Archive for December 2009
Weekly Diaspora: Working Together for Reform
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By Nezua, Media Consortium Blogger
As we usher the last decade into the realm of memory, it’s time to stop viewing immigration reform as an Us vs. Them issue. The metaphors and language we use are key to framing a debate because they can communicate broader truths via association. For example, a scientist might mention the porous nature of all membranes and boundaries found in nature to describe the ineffectiveness of the militarized U.S.-Mexico border.
Reporting for New America Media, Marcelo Ballvé defines two emerging policy terms—“complementarity” and “circularity”—that are being used to describe the seasonal ebb and flow of migrant labor and argue for progressive reform. The terms effectively render concepts impenetrable borders and zero sum supply of resources, which are key fighting points for those who oppose progressive immigration reform, rigid and backward in contrast. (more…)
Weekly Pulse: What’s Next For Health Care Reform?
By Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium Blogger
The Senate passed its health care bill in the early morning hours of Christmas Eve. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) had to make major compromises to secure the votes of fence-sitters like Sens. Ben Nelson (R-NE) and Joe Lieberman (I-CT). Reid sacrificed the public option to keep Lieberman on board and tightened the bill’s abortion restrictions to placate Nelson.
Next, representatives from the House and the Senate will merge their respective bills in a conference committee, creating a single piece of legislation that both houses will vote on. If the conference report passes both houses, it will proceed to the president’s desk to be signed into law. Conference will start after the winter recess. The whole process could be complete by late January. (more…)
Weekly Audit: Crashing the Corporate Christmas Party
By Zach Carter, Media Consortium Blogger
While Wall Street will ring in the new year with huge bonuses and taxpayer-fueled profits, there is little holiday cheer for the workers whose tax dollars funded the bank bailouts. Although bank stock prices have soared for most of the year, the unemployment rate has steadily climbed and the foreclosure crisis has swelled to epic proportions.
Nomi Prins details the disconnect between Wall Street and the rest of us for AlterNet. The government’s massive giveaways to big banks did not stop with the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program. In fact, earlier this month, the Internal Revenue Service granted Citigroup a $38 billion tax break for, well, nothing. Like every other financial boon the Treasury and the Federal Reserve have granted banks since 2008, this special holiday gift will help boost Citigroup’s profits, but does little to boost lending to small businesses, lower credit card interest rates or help struggling borrowers stay in their homes. (more…)
Weekly Mulch: Climate Change Bill Stalls in Senate
By Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium Blogger
The United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen should have cleared a path for the U.S. Congress move forward again on climate change legislation, but Senate Democrats already are saying the bill might not come in 2010. After fights over the stimulus and health care, legislators are less willing to stomach compromises on climate change. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is looking smarter for having passed the House’s version of the climate change bill when she had the chance.
Brian Beutler reports for TPM that in the Senate, conservative Democrats from coal, oil, and manufacturing states are taking a stand against cap-and-trade provisions, which would limit carbon emissions nationwide. According to Beutler, “It’s likely impossible that [President Barack Obama] and Senate leadership will be able to keep the Democratic party united to stop a filibuster of cap-and-trade legislation, which means Democrats will have to secure the support of a handful of moderate Republicans—nuclear energy enthusiasts, in particular—if they hope to pass a meaningful bill.”
After the House of Representatives passed a climate change bill in July, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) set a September deadline for the six committees with a stake in the legislation to finish their work. Four months later, the Environmental and Public Works committee, the first to tackle the issue, is still debating a version of the bill sponsored by Sens. John Kerry (D-MA) and Barbara Boxer (D-CA).
With slow progress on the Kerry-Boxer bill, more business-friendly options are bubbling up from the Senate. Sen. Kerry has teamed up with Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) and with progressives’ most reviled Congressman, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), to craft a bill that Republicans might support. Another effort, led by Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), restricts carbon inputs rather than carbon emissions. (Need a refresher on proposed climate solutions? The Nation’s Chris Hayes can help.)
The Cantwell-Collins effort has at least one advantage over the House’s 1,498-page climate change bill, as David Morris reports for AlterNet. It’s only 39 pages—so far. More importantly, Morris writes, this strategy “treats carbon trading as a necessary evil, not the core of an emission reduction strategy, thereby probably earning the senators the eternal hatred of a Wall Street salivating over the potential bonuses another multi-trillion-dollar global securities market would generate.”
Despite these alternatives and resistance from some Democrats to cap-and-trade, Steve Benen notes at the Washington Monthly that the framework that the House passed in July and that provided the starting point for the original Kerry-Boxer proposal does have some positives.
“Proponents note that the policy has some pretty compelling selling points, including the fact that it caps emissions, combats global warming, reduces pollution, helps create new jobs in a burgeoning sector, and lowers the federal budget deficit, all at the same time,” Benen writes. If the Senate leadership gives into pressure from moderate Dems, he continues, the consequences are high.
“This needs to get done, and if the Senate takes a pass on 2010, it’s hard to imagine when the next available opportunity might be. It’s not as if this will get easier after Republicans make likely gains in the midterms,” Benen concludes.
Without a climate change bill in 2010, United States representatives will carry the same handicap—a recalcitrant legislature that could reject a global accord—to the next round of United Nations negotiations. Without legislation to back their proposals, U.S. negotiators lose the power to hold other countries’ accountable to global climate change goals.
Already, the U.N. is planning how to improve the treaty process for next year. As Andy Kroll notes at Mother Jones, “The world has changed considerably—economically, ecologically, socially, etc., etc.—since the existing UN treaty process was set into motion after the 1992 Rio Earth Summit where countries drafted the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the international treaty that each subsequent Conference of the Parties, or COP, attempted to build on and improve.”
Splitting the world into industrialized, developed, and developing countries may no longer make sense, writes Kroll. Smaller, less developed nations did their best to alert the conference to their needs, but the final agreement came from larger powers like India and China, developing countries with agendas markedly different than those of nations like Tuvalu. The unenthusiastic reception of that deal highlighted problems with the treaty process as much as disagreements among the participating nations.
“If the recent climate talks illustrated anything, it’s the extent to which the current treaty framework—an unwieldy process in which consensus among the 192 participating countries is near impossible—no longer serves its intended purpose of guiding nations toward meaningful, rigorous emissions reductions,” Kroll writes.
As global leaders try to move forward from Copenhagen, the impact of that breakdown should become clearer, as Mother Jones’ Kate Sheppard explains. “Because the document was not adopted unanimously, it has no real legal or formal bearing—it may never play a role in future UN deliberations.” Sheppard writes. “Converting this accord into meaningful action will be torturous. For all the angst the document provoked, it is extremely vague and leaves many key details unresolved.”
For years, the United States would not commit to the climate change goals agreed on through the U.N. treaty process, and now, any progress the Congress does make may come too late.
“Although Obama said on Friday that he and other leaders remain committed to a new, legally binding treaty in the future, there is no road map or timeline in the accord to reach such a goal,” Sheppard explains.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the environment by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Mulch for a complete list of articles on environmental issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Pulse, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.
Weekly Diaspora: ICE Perpetuating Human Rights Abuses
By Nezua, Media Consortium Blogger
Ed. Note: This week’s Diaspora is short due to the holidays. We’ll be back to full-length next week.
Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE), an arm of the Department of Homeland Security, apparently isn’t beholden to US or international law. In The Nation, Jacqueline Stevens reveals the “clandestine operations, akin to extraordinary renditions” carried out by ICE.
Beyond the department’s public list of detention facilities—many of which are already sites of alleged abuse—ICE is also “confining people in 186 unlisted and unmarked subfield offices” around the nation. According to Alison Parker, deputy director of Human Rights Watch, these secret detention centers may violate the UN’s Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which the United States is a signatory.
But what’s most appalling is ICE’s assertion that the department is some sort of super-police with powers of rendition. James Pendergraph, former executive director of ICE’s Office of State and Local Coordination, said in late 2008 that “if you don’t have enough evidence to charge someone criminally, but you think he’s illegal, we can make him disappear.” The boldness with which a law official would state such an idea is confounding; the confession, if true, is criminal.
Last week, The Diaspora wrote about the introduction of the CIR ASAP immigration bill by Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL). Freshman Congressman Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) is a recent addition to the list of 87 cosponsors on the bill, as The Colorado Independent reported last Wednesday. This is a positive step forward. The bill will most likely be sponsored in the senate by Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY). CIR ASAP establishes a basic layout of progressive immigration reform, but the final bill will probably become more focused on enforcement in Schumer’s hands.
Finally, David Moberg reports on the Obama administration’s controversial use of “audits” to purge employment payrolls of undocumented workers for In These Times. While the audit method is much quieter and less likely to make headlines, it is also ineffective. Not only do audits rely upon “flawed federal databases” to judge who is documented, they also purge immigrants who are “legal.”
As the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Executive Vice-President Eliseo Medina explains, workers fired as a result of ICE probes or audits do find other, lower-paying jobs that offer even less protection to the worker. Ultimately the number of undocumented workers in the US remains the same, and the entire exercise but “a losing game of musical chairs.” Medina stresses that SEIU is not suggesting the law shouldn’t be enforced, simply that it be enforced in a way that works.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about immigration by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Diaspora for a complete list of articles on immigration issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, and health care issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Pulse . This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.
Weekly Pulse: A Senate Bill By Christmas?
By Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium Blogger
Early Monday morning, the senate voted 60-40 along straight party lines to defeat the initial attempt to filibuster the health care reform bill. Yesterday, it passed the second of three procedural votes, bringing the Senate one step closer to a final vote on the health care reform bill. Majority Speaker Harry Reid (D-NV) is on schedule to vote on the bill before Christmas. (more…)
Weekly Audit: Stop Wall Street’s Economic Rampage
By Zach Carter, TMC Blogger
Over the past year, Wall Street’s excess has helped push the unemployment rate to epic levels and created millions of foreclosures. Yet the rules of the financial road remain unchanged. As 2009 draws to a close, it’s astonishing that so little progress towards financial reform has been made.
President Obama, Congress and federal regulators have not been tough enough on the nation’s financial elite. As Monika Bauerlein and Clara Jeffery emphasize for Mother Jones, the government has committed about $14 trillion in bailout funds to save the banking system without demanding much of anything in return. Goldman Sachs and other big banks are now planning to pay giant bonuses that come straight from taxpayer giveaways rather than invest that money in socially constructive banking.
“Bankers aren’t being rewarded for pulling the economy out of the doldrums,” Bauerlein and Jeffery write. “Nope, they’re simply skimming from the trillions we’ve shoveled at them.”
The major banks are even spending our bailout money to lobby against reform. When President Obama called a meeting for leaders of the nation’s largest banks to scold them for their lobbying, the heads of Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and Citigroup didn’t even bother to show up, as Matthew Rothschild describes in a podcast for The Progressive.
It’s easy to see why the bank execs are so indifferent, Rothschild argues, even to the president. Now that almost all of these banks have repaid the loans they received under the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), Obama has no negotiating leverage and the bankers know it. Even though it represents just a tiny fraction of the $14 trillion bailout, TARP was the only program that attached any strings to that money. Prior to those TARP repayments, Obama could have demanded that banks do more lending to help the economy, work harder to keep troubled borrowers in their homes—or face executive compensation restrictions or other penalties.
And many of the same regulators who helped bring about today’s economic disaster are still in power. As Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) explains for Brave New Films (video below), Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke blew just about every major policy decision he faced in the years leading up to the crisis. Bernanke, who was recently named person of the year by Time magazine, failed to rein in reckless mortgage speculation, predatory lending or excessive compensation packages. Nevertheless, President Obama has appointed him to another term.
“This recession was precipitated by the greed, recklessness and illegal behavior on Wall Street,” Sanders says. “One of the key responsibilities of the Fed is to maintain the safety and soundness of our financial institutions … The Fed was asleep at the wheel, Bernanke did not do the job.”
Sanders notes that even Bernanke’s financial clean-up operations have been deeply flawed. Bernanke has helped make today’s too-big-to-fail banks even bigger. If we want to stop the lobbying and policy deference that politicians grant to Wall Street, we have to break up the biggest banks into smaller firms that do not endanger the economy if they fail.
Bernanke is not the only holdover from the Bush administration that wields significant economic power under Obama. As I note in a piece for The Nation, John Dugan, the top bank regulator appointed by President George W. Bush, remains in office today, despite failing to ensure the financial health of our largest banks and actively working to undermine consumer protection.
Campaign contributions from the bank lobby will not be enough to counter the voter outrage that President Obama and members of Congress are facing, nor should they. If our leaders want a serious shot at re-election, they need to recognize the need for significant change on Wall Street. That means breaking up the big banks and setting economic policy that helps all of our citizens, not just financiers.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the economy by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Audit for a complete list of articles on economic issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, health care and immigration issues, check out The Mulch, The Pulse and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.
The Mulch: Tepid Accord Reached in Copenhagen
By Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium Blogger
After two weeks of negotiations for the United Nations Climate Change Conference (Cop15), global leaders produced a limited, non-binding agreement that was noted, but not adopted. President Barack Obama presented the Copenhagen Accord to the summit on Friday night, calling it an “important milestone.” The accord promises global cooperation to combat climate change, recognizes the need to keep global temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius, and commits funding for developing nations to battle the impacts of global warming.
But on Saturday, after President Obama had returned to Washington, leaders from Europe and the least developed nations announced that the accord was not definitive and represented the views of only a few countries. In particular, Lumumba Stanislas Dia-ping, chair of the Group of 77, which represents the poorest nations in the world, pushed back, claiming that their interests had been abandoned. (more…)
The Mulch: Frustrated, Obama Calls for Action
By Alison Hamm, Media Consortium Blogger
President Barack Obama’s much-anticipated arrival in Copenhagen today has turned from a hopeful sign of success into a grim reality check. Immediately after arriving this morning, Obama joined an unscheduled meeting with 18 other world leaders before the most high-profile session of the United Nations Climate Change Conference (Cop15) began. The deal depends on the United States and China, the world’s leading emitters of greenhouse gas emissions to reach an agreement on a course of action. (more…)
Journalism’s Main Priorities in 2010 (And 10 Resolutions)
By Tracy Van Slyke and Josh Stearns
Cross-Posted at SaveTheNews.org
If 2009 was a year of study and debate about the future of journalism, 2010 must be a year of action. We must come together around a core set of ideas to create a better ecosystem for sustainable and high-impact journalism. Based on the various reports and conferences from the past year, we’ve compiled the five most important areas that journalism organizations (and those invested in the future of journalism) must tackle in 2010—and suggest some initial steps to begin moving forward.
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