Progressive Review

House May Bypass Direct Vote

editor — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 11:27:38 +0000

THE PROGRESSIVE REVIEW – March 18, 2010

House May Bypass Direct Vote
by: Yana Kunichoff
truthout|Report

As the clock ticks toward a late-week House vote promised
by Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California), Democrats consider
the possibility of passing the Senate version of the health
care bill without a direct vote.

This procedure, known as a “deem-and-pass” or a “self-
executing rule,” would allow the House to vote on a
package of more popular “fixes”‘ to the Senate bill – when
these are passed, the Senate bill is also “deemed” passed.

Though it is one of three options under consideration for
the coming House vote, Pelosi said she prefers it, as it
would politically protect legislators who are reluctant to
publicly support the bill. “It’s more insider and process-
oriented than most people want to know,” the speaker said
in a roundtable discussion with bloggers Monday. “But I
like it because people don’t have to vote on the Senate
bill.”

The measure has been painted by Republican opponents as
unconstitutional as well as a move to avoid potentially
stigmatizing public affiliation with an unpopular measure.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) said,
“anyone who endorses this strategy will be forever
remembered for trying to claim they didn’t vote for some-
thing they did.”

However, a memo released by the House Rules Committee on
Tuesday morning, defending the historical nature of the
deem-and-pass rules, noted that the tactic has been used
“far more often by Republicans than Democrats” over the
years.

“For starters, despite what the minority may claim, the
precedent for adopting a resolution and at the same time
concurring in a Senate amendment to a bill was set back
in 1933,” the rules memo stated. The measure has been
used numerous times over the past 20 years, although
never to pass legislation as large as the $875 billion
health care bill.

However, the question for Congressional Democrats is
whether it is passing the bill or passing on the bill
that could be more detrimental to them in the upcoming
elections. Along with renewed pressure by progressive
advocacy groups to include a public option, President
Obama has been meeting separately with undecided
Democrats to persuade them to support the bill.

According to Paul Begala, a Democratic strategist and
former adviser to Bill Clinton, if the Democrats fail
to pass the health care legislation, they will lose the
House in upcoming election. However, “if they pass health
care, they go into a tough environment, but they have an
accomplishment, plus one that will provide benefits.”

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End of PROGRESSIVE REVIEW
Copyright 2010 by NextEra Media. All rights reserved.

Reid’s Reconciliation

editor — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 11:25:31 +0000

THE PROGRESSIVE REVIEW – March 15, 2010

Reid Formally Notifies Republicans He Will Use
Reconciliation to Pass Health Care Bill
by: Jason Leopold
truthout|Report

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid formally informed
Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell Thursday that he will use
the budgetary process of reconciliation to try and pass a
final round of changes to the health care bill.

It’s unclear when the legislation will come up for a vote.
Reconciliation only requires a simply majority whereas
Democrats would need to win 60 votes in order to bypass a
Republican-led filibuster.

“We plan to use the regular budget reconciliation process
that the Republican caucus has used many times,” Reid told
McConnell, the Senate Minority Leader. “Keep in mind that
reconciliation will not exclude Republicans from the
legislative process.”

Republicans have warned Democrats against using reconcili-
ation to pass a health care bill they say is highly
unpopular with the American public.

But Reid said Republicans were “distorting the facts” and
he pointed out that the “vast majority” of bills where the
procedure was used in the past to pass legislation, includ-
ing George W. Bush’s “massive, budget-busting tax-breaks
for multimillionaires,” were orchestrated by Republican
congresses.

“Given this history, one might conclude that Republicans
believe a majority vote is sufficient to increase the
deficit and benefit the super-rich, but not to reduce the
deficit and benefit the middle class,” Reid said. Alter-
natively, perhaps Republicans believe a majority vote is
appropriate only when Republicans are in the majority.
Either way, we disagree.

“At the end of the process, the bill can pass only if it
wins a democratic, up-or-down majority vote,” Reid said.
“If Republicans want to vote against a bill that reduces
health care costs, fills the prescription drug ‘donut
hole’ for seniors and reduces the deficit, you will have
every right to do so.”

The full text of the letter is reprinted below:

March 11, 2009

The Honorable Mitch McConnell
Republican Leader
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510

Dear Leader McConnell:

Eleven months ago, I wrote you to share my expectations
for the coming health reform debate. At the time, I
expressed Democrats’ intention to work in good faith
with Republicans, and my desire that – while we would
disagree at times – we could engage in an honest
discussion grounded in facts rather than fear, and
focused on producing results, not playing partisan
politics.

Obviously, the opposite has happened, as many
Republicans have spent the past year mischaracterizing
the health reform bill and misleading the public.
Though we have tried to engage in a serious discussion,
our efforts have been met by repeatedly debunked myths
and outright lies. At the same time, Republicans have
resorted to extraordinary legislative maneuvers in an
effort not to improve the bill, but to delay and kill
it. After watching these tactics for nearly a year,
there is only one conclusion an objective observer
could make: these Republican maneuvers are rooted less
in substantive policy concerns and more in a partisan
desire to discredit Democrats, bolster Republicans,
and protect the status quo on behalf of the insurance
industry.

In fact, the attacks on the health care bill are part
of a broader pattern. As has been well documented,
your caucus conspicuously shattered the record for
obstruction last Congress by demanding gratuitous
procedural votes on even the most non-controversial
matters, and by stalling the work of the Senate despite
the urgency of the serious problems facing our country.
Senate Republicans are on pace to again break their own
record this Congress, illustrated by Sen. Bunning’s
effort to prevent the Senate from acting to extend
families’ unemployment and health benefits even after
those benefits had expired.

While Republicans were distorting the facts in the
health care debate and inflicting delay after needless
delay, millions of Americans have continued to suffer
as they struggle to afford to stay healthy, stay out
of bankruptcy and stay in their homes. Thousands of
Americans lose their health care every day, and tens
of thousands of the uninsured have lost their lives
since this debate began. Meanwhile, rising health
costs have contributed to a rising federal budget
deficit.

To address these problems, 60 Senators voted to pass
historic reform that will make health insurance more
affordable, make health insurance companies more
accountable and reduce our deficit by roughly a
trillion dollars. The House passed a similar bill.
However, many Republicans now are demanding that we
simply ignore the progress we’ve made, the extensive
debate and negotiations we’ve held, the amendments
we’ve added (including more than 100 from Republicans)
and the votes of a supermajority in favor of a bill
whose contents the American people unambiguously
support. We will not. We will finish the job. We will
do so by revising individual elements of the bills
both Houses of Congress passed last year, and we plan
to use the regular budget reconciliation process that
the Republican caucus has used many times.

I know that many Republicans have expressed concerns
with our use of the existing Senate rules, but their
argument is unjustified. There is nothing unusual or
extraordinary about the use of reconciliation. As one
of the most senior Senators in your caucus, Sen. Judd
Gregg of New Hampshire, said in explaining the use of
this very same option, “Is there something wrong with
majority rules? I don’t think so.” Similarly, as non-
partisan congressional scholars Thomas Mann and Norm
Ornstein said in this Sunday’s New York Times, our
proposal is “compatible with the law, Senate rules and
the framers’ intent.”

Reconciliation is designed to deal with budget-related
matters, and some have expressed doubt that it could
be used for comprehensive health care reform that
includes many policies with no budget implications.
But the reconciliation bill now under consideration
would not be the vehicle for comprehensive reform –
that bill already passed outside of reconciliation
with 60 votes. Instead, reconciliation would be used
to make a modest number of changes to the original
legislation, all of which would be budget-related.
There is nothing inappropriate about this. Reconcili-
ation has been used many times for a variety of health-
related matters, including the establishment of the
Children’s Health Insurance Program and COBRA benefits,
and many changes to Medicare and Medicaid.

As you know, the vast majority of bills developed
through reconciliation were passed by Republican
Congresses and signed into law by Republican Presidents
– including President Bush’s massive, budget-busting
tax breaks for multi-millionaires. Given this history,
one might conclude that Republicans believe a majority
vote is sufficient to increase the deficit and benefit
the super-rich, but not to reduce the deficit and
benefit the middle class. Alternatively, perhaps
Republicans believe a majority vote is appropriate
only when Republicans are in the majority. Either way,
we disagree.

Keep in mind that reconciliation will not exclude
Republicans from the legislative process. You will
continue to have an opportunity to offer amendments
and change the shape of the legislation. In addition,
at the end of the process, the bill can pass only if
it wins a democratic, up-or-down majority vote. If
Republicans want to vote against a bill that reduces
health care costs, fills the prescription drug “donut
hole” for seniors and reduces the deficit, you will
have every right to do so.

Sincerely,

HARRY REID
United States Senator
Nevada

End of PROGRESSIVE REVIEW
Copyright 2010 by NextEra Media. All rights reserved.

DHS Immigration Agencies Struggle

editor — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 11:27:47 +0000

THE PROGRESSIVE REVIEW – March 11, 2010

Department of Homeland Security
Immigration Agencies Fall Short
by: William Fisher
truthout|Report

As the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) celebrates
its seventh anniversary, its immigration agencies are
struggling to “create more humane ways to enforce broken
laws” – but trying to enforce their way out of a broken
immigration system is ultimately “a losing proposition.”
That was the conclusion reached in a new report on
immigration that faulted the sprawling agency for “lack
of transparency.”

The report, titled “DHS Progress Report: The Challenge of
Reform,” was released by the Immigration Policy Center
(IPC), the research and policy arm of the American
Immigration Council. It attempts to measure DHS actions
over the past year against recommendations made to the
Obama transition team’s immigration policy group.

The “Transition Blueprint,” produced by a wide range of
immigration advocates, focused on “administrative improve-
ments that would instill fairness, create efficiencies,
and build support for comprehensive immigration reform in
several key areas: due process, enforcement, detention,
family immigration, naturalization, immigrant integration,
and asylum.”

DHS’s seventh anniversary also corresponds to the due
date set by Secretary Janet Napolitano for completion of a
sweeping internal review of DHS. In her first full week on
the job, Secretary Napolitano issued a directive instruct-
ing every agency to “thoroughly assess its current programs,
resources, and efficiencies to identify areas in need of
reform.”

The results of these reviews have not been made public,
the report noted, “so it is impossible to determine whether
a rigorous self-assessment took place, but the Department’s
actions over the following year suggest that tinkering with
the immigration enforcement regime rather than genuinely
reforming it was the top priority of the Administration.”

A co-author of the report, Mary Giovagnoli, director of the
IPC, told Truthout she believes DHS Secretary Napolitano
and the people she has brought in to staff the immigration
agencies “are professionals who are dedicated to improve-
ment, but are trapped in a world of competing entrenched
interests and laws that are popular with Congress but
which don’t actually work.”

She praised officials at DHS’s immigration agencies for
“their willingness to stay engaged” with the immigration
advocacy community. However, she added, “By the end of
the Bush Administration that community’s level of trust
and confidence was so low that we always knew it was
going to take time to rebuild.”

She recalled that after DHS’s founding in 2002, “It was so
large that it took three or four years for the agency’s
management to understand exactly what they had in the
immigration field.”

Noting that 2009 “was largely about promises and aspir-
ations,” she said, “Whether DHS can make good on these
promises remains to be seen.” However, she added, “That
process has started.”

Giovagnoli served as an attorney with the Departments of
Justice and Homeland Security – serving first as a trial
attorney and associate general counsel with the Immigration
and Naturalization Service (INS), and, following the
creation of the Department of Homeland Security, as an
associate chief counsel for United States Citizenship and
Immigration Services (USCIS). She was also awarded a
Congressional fellowship from USCIS to serve for a year
in Sen. Edward M. Kennedy’s office, where she worked on
comprehensive immigration reform and refugee issues.

Her co-author, Royce Bernstein Murray, worked as associate
counsel on the Refugee and Asylum Law Division in the
USCIS Office of the Chief Counsel for five years, during
which time she advised a range of humanitarian immigration
programs. Previously, she served as an asylum officer/
presidential management fellow for the INS Office of
International Affairs.

The IPC report examined the DHS immigration apparatus –
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Customs and
Border Protection (CBP) and USCIS.

The examination revealed that DHS is struggling with the
challenges of reform – both administrative and legislative
- and “finds itself attempting to create more humane ways
to enforce broken laws, which is ultimately a losing
proposition.”

The report concluded that DHS “is still trying to enforce
programs like Operation Streamline, a program which
requires mandatory criminal prosecutions of non-violent
border crossers, clogs the federal court system and drains
resources that could be used to prosecute more serious
criminals. DHS is also expanding partnerships with state
and local law enforcement agencies (Secure Communities and
287(g) programs) in their search for ‘criminal aliens.’
These programs often identify people with no criminal
history and persons ‘identified’ but found not to be
deportable.”

The report said that the first year under the administr-
ation of President Barack Obama “was both promising and
frustrating.” It describes “a year where the promise of
reform seems to fight daily with the dynamics of an
entrenched belief in an enforcement driven culture. For
every two steps forward, it seems that the Department
takes one step backward, inching its way toward a more
humane and just system.”

It cautioned that the immigration system is “living on
borrowed time,” adding, “Without immigration reform that
gives DHS the breathing room to do the right thing,
annual reviews will increasingly be catalogs of more
enforcement measures without corresponding opportunities
for immigrants to make the kinds of contributions to
our country that enrich us all.”

The report was particularly critical of DHS’s enforcement
priorities, arrangements with local law enforcement
agencies and asylum and detention procedures. It said,
“While DHS professes to have re-focused its attention on
non-compliant employers in the workplace and prosecuting
non-citizens with serious criminal convictions, data
indicates that employers and violent criminals make up a
small percentage of enforcement targets.”

ICE prioritized detention reform in 2009, specifically
addressing issues of oversight, alternatives to detention,
health care and parole. “While advocates have welcomed
these initiatives, they continue to look for meaningful
changes in the day-to-day management of facilities and
decisions to detain,” the report said.

It noted that DHS has continued to expand its partnership
with state and local law-enforcement agencies, particularly
through the Secure Communities and 287(g) programs.

The Secure Communities and 287(g) programs enlist the help
of local law enforcement agencies to apprehend and detain
people suspected of being illegal aliens. The programs
have been widely criticized by police chiefs and sheriffs
throughout the country for diverting local resources into
activities for which they are not trained, and arresting
and detaining people for petty offenses.

DHS claims these programs target “criminal aliens.”
However, people identified by these programs “include
large numbers of individuals with no criminal history,
individuals charged (but not convicted) of crimes, and
persons ‘identified’ but not found to be deportable.”

Due process is an area in which DHS has made little
tangible progress, the report said. For example,
“While the registration component of NSEERS, a special
registration program targeted at men from predominantly
Muslim countries, was suspended in 2003, applicants
applying for benefits continue to be plagued by mistakes
made during the registration process, affecting their
ability to adjust status or naturalize.”

The immigration court system remains overburdened, access
to counsel is limited and a streamlined appeals process
offers inadequate review for many claims, the report
charged.

It said there is “no evidence of progress in implementing
the U.S. Commission on Religious Freedom’s recommendations
for improving the expedited removal system for asylum
seekers. The resolution of cases involving ‘material
support’ (of terrorism) continue to face delays that keep
legitimate asylum seekers from receiving protection.”

The report recommended that DHS should create an ICE
ombudsman to investigate complaints, monitor enforcement
strategies and recommend personnel actions in response to
complaints.

To improve the conditions of detainees, ICE “should hire a
Senior Advisor on Detainee Health, as the agency announced
it would do last August, to maximize the effectiveness of
the detainee healthcare group meetings and development of
a medical classification system.”

ICE has been severely criticized for operating a network
of detention facilities that fail to meet even minimum
health standards. There have been more than a dozen deaths
in detention because of failure to provide timely medical
assistance in emergencies. Detainees also complain that
the facilities offer little or no due process, principally,
access to their lawyers. Detention also often takes place
far from the place where the detainee was apprehended,
making it difficult to access legal help, families and
records.

To improve performance in the asylum area, the report
recommends, the Department should “create a Refugee
Protection Office that would report directly to the DHS
Secretary or Deputy Secretary. Coordinated efforts would
increase the ability of DHS to quickly resolve lingering
disputes such as resolution on material support and
implementation of proposals to improve expedited removal
for asylum-seekers.”

While praising the DHS for a number of positive develop-
ments, the report finds “the spirit of reform is often
stymied by an over-reliance on existing enforcement
policies.”

End of PROGRESSIVE REVIEW
Copyright 2010 by NextEra Media. All rights reserved.

The Unemployment Rate Holds

editor — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 11:29:14 +0000

THE PROGRESSIVE REVIEW – March 8, 2010

Unemployment Rate Holds at 9.7 Percent
in Spite of Snow Storms
by: Dean Baker
The Center for Economic and Policy Research

Nominal wage growth has averaged just 2.0 percent over the
last quarter.

The unemployment rate remained at 9.7 percent in February
in spite of snow storms that kept millions of people out
of work during the reference week. The establishment survey
showed the economy losing 36,000 jobs with all of the job
loss explained by a drop in construction employment of
64,000. With more normal conditions, it is likely that the
economy would have added a small number of jobs in the
month.

While it is difficult to determine the impact of the
weather, some of the data in the report clearly is
positive. For example, manufacturing showed job growth
(just 1.0 percent) for the second consecutive month. It
seems likely that the plunge in manufacturing employment
is over, although there is no reason to believe there
will be a sharp upturn in hiring any time soon. The
average workweek in manufacturing fell by 0.4 hours, but
this was undoubtedly affected by the weather.

The employment situation also improved slightly for men,
with the employment to population ratio (EPOP) rising
0.2 percentage points to 66.6 percent. The EPOP for women
was unchanged at 55.8 percent, although it fell 0.3
percentage points for white women, knocking out half the
gain posted in January. The EPOP for black women rose 0.9
percentage points to 55.6 percent. The employment situation
for Hispanics also seems to be improving with the unemploy-
ment rate falling 0.2 percentage points to 12.4 percent.
This is 0.7 percentage points below the recession peak in
October.

Other data in the household survey is ambiguous. There was
a big jump in both labor force participation and EPOPs for
high school graduates in February, but this is a common
seasonal pattern (in spite of the seasonal adjustments to
the data). The number of people involuntarily working part-
time increased by 458,000, reversing more than half of the
sharp drop reported for January. The percentage of unemploy-
ment attributable to workers who voluntarily left their
jobs, a measure of confidence in the labor market, fell by
0.4 percentage points to a level near the low for the down-
turn. However, all the duration measures of unemployment
decreased slightly for the month.

In the establishment data, the only sector showing robust
job growth is employment services. This sector added
49,800 jobs in February. Employment services has now added
307,000 jobs since employment bottomed out last September.
This could be a harbinger of more hiring for permanent
positions; the relationship between temp employment and
permanent employment is not entirely clear. Temp employment
bottomed out in September of 2002, but total employment
did not begin to grow until September of 2003. The job
growth in the sector was never especially robust and
employment in the sector never returned to the peaks hit
before the 2001 recession.

Most of the job loss in construction was probably real
and not weather related. Non-residential construction
accounted for the overwhelming majority of the job loss,
which is consistent with Commerce Department data showing
a sharp drop in this sector. Publishing lost 7,300 jobs
in February, nearly 1 percent of total employment. Health
care added just 12,000 jobs, the slowest growth since
April 2009. State and local government employment fell
by 25,000 in February. This rate of job loss is likely to
accelerate in future months as state and local deficits
force further cutbacks.

Retail employment was virtually flat, losing 400 jobs.
Restaurants reportedly added 400 jobs, while hotels
lost 2,700 jobs. Employment in these sectors was likely
affected by the weather, both because these businesses
are especially sensitive to weather and also because
workers in these industries are more likely to receive
weekly pay checks. (The employment question asks firms
about the pay period including the 12th of the month. If
the pay period is shorter, then the weather is more likely
to affect total employment.) The weather also shortened
workweeks, with the index for aggregate hours nearing its
low-point for the downturn.

In sum, this report is consistent with an economy that
would not have lost jobs in the month, had it not been
for the weather. However, there is absolutelyno reason
to believe that any substantial uptick in employment is
imminent.

End of PROGRESSIVE REVIEW
Copyright 2010 by NextEra Media. All rights reserved.

Senate Revives Programs

editor — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 11:25:21 +0000

THE PROGRESSIVE REVIEW – March 4, 2010

Senate Votes to Revive Programs After Bunning Relents
by: Halimah Abdullah and David Lightman
McClatchy Newspapers

Washington – By a vote of 78 to 19, the Senate Tuesday
night passed funding to revive government programs that
aid jobless people, highway projects and other initiatives
that had shut down for nearly 48 hours because of Sen. Jim
Bunning’s increasingly unpopular one-man stand against the
measure.

The deadlock ended Tuesday when the Kentucky Republican
relented, as he faced growing pressure not only from angry
constituents but also from Senate colleagues from both
parties.

The House of Representatives passed the measure last week,
and once signed by President Barack Obama, $10 billion can
be spent to keep most of the programs operating for about
a month.

Bunning wanted the provisions paid for, but other senators
said these were emergency measures and didn’t need to be
offset.

The pressure on Bunning steadily grew. On Tuesday, the
Senate spent most of the day debating the measure — with
most senators, including some from his own party, pleading
for him to drop his objection.

Tuesday evening, he did.

“I hope Senate Democrats tonight vote for their own pay-
fors and show Americans that they are committed to fiscal
discipline,” Bunning said. “I will be watching them close-
ly and checking off the hypocrites one by one.”

One of Tuesday night’s procedural votes focused on Bunn-
ing’s amendment to offset the $10 billion price tag of the
Democrat-backed 30-day-extension of funding for jobless
benefits and other government initiatives. That effort
failed.

Later this week, there will be two additional votes on his
proposals to offset the costs of a longer-term benefits
bill.

Earlier, Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lindsey Graham
of South Carolina, along with other Republicans, joined
Democrats in publicly urging Bunning to end his objection,
which had resulted in nearly 2,000 Department of Transport-
ation employees being furloughed without pay Monday and
which affects jobless benefits for thousands of unemployed
workers, rural television customers, doctors receiving
Medicare payments and others.

Bunning stressed that he supports the programs and
criticized Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and
other Democrats for not sticking to recently passed “pay-
go” provisions, which require paying for many new programs
with readily available funds rather than additional borrow-
ing.

Reid countered that Bunning was scarcely concerned about
debt during the Bush administration.

“He wasn’t too worried about this during the eight years
of the Bush administration, when two wars were unpaid for;
all these tax cuts, these 2.5 trillion of dollars,” Reid
said.

The White House offered a forceful, if exasperated,
response.

“This is an emergency situation. This is a situation where,
as I said, hundreds of thousands of people are left in the
lurch as a result of what happened in our economy,” White
House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Tuesday. “The Senate has
even offered to have a vote on what Senator Bunning wants
to do, and the person that objected was Senator Bunning.

“I don’t know how you negotiate with the irrational. I
don’t know how you prevent one person from deciding that
they hold in the palm of their hand the livelihood of
hundreds of thousands that have lost their jobs and as a
result have lost their health care. What it’s simply going
to mean is… more people are simply going to need help.
It’s an argument that I and others fail to understand.”

Among the provisions that expired Sunday at midnight are
the flood insurance program, Small Business Administration
loans, a change in Medicare payments to doctors, some
transportation funding and, most prominently, help for the
unemployed.

Most people who already are getting extra jobless benefits
are unlikely to be affected. Those who will feel the impact
could include people who’ve exhausted their 26 weeks of
state benefits and qualify for more aid under federal guide-
lines.

Anyone laid off after March 1 no longer was able to get
federal help to pay health insurance premiums; the program
pays 65 percent of the cost for certain workers.

Letting the highway program lapse could have meant an
estimated 90,000 jobs lost.

A number of protests in support of and against Bunning’s
actions took place Tuesday in his home state, where 14,000
Kentuckians would have lost federal jobless benefits this
month if Congress hadn’t extended them, according to the
National Employment Law Project.

Bunning and his fellow Kentuckian Mitch McConnell, the
Senate Minority Leader, both voted against the funding
extension Tuesday night.

Bunning’s often had a contentious relationship with the
Republican leadership, especially McConnell.

Bunning isn’t running for a third term, and his decision
a year ago not to seek re-election brought to a close a
months-long saga that had pitted the 78-year-old Hall of
Fame pitcher against those who urged him to step aside for
the good of the party.

McConnell had stopped short of publicly wading into the
fray. However, during a news conference Tuesday, he
indicated that the party was close to resolving the matter.

“We’re in the process of working on that now,” McConnell
said.

(Margaret Talev contributed to this article.)

End of PROGRESSIVE REVIEW
Copyright 2010 by NextEra Media. All rights reserved.

Cell Phone Tracking Crisis

editor — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 11:29:19 +0000

THE PROGRESSIVE REVIEW – March 1, 2010

Cell Phone Tracking: The New Constitutional Crisis
by: William Fisher
truthout|Report

If you own a cell phone, you should care about the outcome
of a court case that “could well decide whether the govern-
ment can use your cell phone to track you – even if it
hasn’t shown probable cause to believe it will turn up
evidence of a crime.”

That was the warning issued to the public by several major
civil liberties organizations as they appeared in federal
court in Philadelphia to argue for more privacy protections
in the use of cell phones as tracking devices by law
enforcement agents.

The case is at the heart of the constitutional crisis now
being played out in the US federal court. Civil liberties
groups are asking the court to require that the government
show probable cause before it can track your whereabouts.

The groups are the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF),
the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the ACLU of
Pennsylvania, and the Center for Democracy and Technology
(CDT).

Back in 2007, the US government applied for court
permission to obtain information about the location of an
individual’s cell phone, without showing probable cause
that tracking the individual would turn up evidence of a
crime. A magistrate judge denied the government’s request
and a district court upheld that decision in September
2008. The government is appealing the ruling in the US
Court of Appeals.

A number of civil liberties groups, on behalf of plaintiffs
in the case, filed a friend-of-the-court brief in support
of the district court decision, arguing that district
courts must require the government to show probable cause
before permitting the government to obtain information
about the location of a cell phone.

The appeals court will decide whether government agencies
in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware must show probable
cause before tracking people’s cell phone locations.

EFF explains that, although most people don’t realize it,
cell phones double as tracking devices. “Newer phones
contain GPS chips, the same technology that allows car
navigation systems to know where you are and give you
driving directions. But even older phones that don’t have
chips can be tracked by knowing the location of the cell
towers they use to connect to a network,” the group said,
adding, “There’s no question that cell phones and cell-
phone records can be useful for police officers who need
to track the movements of those they believe to be break-
ing the law. And it is important for law enforcement
agents to have the tools they need to stop crimes. However,
it is just as important to make sure such tools are used
responsibly, in a manner that safeguards our personal
privacy.”

And Professor Francis A. Boyle of the University of
Illinois law school told us, “This practice violates the
Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution: ‘no
Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported
by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the
place to be searched….’ The Bush administration reduced
the Fourth Amendment to nothing more than a Potemkin
Village of rights. It exists on paper alone. And a
pusillanimous Congress has gone along with shredding the
entirety of the US Bill of Rights.”

He added, “President Obama, the former constitutional
law professor, is actively defending in court every
hideous atrocity that the Bush administration inflicted
upon the Bill of Rights, civil rights, civil liberties,
human rights, international law and the United States
Constitution with the acquiescence and/or approval of
Congress.”

This issue gained national attention during last year’s
gubernatorial race in New Jersey. Documents turned over
in EFF’s lawsuit revealed that “the US Attorney’s Office
- under Chris Christie, now the governor – was tracking
cell phones without probable cause, in violation of a
Justice Department recommendation,” EFF said.

The decision reached by the Philadelphia-based 3rd Circuit
US Court of Appeals will not only bind federal courts
throughout Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware. It will
also be a key source of guidance to courts around the
country as they grapple with this issue.

The plaintiffs in the court case hope the court will “send
a message that merely carrying a cell phone should not
make people more susceptible to government surveillance.”

They add, “No one wants to feel as if a government agent is
following her wherever she goes – be it a friend’s house,
a place of worship, or a therapist’s office – and innocent
Americans shouldn’t have to feel that way.”

The government has argued that “One who does not wish to
disclose his movements to the government need not use a
cellular telephone.” But the civil liberties groups say
this is “a startling and dismaying statement coming from
the United States. The government is supposed to care about
people’s privacy. It should not be forcing the nation’s
277 million cell-phone subscribers to choose between risk-
ing being tracked and going without an essential communi-
cations tool.”

The case has drawn considerable national attention. One of
the country’s foremost investigative journalists, Michael
Isikoff of Newsweek, addressed the issue in a recent
edition of the magazine.

He wrote, “Law enforcement is tracking Americans’ cell
phones in real time – without the benefit of a warrant.
Amid all the furor over the Bush administration’s warrant-
less wiretapping program a few years ago, a mini-revolt
was brewing over another type of federal snooping that
was getting no public attention at all.

“Federal prosecutors were seeking what seemed to be
unusually sensitive records: internal data from tele-
communications companies that showed the locations of
their customers’ cell phones – sometimes in real time,
sometimes after the fact. The prosecutors said they
needed the records to trace the movements of suspected
drug traffickers, human smugglers, even corrupt public
officials. But many federal magistrates – whose job is
to sign off on search warrants and handle other routine
court duties – were spooked by the requests. Some in New
York, Pennsylvania and Texas balked,” he wrote.

“Prosecutors ‘were using the cell phone as a surreptitious
tracking device,” said Stephen W. Smith, a federal
magistrate in Houston. “And I started asking the US
Attorney’s Office, ‘What is the legal authority for this?
What is the legal standard for getting this information?’
Those questions are now at the core of a constitutional
clash between President Obama’s Justice Department and
civil libertarians alarmed by what they see as the
government’s relentless intrusion into the private lives
of citizens.”

Two years ago, a US magistrate in Pittsburgh ruled that
the data they were seeking could easily be misused to
collect information about sexual liaisons and other
matters of an “extremely personal” nature.

In federal appeals court last week, a Justice Department
lawyer urged the judges to overturn the magistrate’s
ruling. They claimed the government was seeking “routine
business records.”

But after one of the judges said there were some govern-
ments, like Iran’s, that would like to use such records
to identify political protesters, she asked whether the
“government can assure us” that the Justice Department
would never collect cell-phone data for this kind of use
in the US.

The government lawyer grudgingly acknowledged that such
data “could be used constitutionally.”

End of PROGRESSIVE REVIEW
Copyright 2010 by NextEra Media. All rights reserved.

Progressive Review – Obama’s Nuclear Power Proposa

editor — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 11:28:42 +0000

THE PROGRESSIVE REVIEW – February 25, 2010

Major Fallout Predicted Over Obama’s Nuclear Power Proposal
by: Grace Huang
truthout|Report

While President Obama has announced an offer of $8.3
billion in loan guarantees for two new nuclear reactors,
worries about potential cost overruns, health risks and
safety concerns lead many to believe his proposal may
cause far more harm than good – assuming that the reactors
can be successfully built.

Should the builder borrow money and then default on the
loan, the Obama administration’s guarantee means that the
lenders and investors would not suffer the financial loss.
Instead, taxpayer money would be used to cover the cost.

Administration officials have said that the companies
involved would pay fees to cover the possibility of default
and that these loan guarantees would not cost taxpayers
money. However, both the Congressional Budget Office and
the Government Accountability Office have estimated that
the risk of default on a guarantee for new nuclear reactor
construction could be as high as 50 percent.

Construction of nuclear reactors also consistently run into
large cost and deadline overruns. The company that built
the Alvin W. Vogtle Electric Generating Plant in Georgia,
where the two new reactors would be, initially estimated
construction costs of $1 billion for four reactors. By
1989, that number had risen to $9 billion for only two
reactors. Now, the estimate for the two new reactors is
approximately $14 billion.

It is also difficult to finish building nuclear reactors
on time. According to The New York Times, an analysis
prepared for the German government in 2009 showed that of
the 45 nuclear reactors under construction, 22 have run
into delays. Some reactors overshot their budgets and
deadlines or had faulty construction to the point that
the projects were completely abandoned, losing billions
of dollars in the process.

“The reason that we haven’t built nuclear reactors for
decades isn’t that everybody’s afraid of them, but that
nobody will invest in them,” said Josh Dorner, a Sierra
Club spokesman. “When Wall Street won’t invest in some-
thing, that should tell you how bad it is.”

“[Nuclear energy] is the most socialized energy in the
world and would not exist except for public money,” said
Eric Jantz, staff attorney at the New Mexico Environmental
Law Center (NMELC), a nonprofit, public interest law firm
that focuses on environmental issues.

A large amount of criticism and concern about nuclear
energy particularly focuses on the unresolved problem of
disposing nuclear waste, as no safe long-term solution
has yet been discovered. Waste is currently stored in
water pools before being moved to dry casks left on site
at the nuclear plants. While the canisters used for storage
are secure in the short-term, the waste itself is still
highly toxic and sites need to be monitored and guarded.

Peter Bradford, a consultant and former member of the US
Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said storing waste like
this for a very long period of time is not viable. “The
danger is what happens when the waste gets out of the
canisters,” he added.

In his speech, President Obama mentioned appointing a
bipartisan panel to examine the issue of nuclear waste.
“We need to accelerate our efforts to find ways of storing
this waste safely and disposing of it…. And these plants
also have to be held to the highest and strictest safety
standards to answer the legitimate concerns of Americans
who live near and far from these facilities. That’s going
to be an imperative.”

Despite this unsolved problem, proponents say nuclear
energy is still a good alternative because it is a clean
source of power with no carbon dioxide emissions. However,
individuals like Jon Block, another attorney at the NMELC,
said that this conclusion overlooks all the harmful
byproducts of the process.

“The nuclear industry speaks very proudly about how green
their reactors are, but it doesn’t factor in chemical
emissions or the people at our end who are involved in
mining and moving it, fabricating it, enriching it,” said
Block. “At every link, most people are being dosed.”

Studies have a hard time definitively stating that
emissions from the production of nuclear energy lead to
higher rates of cancer in the immediate population, as
causality is hard to pinpoint and a large number of
potential factors make it hard to isolate individual
variables.

However, Navajo miners in New Mexico involved at the
beginning of the nuclear chain in mining uranium have
shown very high rates of lung cancer. According to The
Los Angeles Times, the cancer death rate on the reserv-
ation doubled from the early 1970s to the late 1990s,
while overall cancer death rates declined in the US during
the same time period. While a definitive link has not been
established, researchers say “exposure to mining byproducts
in the soil, air and water almost certainly contributed to
the increase in Navajo cancer mortality.”

Another worry is the danger of a nuclear plant or a waste
site being hit in a terrorist strike. “With a missile
launcher that could be held on your back, at a distance
of half a mile, someone could penetrate one of those
canisters,” said Block. “Then the puff of cesium that
comes out would cause devastation and spread radiation
within a one mile radius.”

According to NuclearBailout.org, though Mohammed Atta, one
of the 9/11 hijackers, said that he had considered target-
ing a nuclear facility instead of the World Trade Center,
nuclear reactors are still “not required to be protected
against air attack.”

As seen with Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, an accident
could also be devastating. Nuclear reactors need a large
amount of water to keep them cool. However, when there
isn’t enough coolant, the reactor is in danger of overheat-
ing and could suffer severe core damage. Large amounts of
toxic radioactive material could then be released into the
air. Because of cutting costs at reactors in an effort to
stay competitive, however, safety measures and security
alike are inadequate.

“When money is the bottom line, safety is somewhere in
second, third, or fourth place,” said Block. “But you
can’t afford that if you’re guarding the most dangerous
material on earth. If there’s going to be a nuclear
renaissance, then there has to be a safety renaissance.
You don’t see that right now.”

This pledge from the Obama administration comes at a time
when it is trying to get bipartisan support for broader
environmental and energy policies. While this concession
on nuclear energy signals to Republicans that the
administration is willing to compromise on some issues,
President Obama still emphasized the need for supporting
other alternative clean energy sources.

“Even when we have differences, we cannot allow those
differences to prevent us from making progress. On an
issue that affects our economy, our security, and the
future of our planet, we can’t keep on being mired in
the same old stale debates between the left and the
right, between environmentalists and entrepreneurs,”
he said.

Last year, the House passed legislation on climate change
that included a cap-and-trade measure, but the bill has
since languished in the Senate.

President Obama has said that compared to a similar coal
plant, the new nuclear plant would cut carbon pollution by
16 million tons each year – the equivalent of taking 3.5
million cars off the road.

However, environmental groups have advocated other methods
that would work better, while being more economically
beneficial.

“Particularly when government resources are concerned, this
money spent on nuclear energy could be spent on something
better, cleaner, safer, with other benefits as well,”
argued Dorner. “If we invested this money into retrofitting
people’s homes and buildings, we would have an immediate
cut in emissions, and it would save people money in the
long run.”

When Will Europe Defend Itself?

editor — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 11:30:26 +0000

THE PROGRESSIVE REVIEW – February 22, 2010

When Will Europe Defend Itself?
By: William Pfaff

Paris – Much has been written and said about making the
European Union a “world player.” The Lisbon Treaty was
expected to begin this by bestowing upon it a president,
foreign policy representative and diplomatic service. It
was another expression of Europe’s inability to come to
terms with the reality of Europe present and past, and
thereby liberate its future potentialities.

The leading members of the EU – Germany, France, Britain,
Spain, the Netherlands – are already major world “players”
as economic and technological powers, manufacturers, and
financial and trading states.

Historically, with the other European states, and crucially
with Greece and Italy, they created western civilization
itself, and the modern western intelligence, which may
arguably be identified with the modern mind as it exists
elsewhere.

Not one of these nations can today be considered a “failed”
or archaic nation — one living on its historical legacy.
The great Islamic civilizations of the caliphates in
Damascus and Baghdad, and that in Andalusia which in learn-
ing, libraries, architecture and political sophistication
was contemporaneous with, and dazzlingly in advance of,
the Christian states of the early West European middle
ages, all are long since gone.

The Ottoman empire, their successor, which perpetuated
Islamic rule and civilization but was unable to advance
it after Western Europe had graduated into Renaissance
and Enlightenment, was destroyed by Europe’s first world
war.

China and India were in their time great civilizations,
but like Islamic society proved unable to make the crucial
transition from the political institutions and forms of
antiquity and the pre-modern world, and during the age of
European exploration were picked apart by small European
states like Holland and Portugal, and then Britain, all
of much less power and sophistication than their victims.
They remained under European domination until our own
times.

India and China now demonstrate the will to return to their
former eminence, but will take many years to succeed. Japan
is the single exception to Asia’s disastrous failure.

So what is this problem about Europe’s standing in the
world today that so obsesses the Europeans today? That
generates constant self-examination, endless academic
seminars and political conferences, all permeated with
inarticulate anxiety?

Such has no foundation in the real circumstances of Europe
today. Obviously some of the EU’s recently-entered members
have legacy problems of corruption and crime, weak
political structure and uncompetitive industry and
agriculture, but thanks to membership in the EU, more is
being done to solve these problems that would ever have
happened without EU membership.

All the EU members today suffer the consequences of crisis
in a globalized financial system mainly created by Britain
and the United States, not by Western Europe. It has been
a concantenation of financial interdependence exploited for
corporate and individual gain in all but total indifference
to the social consequences of its activities. It has been
a phenomenon of an intellectually fashionable or faddish,
and sometimes fraudulent, deregulation of the international
economy, and disregard of moral norms asserted by Adam
Smith himself.

As a result, the European economies are in trouble, but in
the long term theirs are no worse than America’s troubles,
and they are generally better off than the U.S. today in
terms of employment and corporate debt. In state deficit
they are objectively far better than the United States in
terms of wasted state spending on irrelevant weapons and
unnecessary wars.

But here, curiously enough, we seem to arrive at the source
of the EU’s present belief in its own inadequacy. Its
members do not compose a military superpower engaged in
world interventions intended to shape international society
in a manner that will profit Europe and gratify the self-
regard of the European public. This is taken as a weakness.

The actual explanation is one of elegant and edifying
simplicity, linked to memories of modern terror and
suffering. To use the American colloquialism: Western
Europe has already been there, and already done that.
And paid the price: in nihilism, death and waste in
1914-1918 and 1939-1945. Eastern and Balkan Europe –
and Russia – subsequently suffered still more during
the Cold War.

The European Union today is allowing itself to be intimi-
dated by the American accusation that it shamefully and
selfishly exists under America’s protection, doing only a
minimum to support the United States in Washington’s great
tasks of international security.

Europe humors the increasingly dangerous American fantasy
of global mission. It is time that for America’s good, as
well as its own security, that the EU ceases doing this,
and tries to shake the U.S. free of its illusions — which
may lead it, and others, into new disasters of its own
creation.

During the Cold War the United States defended Western
Europe from the threat of Russian attack. Since the Cold
War ended, there has been no threat from which to defend
Europe. The so-called war against terror was, and has
remained, a war by Islamist groups against the American
military presence in the Middle East and Central Asia.

It has never been directed against European societies,
other than those that have intervened in this “war” on
the American side. Washington, even under Barack Obama,
seems determined to add to its enemies in Asia – possibly
to include China, and Russia as well. The new foreign
affairs apparatus of the European Union should assure
Washington that this is not a course on which the
Europeans will become its fellow travellers.

Democrats Push to Tax Wall Street Bonuses

editor — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 11:27:30 +0000

THE PROGRESSIVE REVIEW – February 18, 2010

Democrats Push to Tax Wall Street Bonuses
by: Grace Huang
truthout|Report

Joining the push for new legislation in response to lavish
bonuses paid in the financial industry, Sen. Sherrod Brown
(D-Ohio) has introduced legislation that would tax bonuses
paid to executives by banks that received government
bailout funds.

The bill would tax cash and stock bonuses of more than
$25,000 by 50 percent, diverting the money towards loans
for small businesses.

“It’s time for Wall Street to return the favor to Main
Street,” Brown said in a statement Thursday. “While big
banks have rebounded thanks to the help of American tax-
payers, small businesses are still struggling. If a big
firm that received taxpayer help is now paying out massive
bonuses, they should be able to help American small
businesses expand operations and hire new workers.”

Additionally, many of the banks receiving money from TARP
have also cut down on loans to small businesses.

Two other Democratic senators, Barbara Boxer (D-California)
and Jim Webb (D-Virginia), recently proposed legislation
to impose a 50 percent tax on bonuses above $400,000, but
only for firms that received $5 billion or more in bailout
money. A bill has also been introduced in the House by Rep.
Peter Welch (D-Vermont), which would tax bonuses above
$50,000.

The Obama administration predicted that Troubled Asset
Relief Program (TARP) costs would ultimately reach
$90 billion. Since then, President Obama has proposed a
fee on the largest US financial companies to recoup the
money.

According to Brown’s statement, the average executive at
Bank of America received a $400,000 bonus one year after
the bank took $45 billion in bailouts, while the average
worker in Ohio makes just over $41,000 a year.

Goldman Sachs, which took $10 billion in bailouts, gave
its chief executive a bonus of $9 million for 2009, cutting
the amount down in an effort to diffuse public anger. AIG
paid out $100 million last week and $165 million last year
in bonuses. The payments had been stipulated in contracts
signed before the company received bailout money – about
$182 billion, the largest in American history to date.
While AIG has also attempted to reduce its bonuses, as
employees agreed to a $20 million reduction last week and
the company said it would return $45 million of the 2009
bonuses, not all employees have agreed to the reductions
or returned the money yet.

“Fifteen months after Wall Street drove our economy off a
cliff, the same big banks that survived thanks to taxpayer
support have returned to their old ways,” said Welch.
“Rather than invest in our nation’s economic recovery or
shore up their balances, these banks have chosen to reward
themselves with excessive bonuses. By diverting outsized
bonuses to small business lending, this legislation will
support our local economies in a way that Wall Street has
failed to.”

New Sanctions on Iran Revolutionary

editor — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 11:31:53 +0000

THE PROGRESSIVE REVIEW – February 15, 2010

US Imposes New, Targeted Sanctions on Iran Revolutionary
Guard
by: Grace Huang
truthout|Report

The Obama administration on Wednesday announced new
sanctions targeting four companies affiliated with the
Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and one member
who runs them.

The Treasury Department will freeze the assets of Gen.
Rostam Qasemi and four subsidiaries of Khatam al-Anbiya
Construction Headquarters. According to a State Department
news release, the firm is the engineering arm of the Guard
that “serves to help the IRGC generate income and fund its
operations.”

“As the IRGC consolidates control over broad swaths of the
Iranian economy, displacing ordinary Iranian businessmen
in favor of a select group of insiders, it is hiding
behind companies like Khatam al-Anbiya and its affiliates
to maintain vital ties to the outside world,” said Under
Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Stuart
Levey. “Today’s action exposing Khatam al-Anbiya sub-
sidiaries will help firms worldwide avoid business that
ultimately benefits the IRGC and its dangerous activities.”

The report lists WMD proliferation and support for
terrorism among the illicit activities supported by IRGC
companies’ profits.

“The sanctions can have a decent impact because it’s going
to make it harder for [the IRGC] to do business worldwide,”
said Jamal Abdi, policy director of the National Iranian
American Council (NIAC). “These are sanctions the world
is willing to take part in, which can have an effect if
everyone signs on.”

Iran denies it wants to manufacture nuclear weapons and
says that it is enriching uranium to generate energy and
make medical isotopes used in treatment and research.

In an impromptu Q&A session with White House reporters
on Tuesday, President Obama said that his administration
has “bent over backwards” to tell Iran it was willing to
converse about how Iran could follow international norms
and “reenter as full members of the international
community.”

Notably, the administration offered to convert the low-
enriched uranium that Iran has into the forms needed for
medical research and treatment. However, Iran has refused
the offer, which all five members of the United Nations
Security Council, including Russia and China, and the
director of the International Atomic Energy Agency have
said is a good deal, according to President Obama.

“That indicates to us that, despite their posturing that
their nuclear power is only for civilian use, that they
in fact continue to pursue a course that would lead to
weaponization,” he said. “And that is not acceptable
to the international community, not just to the United
States.”

These sanctions expand previous ones that also targeted
elements of the IRGC. In addition to implementing them,
the Obama administration has also been working to broaden
UN Security Council sanctions as well, though the president
still advocates leaving the offer to negotiate on the
table while threatening added pressure.

“They have made their choice so far, although the door is
still open,” President Obama said in a news conference on
Wednesday. “And what we are going to be working on over
the next several weeks is developing a significant regime
of sanctions that will indicate to them how isolated they
are from the international community as a whole.”

Effective multilateral sanctions would depend largely on
the support of Russia and China. Earlier this week, Russia
sent signals that it could support further sanctions
against Iran after Tehran refused to send its uranium
abroad for enrichment. President Obama noted, however,
that China’s vote is not assured, which could prove
problematic as China is one of the five veto holders on
the UN Security Council.

Abdi said that China is not likely to exercise its veto
power here, however. “The U.S. has done a good job of
building a consensus,” he said. “Even though China doesn’t
want to go ahead with this, for sanctions like the type
the U.S. did today, China will ultimately not vote or will
go along with it.”

However, he added, China will probably not go ahead with
more significant steps that hurt the broader Iranian
economy, as there is a threshold for what actions it will
accept.

These sanctions come the day before the 31st anniversary of
Iran’s Islamic revolution, one that is sure to spark major
protests. Since the disputed Iranian presidential election
last June, supporters of the opposition leaders have taken
to the streets.

According to The New York Times, however, in recent weeks
Iranian security officials have arrested many in an effort
to head off protests on Thursday. The Revolutionary Court
summoned the wife and children of a journalist held in
custody “to appear as political prisoners,” the first time
an action like this seems to have been taken.

In a joint statement, the US and the EU condemned the
continuing human rights violations in Iran, saying they
were particularly concerned about possible violence and
repression on Thursday and calling upon the government
to “live up to its international human rights obligations.”

The way the sanctions were targeted is important, Abdi
said, because it conveys a message to the Iranians.
“We’re targeting the government and not targeting the
people. It’s showing that we’re not going to sacrifice
the democracy movement and acting like that has no bear-
ing, and that we’re not going to exact sanctions at any
cost.”