive for dignity and pride, six Palestinian non-violent activists last week boarded an Israeli settler bus to draw the world’s attention to the segregated transport systems and apartheid conditions they endure under Israel’s brutal 44-year military occupation of the Palestinian West Bank and East Jerusalem. Echoing Frederick Douglass, spokesperson Hurriyeh Ziadah said: “Our rights will not voluntarily be handed to us, so we are heading out to demand them.”

While attempting to ride from the occupied West Bank into occupied East Jerusalem, non-violently demanding their right to benefit from infrastructure created by Israel on their land, the Israeli military stopped the bus, physically removed and arrested the riders who held signs reading “Freedom”, “Dignity” and “We Shall Overcome”.

Apartheid infrastructure

For the benefit of 650,000 Israeli settlers living in Israel’s illegal settlements in these occupied Palestinian territories, Israel has constructed – in violation of international law – a vast, alternative infrastructure of roads and bus lines from which 2.5 million Palestinians are all but effectively banned. Palestinians are often confined to their village or town due to hundreds of temporary and permanent Israeli roadblocks, checkpoints, walls and other barriers that prevent them from exercising their right to freedom of movement. When Palestinians are allowed to travel by their Israeli occupiers, they must do so on circuitous, inferior roads to bypass Israeli settlement infrastructure, making even the most mundane trip a gruelling trek. Separate is never equal.

Looking back on his achievements since the Freedom Rides, Representative Lewis is not yet satisfied. “I would like to, before I leave this little piece of real estate, do a little more for the cause of peace. To end the violence here at home and violence abroad. We spend so much of our resources killing each other.”

US taxpayer-funded arms supplies

To do a lot more for the cause of peace, Rep. Lewis and his congressional colleagues should end US weapons transfers to Israel and redirect those resources to better uses at home. Between 2009 and 2018, the United States is scheduled to provide Israel with 30 billion dollars in taxpayer-funded weapons which will be used by Israel to perpetuate this apartheid system the Palestinian Freedom Riders are challenging.

“Between 2009 and 2018, the United States is scheduled to provide Israel with 30 billion dollars in taxpayer-funded weapons which will be used by Israel to perpetuate this apartheid system the Palestinian Freedom Riders are challenging.”

Not only do US weapons to Israel entrench its illegal military occupation of Palestinian territories, allow Israel to expand its illegal settlements, thwart efforts to establish a Palestinian state, and injure and kill Palestinian civilians on a horrific scale (according to the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, Israel killed nearly 3,000 unarmed Palestinians during the 2000s); they also deprive our communities of funds for unmet needs.

Of this 30 billion dollars, residents of Atlanta, many of whom are represented in Congress by Rep. Lewis, are expected to provide Israel with nearly 110 million dollars of their hard-earned money to finance US weapons for Israel. This same amount of money could fund instead each year more than 1,300 low-income Atlanta families with affordable housing vouchers, or provide more than 3,200 at-risk Atlanta school children with early reading programs.

Palestinian Freedom Riders are seeking their rights to be treated as equal human beings free to move about in their own land. They are not seeking the type of “charity” provided by US economic aid that often functions to entrench the very system of Israeli apartheid against which they are protesting. A 2010 report by the Applied Research Institute of Jerusalem found that one-third of roads funded and built by the US Agency for International Development reflect Israel’s priorities for constructing an inferior and segregated transport system for Palestinians.

If Rep. Lewis helped end the immorality of segregation in the United States, then half a century later he can also contribute to ending discrimination in Israel/Palestine by stopping US weapons transfers that sustain Israeli apartheid toward Palestinians.

Josh Ruebner is National Advocacy Director of the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation and former Analyst in Middle East Affairs at the Congressional Research Service.

 

Source: https://www.paltelegraph.com/opinions/editorials/10424-american-freedom-riders-against-israeli-apartheid.html

 

Filed Under: Campaigning, Freedom, Justice and Fairness, Palestine, Rights
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