Drone Operator Exposes Errors

I worked on the US drone program. The public should know what really goes on

Few of the politicians who so brazenly proclaim the benefits of drones have a real clue how it actually works (and doesn't)

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An Elbit Systems Hermes 450 drone. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

Whenever I read comments by politicians defending the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Predator and Reaper program – aka drones – I wish I could ask them a few questions. I'd start with: "How many women and children have you seen incinerated by a Hellfire missile?" And: "How many men have you seen crawl across a field, trying to make it to the nearest compound for help while bleeding out from severed legs?"

Or even more pointedly: "How many soldiers have you seen die on the side of a road in Afghanistan because our ever-so-accurate UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles] were unable to detect an IED [improvised explosive device] that awaited their convoy?"

Few of these politicians who so brazenly proclaim the benefits of drones have a real clue of what actually goes on. I, on the other hand, have seen these awful sights first hand.

I knew the names of some of the young soldiers I saw bleed to death on the side of a road. I watched dozens of military-aged males die in Afghanistan, in empty fields, along riversides, and some right outside the compound where their family was waiting for them to return home from the mosque.
The US and British militaries insist that this is an expert program, but it's curious that they feel the need to deliver faulty information, few or no statistics about civilian deaths and twisted technology reports on the capabilities of our UAVs. These specific incidents are not isolated, and the civilian casualty rate has not changed, despite what our defense representatives might like to tell us.

What the public needs to understand is that the video provided by a drone is not usually clear enough to detect someone carrying a weapon, even on a crystal-clear day with limited cloud and perfect light. This makes it incredibly difficult for the best analysts to identify if someone has weapons for sure. One example comes to mind: "The feed is so pixelated, what if it's a shovel, and not a weapon?" I felt this confusion constantly, as did my fellow UAV analysts. We always wonder if we killed the right people, if we endangered the wrong people, if we destroyed an innocent civilian's life all because of a bad image or angle.

It's also important for the public to grasp that there are human beings operating and analysing intelligence these UAVs. I know because I was one of them, and nothing can prepare you for an almost daily routine of flying combat aerial surveillance missions over a war zone. UAV proponents claim that troops who do this kind of work are not affected by observing this combat because they are never directly in danger physically.

But here's the thing: I may not have been on the ground in Afghanistan, but I watched parts of the conflict in great detail on a screen for days on end. I know the feeling you experience when you see someone die. Horrifying barely covers it. And when you are exposed to it over and over again it becomes like a small video, embedded in your head, forever on repeat, causing psychological pain and suffering that many people will hopefully never experience. UAV troops are victim to not only the haunting memories of this work that they carry with them, but also the guilt of always being a little unsure of how accurate their confirmations of weapons or identification of hostile individuals were.

Of course, we are trained to not experience these feelings, and we fight it, and become bitter. Some troops seek help in mental health clinics provided by the military, but we are limited on who we can talk to and where, because of the secrecy of our missions. I find it interesting that the suicide statistics in this career field aren't reported, nor are the data on how many troops working in UAV positions are heavily medicated for depression, sleep disorders and anxiety.

Recently, the Guardian ran a commentary by Britain's secretary of state for defence, Philip Hammond. I wish I could talk to him about the two friends and colleagues I lost, within a year of leaving the military, to suicide. I am sure he has not been notified of that little bit of the secret UAV program, or he would surely take a closer look at the full scope of the program before defending it again.

The UAVs in the Middle East are used as a weapon, not as protection, and as long as our public remains ignorant to this, this serious threat to the sanctity of human life – at home and abroad – will continue.

• Editor's note: Heather Linebaugh does not possess any classified material and has honored her non-disclosure agreement since the time of her discharge. 

Article history

World news

• Drones ·
• US military ·
• United States ·
• Afghanistan ·
• Iraq ·
• Yemen ·
• Pakistan

• More on this story

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• 
  Suspected US drone strike kills 'three foreign militants'
  
• 
  Federal Aviation Administration reveals drone testing sites in six states
  
• 
  Oklahoma's drones – the next generation
  

• Opinion

• 
  
  President Obama's new normal: the drone strikes continue
  
  Amy Goodman: Americans abhor mass shootings in our communities, but why do we allow our government to kill so many innocents abroad?
  
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  Philip Hammond ignores the truth about drone atrocities

Wall Street / Chamber Attack Tea Party

Chamber of Commerce Promises $50 Million in Fight Against Tea Party

Friday, 27 Dec 2013 07:54 AM

By Cathy Burke

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The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is ready to take on the tea party in 2014 Senate primaries and elections with a deep-pocketed boost of establishment and business Republican candidates.

"Our No. 1 focus is to make sure, when it comes to the Senate, that we have no loser candidates," Chamber strategist Scott Reed told The Wall Street Journal. "That will be our mantra: '
No fools on our ticket."

The financial support, which The Hill reported would pour at least $50 million into the campaigns of centrist GOP candidates, is part of an aggressive approach toward tea party Republicans since the 16-day October government shutdown.

The Chamber has expressed its displeasure with tea party favorites Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, who resisted passing a budget without a provision to defund Obamacare, triggering a stalemate.

Just a month later, the Chamber jumped into the intra-party GOP voting, backing establishment GOP candidate Bradley Byrne over tea party prospect Dean Young in an Alabama special House election.

Byrne beat Young, and went on to an easy victory in the Dec. 17 special election, defeating Democrat Burton LeFlore.

The Chamber — which hasn't usually gotten involved in GOP primaries — is airing ads for Rep. Mike Simpson in Idaho, where he faces a tea party-backed challenger in his race for a ninth House term.

Hard-right candidates' blunders are perceived to have cost the GOP five Senate seats in recent years, The Hill reported.

Republicans, for example, lost Senate elections in Indiana and Missouri after conservative candidates made controversial comments about abortion and rape that hurt their support, particularly among women.

The Chamber could also toss its influence into upcoming Senate races in Georgia,
Iowa, and North Carolina, where tea party candidates are challenging, The Hill reported.

Meanwhile, the head of Heritage Action is vowing to challenge GOP leaders on a number of fiscal issues — and to keep active with grassroots activists.

"Lawmakers do not have a monopoly on information, and we will continue to communicate directly with their constituents on important legislation as it moves through Congress," Michael Needham, chief executive of Heritage Action, the political arm of the Heritage Foundation think tank, told the Journal.

He said most lawmakers "will find it difficult to go back home and defend votes that increase spending, increase deficits and undermine the rule of law."

Posted by Progressive.Democratic Workers at 11:57 AM

Prof. Richard Wolff on Current Crisis

Capitalism and Democracy: Year-End Lessons

Wednesday, 18 December 2013 09:12 By Richard D Wolff, Truthout | News

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2013 drove home a basic lesson: US capitalism's economic leaders and their politicians now regularly ignore majority opinions and preferences.

For example, polls showed overwhelming popular support for higher taxes on the rich with lower taxes on the rest of us and for reversing the nation's deepening economic inequalities. Yet Republicans and Democrats, including President Obama, raised payroll taxes sharply on January 1, 2013. Those taxes are regressive; they take a smaller percentage of your income the higher your income is above $113,700 per year. Raising the payroll tax increased economic inequality across 2013.

For another example, many American cities and towns want to use eminent domain laws to help residents keep their homes and avoid foreclosure. Eminent domain is a hallmark democratic right as well as US law. It enables municipal governments to buy individual properties (at market prices) when doing so benefits the community as a whole. Using eminent domain, local leaders want to compel lenders (e.g., banks, etc.) to sell them homes whose market prices have fallen below the mortgage debts of their occupants. They would then resell those homes at their market prices to their occupants. With their mortgages thus reduced to their homes' actual prices, occupants could stay in them. They still suffer their homes' fallen values but avoid homelessness. Communities benefit because decreased homelessness reduces the fall of other property values, reduces the number of abandoned homes (and thus risks of fire, crime, etc.), reduces the number of customers lost to local stores, sustains property tax flows to local governments and so on.

Used this way, eminent domain forces lenders - chiefly banks - to share more of the pains produced by capitalism's crisis. Most Americans support that, believing it will help reverse income and wealth inequalities and also that banks bear major responsibility for the economic crisis.

Yet the country's biggest banks are using "their" money and laws (that they often wrote) to block municipalities' use of eminent domain. "Their" money includes the massive bailouts Washington provided to them since 2007. Big bank directors and major shareholders - a tiny minority - fund the politicians, parties and think-tanks that oppose municipalities' use of eminent domain. In these ways, capitalism systematically undermines democratic decision-making about economic affairs.

For yet another example, the recent bankruptcy court decision about Detroit allows the city to cut retired city workers' pensions. Those workers bargained and signed contracts with Detroit's leaders over many years. They accepted less in wages and benefits in exchange for their pensions as parts of their agreed compensation for work performed. Now that an economic crisis and the unemployment it generated have cut Detroit's tax revenues, this system's "solution" includes cutting retired workers' pensions. Other cities are expected to adopt this solution. Inequality worsens as the costs of this economic crisis shift from lenders to cities (usually rich) to retired city-worker pensioners (never rich).

In these and other ways, 2013 taught millions of Americans that capitalism repeatedly contradicts the democratic idea that majority decisions should govern society as a whole. The system's tendency toward deepening inequalities of income and wealth operated across 2013 in direct contradiction to the will of substantial American majorities.

The same happened in the decades before the 1930s Great Depression. However, in that Depression, a mass movement from below (organized by the Congress of Industrial Organizations - CIO - and socialist and communist parties) successfully reversed capitalism's tendencies toward inequality. Supported by majorities of Americans, it was strong enough to obtain Social Security, unemployment compensation and millions of federal jobs for the people whom private capitalists could not or would not employ. Those programs helped average people rather than bailing out banks and other large corporations. That movement also got the government to pay for those programs by taxing corporations and the rich at far higher rates than exist now. Capitalism's deepening inequality was partly reversed by and because of a massive democratic movement.

However, that movement stopped short of ending capitalism. Thus it only temporarily reversed capitalism's tendencies toward inequality. After World War II, business, the rich and conservatives mobilized a return to "capitalism as usual." They organized a massive government repression of the coalition (CIO, socialists and communists) that led the 1930s movement from below. By such means as the Taft-Hartley Act and McCarthyism, capitalism resumed its development of ever-greater economic inequalities, especially after 1970. In the Great Recession since 2007, the absence of a sustained movement from below has allowed inequality to worsen as our examples above illustrate.

The lessons of recent history include this: To secure democratic decision-making and the kind of society most Americans want requires moving beyond capitalism. Capitalism's difficulties (including its crises and inequalities) and its control of government responses to those difficulties keep teaching that lesson. The widening gap between democratic needs and impulses and the imperatives of capitalism is becoming clear to millions in the United States but also in other countries.

For example, the Rajoy government in Spain recently imposed new levels of repression on the strengthening protests against its austerity policies. Spain's unemployment rate today exceeds the US rate in the worst year of the Depression. Rajoy wants fines of up to $40,000 for offenses such as burning the national flag, insulting the state or causing serious disturbances outside Parliament. Indeed some fines go up to $800,000 for "demonstrations that interfere in electoral processes."

Contradictions between democratic rights and demands and the processes of capitalism are accelerating into clashes in legislatures and the streets. Informed by history's lessons about capitalism and democracy, today's movements more likely will recognize the need to confront and supersede capitalism to secure real democracies. Policies that achieve only temporary reversals of capitalist inequalities no longer suffice.

The system's imperatives to profit, compete and grow are now so costly to so many that its critics and opponents are multiplying fast. Once they confront and solve the problem of politically organizing themselves, social change will happen fast, too. (??? ed)

$1 Billion in Green Wind Turbines for Iowa

Tue Dec 17, 2013 at 05:32 AM PST

Wind power generation almost at par w Coal as Buffet spends $1 Billion on new Iowa wind generators

by Lefty CoasterFollow

Wind Power has arrived at a point where it is almost competitive with Coal for generation. Warren Buffet's electrical utility is poised to spend $1 Billion on new wind turbines in Iowa.

Wind Power Rivals Coal With $1 Billion Order From Buffett By Ehren Goossens
The decision by Warren Buffett’s utility company to order about $1 billion of wind turbines for projects in Iowa shows how a drop in equipment costs is making renewable energy more competitive with power from fossil fuels.
Turbine prices have fallen 26 percent worldwide since the first half of 2009, bringing wind power within 5.5 percent of the cost of electricity from coal, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co., a unit of Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc., yesterday announced an order for 1,050 megawatts of Siemens AG wind turbines in the industry’s largest order to date for land-based gear.

5.5% is a relatively small premium to pay to buy sustainable green energy ove dirty coal power generation. Coal is the most destructive fuel available for generating electic energy of any fossil fuel. Coal now provides a large portion of the worlds electrical generation capacity, and that won't change overnight. But this shows how close how competitive greener alternatives are coming to conventional fossil fuels. That gives electric utilities all over the world a new cleaner alternative to dirty coal for a smal price deferential. And that's very good news for all of us who want a future on this planet.

Pope Dismisses Rush Limbaugh

Pope Responds to Limbaugh, Conservatives: 'Marxism is Wrong'

Sunday, 15 Dec 2013 07:15 AM

By Elliot Jager

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Pope Francis responded to criticism Sunday from Rush Limbaugh and other American conservatives that his apostolic proclamation "Evangelii Gaudium," or the "Joy of the Gospel," is "pure Marxism" by telling an Italian newspaper that "Marxist ideology is wrong."

In a pre-Christmas interview, the pope said, however, that the economic stance he was espousing has long been part of the "social Doctrine of the Church."

The Evangelii Gaudium declaration asks, "How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points?

Editor’s Note: Do You Approve of Pope Francis? Vote Now in Urgent Poll

"How can we continue to stand by when food is thrown away while people are starving?"

It goes on to say, "Today, everything comes under the laws of competition and the survival of the fittest, where the powerful feed upon the powerless. As a consequence, masses of people find themselves excluded and marginalized: without possibilities, without any means of escape."

As for being labeled a Marxist, the pope said he had "met many Marxists in my life who are good people, so I don't feel offended,"  CNN reported.

The proclamation issued in November chastises "the idolatry of money and the dictatorship of an impersonal economy lacking a truly human purpose."

It says there is no evidence that "trickle-down theories" about economic growth tied to a free market "will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world."

The proclamation exhorts an "ethical approach" to economics that favors human beings over conspicuous consumption, "unbridled consumerism" and inequality.

Limbaugh had characterized Evangelii Gaudium as "just pure Marxism coming out of the mouth of the pope."

The conservative talk show host said the pope was practically dictating how financial markets should operate.

"He says that the global economy needs government control."

In his response to the critics, Francis said he was not speaking "as a technician but according to the social doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church, and this does not mean being Marxist". He said he was just trying to present a "snapshot of what is happening" in the world today.
In another document last week, Francis said huge salaries and bonuses were symptoms of an economy based on greed and called again for nations to narrow the wealth gap.
Conservatives in the 1.2 billion member Church have expressed concern and disappointment about some of the pope's pronouncements, such as when he said he was not in a position to judge homosexuals who are people of good will sincerely seeking God.

Asked about speculation that a woman could be among the new cardinals he will appoint early next year, he said: "I don't know where that idea comes from. Women in the Church should be valued, not 'clericalized'."

In other parts of the interview, Francis also said a committee of eight cardinals from around the world who are advising him on changes to the Vatican structure would make its first formal recommendations to him in February but that reform would be a "lengthy task".

He said that reform of the Vatican's sometimes murky finances was "on the right path" and expressed satisfaction that last week a Council of Europe committee called Moneyval gave the Vatican a good evaluation of its efforts to abide by international financial standards.

He said he had not yet decided what to do about the Vatican bank, which has been touched by scandals over the decades. In the past he has not ruled out closing it.

Francis said he was "getting ready" to go to the Holy Land next year to mark the 50th anniversary of when Pope Paul VI became the first pope in modern times to visit there.

He has been invited by both Israel and the Palestinian Authority to make a visit, which is expected to take place in May or June.

Editor’s Note: Do You Approve of Pope Francis? Vote Now in Urgent Poll

Jobs Not Deficit Hawks

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka on Budget Deal

December 11, 2013

It is shocking that Republicans have refused to include an extension of unemployment benefits in today’s budget agreement.  At the end of December, federal unemployment benefits will expire for 1.3 million jobless workers.  Lawmakers must not desert these workers by going home for their own holidays without extending the federal unemployment benefits program.

The budget agreement negotiated by Rep. Ryan and Sen. Murray provides temporary relief from sequestration budget cuts over the next two years, but does not represent the clean break from budget austerity that our economy so urgently needs.

We applaud Sen. Murray for resisting Republican demands to cut Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare benefits and food assistance for people with low incomes.

Yet this budget agreement does nothing for the millions of people who remain without work and asks nothing from the people who caused our economic crisis and continue to benefit from economic inequality.

The agreement unfairly demands more sacrifice from federal employees, who had already contributed $114 billion to deficit reduction in the previous three years.  By asking new federal employees to pay more out of pocket for their pensions, the agreement undermines retirement security.

The agreement further undermines retirement security by increasing the fees paid by private firms to the Pension Benefits Guaranty Corporation (PBGC), which will likely be used to justify new rounds of pension dumping by healthy companies.

Meanwhile, at the insistence of Rep. Ryan, the agreement does not demand any sacrifice from the wealthy or from Wall Street.  It is hard to justify demanding further sacrifice from federal employees and private sector workers while continuing costly tax preferences for Wall Street investment managers and companies that send jobs overseas.

The urgent business before us now is fixing what’s wrong with our economy. The real problem is that unemployment is too high and wages are too low.  Sequestration makes both these problems worse and needs to be repealed—not replaced with other harmful cuts.  Even that will not be enough, however.  We call on Congress to enact a jobs bill, invest in our future, raise the minimum wage to $10, and devote its full attention to restoring full employment and raising wages.

Contact: Jeff Hauser: 202-637-5018

Los Angeles D.A. Sues BofA

L.A. city attorney files suit against Bank of America for lost property revenue

December 8, 2013

By Kelly Goff, Daily News, Los Angeles

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Bank of America for lost property revenue --> Dec. 08 -- Bank of America's lending practices led to a wave of foreclosures and lost city revenue, alleges a new lawsuit filed by Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer on Friday afternoon. The city is seeking unspecified damages based on the decline in property tax revenue after the housing bubble burst. The suit came on the heels of two similar claims filed against Citigroup and Wells Fargo on Thursday, alleging discriminatory mortgage lending in minority communities. "Today we begin to address the devastating consequences of the foreclosure crisis in America's second largest city," Feuer said in a statement. "These lawsuits send the firm message that we will use every tool at our disposal to fight for all Los Angeles taxpayers and neighborhoods." The city attorney's statement cites a report by the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment and the California Reinvestment Coalition , which estimates the mortgage crisis caused 200,000 foreclosures and an estimated $78 billion in decreased home values between 2008 and 2012. It estimates property tax revenue losses for the same time frame to be approximately $481 million . In communities with high foreclosure rates, the city was also on the hook for additional expenses in safety inspections, police and fire calls, added trash removal and some property maintenance on vacant homes. According to the lawsuits, those additional services added up to $19,000 per vacant home, or $1.2 billion . In each of the suits, Feuer alleges that the companies offered predatory loans with high rates to minority borrowers, forcing entire communities into mortgages that could not be paid, resulting in widespread foreclosure and neighborhood blight. ___ (c)2013 the Daily News (Los Angeles) Visit the Daily News (Los Angeles) at www.dailynews.com Distributed by MCT Information Services

For more stories on investments and markets, please see HispanicBusiness' Finance Channel

Source: Daily News (Los Angeles, CA)

Progressives and Labor Together

PDA and Labor Come Together in New York for HR 676

Written by  Robert Score

 

Robert Score (IATSE Local One), Rep. John Conyers, Stephen Shaff, PDA

A truly historic meeting took place in New York City at a Labor Breakfast on December 6th, co-hosted by the Progressive Democrats of America and the New York City Central Labor Council in celebration of the endorsement of HR 676 - Expanded and Improved Medicare For All by the NYC CLC last May.

U.S. Congressman John Conyers, the author and lead sponsor of HR 676, was the honored guest and spoke of the energy that the endorsement by the NYC CLC, which represents over 1.3 million union members, brings to the movement of Healthcare for All.  NYC CLC President Vincent Alvarez spoke to the necessity for all working people, union and non-union, to have proper healthcare and that the forces within the industrial-insurance complex, although powerful, must be confronted before the working class families of our country are completely decimated by the ever increasing costs of health care.

Stephen Shaff, representing the PDA, addressed the group of labor leaders and healthcare advocates, noting the work being accomplished by the PDA and the importance of collaboration between the two distinct groups in achieving the common goal of healthcare for all.

Mark Dudzic, National Coordinator for the Labor Campaign For Single Payer Healthcare, Mark Hanny, Executive Director of Metro NY Healthcare For All, Laurie Wen and Katie Robbins from Physicians For National A National Health Plan (PNHP), Joe Benincasa, CEO of The Actors Fund, Scott Cool, IATSE Local One Trust Fund Administrator, Political Directors and rank and file members from several unions including the District Council of Carpenters, the IATSE, CWA and the TWU, were also in the house.

After all in attendance broke bread together, President Alvarez made the opening remarks.  We then shared a moment of silence in memory of world leader Nelson Mandela. It was my privilege to introduce Stephen Shaff and special guest and PDA supporter, television broadcaster Phil Donohue, who very eloquently spoke of his labor background and introduced The Honorable John Conyers.

Mr. Conyers held our attention with his strategic advice to advance the common cause of Single Payer Healthcare For All and his history of always standing for "Jobs, Justice and Peace."

The meeting concluded with our appetites satisfied and our activism energized. Thank you to PDA and the NYC CLC for a successful coming together of healthcare advocates, labor representatives and to Congressman John Conyers whose commitment to HR 676 is unwavering and inspirational.

Reining In the Out of Control NSA

Amash-backed Bill aimed to end NSA Spying Programs garners equal Bipartisan support

This Oct. 15, 2013, photo, shows a view of the U.S. Capitol building at dusk in Washington. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)

Andrew Krietz | akrietz@mlive.com
December 03, 2013

U.S. Rep. Justin Amash, R-Cascade TownshipMLive.com File Photo 

WASHINGTON, D.C. — An even split of Democratic and Republican legislators back a bill supported by Rep. Justin Amash, aiming to end the country's domestic surveillance programs.

The legislation, titled The USA Freedom Act, would, if signed into law, curb the National Security Agency's ability to conduct communications sweeps and close a "back door" to information by requiring a court order when performing searches of Americans in data already collected without warrants.

The Hill reported during the weekend that the bill has at least 102 cosponsors, including 51 Democrats and 51 Republicans. That number is up from what previously has been reported; at least 70 legislators, including Amash, R-Cascade Township, and House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member John Conyers, D-Detroit, supported the bill in October.

Will Adams, Amash's spokesman, said given the surge of support, he expects bipartisan, "comprehensive legislation" on the floor of the House this spring coming off of the upcoming holidays and the fiscal deadline in January.

"We think the American people want to rein in the NSA," Adams said. "They want their rights protected, they want their privacy protected from government surveillance."

The congressman recently told a group of constituents at a town hall event he has been pleased to receive positive reception over an issue he's blasted for the past year.

"It's getting out of control," Amash told the crowd. "(Courts are issuing) general warrants without specific cause, ... and you have one agency that's essentially having superpowers to pass information onto others."

Critics argue the NSA's actions of collecting private citizens' phone records are covert, done under secret court order without explanation and proper transparency."

Supporters, including U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Brighton, contend the agency acts within the interest of the United States' safety and security.
According to The Hill, members of Congress are placing increased pressure on House Republican leaders to bring the bill up for a vote. Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, defends the NSA's programs and voted against the "Amash Amendment" in July, which would have defunded the programs.

A House Democratic aide told The Hill that Republican leadership is "boxed in" on the issue.
"They're stuck. They would deal with this in the way they deal with a lot of things — by just not moving the legislation," they told the publication.

However, Adams credits Boehner for allowing a vote on the amendment this summer despite his own vote. He, too, sees continued movement toward a possible spring vote considering some legislators who first opposed the amendment now support the Freedom Act.

"Regardless of what his personal views are ... he has, so far, afforded us the procedure to start the NSA reform debate," Adams said.

Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., coauthor of the 2001 USA Patriot Act, said the NSA has gone "far beyond" the original intent of the Patriot Act and overstepped its authority.

A.L.E.C. Close Up

ALEC's Extreme Legislative Agenda for 2014

Tuesday, 03 December 2013 11:00 By Rebekah Wilce, PR Watch | News Analysis 
 

Protest against ALEC by the Occupy movement and others, St. Paul, Minnesota, March 13, 2012. (Photo: Fibonacci Blue / Flickr)The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) meets in Washington, DC this week for its "States and Nation Policy Summit," which is one of the ways ALEC crafts and pushes its legislative agenda for the coming year. U.S. Senator Ted Cruz -- who helped push the country to the brink of financial default to thwart the Affordable Care Act (ACA) -- headlines the conference on Thursday, December 5. Failed vice-presidential candidate Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) and his Senator counterpart Ron Johnson (R-WI) will also address the crowd.
But what will happen behind closed doors during the meeting?
ALEC posted part of its legislative agendas for the meeting for the first time this month, while continuing to hide its funders and corporate authors of special interest legislation, as the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) has reported. On ALEC's agenda for 2014 are the following priorities and bills (which will become official ALEC "models" once passed by the task forces -- with corporate lobbyists voting as equals alongside state legislators -- and approved by the board of directors):
Opposing U.S. Consumers' Right to Know the Origin of Our Food:

• More than 90 percent of consumers want labels saying what country the meat (and fruits, vegetables, and fish) they are buying comes from, according to polls. So the introduction of a "Resolution on Country of Origin Labeling" (PDF, p. 19) -- resisting the implementation of what it calls "additional regulations and requirements for our meat producers and processors" -- to ALEC's International Relations Task Force makes clear how beholden ALEC is to Big Ag and multinational corporations rather than U.S. citizens. You can read more about country of origin labeling (COOL) from CMD here and from the blog Bluestem Prairie here.

Undermining Workers' Rights:

• Another bill to undermine unions, masquerading as "employee choice," called the "Public Employee Choice Act" (PDF, p. 6), is effectively "right to work" for public employees, and undermines collective bargaining by allowing workers to freeload off the benefits of union negotiations without paying the costs of union representation. The bill appears to be based on an Oregon 2014 ballot initiative, Initiative 9. It is similar to so-called "right to work," only for public employees, and its euphemistic use of the word "choice" has been appealed to the Oregon Supreme Court. The "Public Employee Choice Act Committee" has so far taken in over $52,000 and spent over $36,000 as of November 25, according to campaign finance records filed with the Oregon Secretary of State, which doesn't track the money spent and raised on dark money "issue ads.
• Further efforts to eliminate occupational licensing for any profession, which help ensure that people who want to call themselves doctors, long-haul truckers, accountants, or barbers meet basic standards of training and expertise to guarantee that consumers are safe and get what they pay for. This extreme bill, called the "Private Certification Act" (PDF, p. 11), swims against the current of what most people want, which are to be treated by professionals who meet standards for competence or safety that have been established by law through the democratic process.

Undermining the Rights of Injured Americans to Hold Corporations Accountable:

• Amendments to two bills making it harder for Americans injured or killed by corporations to hold those corporation responsible when their products or practices cause serious harm, called the "Punitive Damages Standards Act" (PDF, p. 15), and the "Noneconomic Damage Awards Act" (PDF, p. 30).
• An amendment (PDF, p. 25) to a bill to make it harder to bring a lawsuit under state consumer protection statutes, called a "Model Act on Private Enforcement of Consumer Protection Statutes."

Undermining Public Education and Lining the Pockets of For-Profit School Companies:

• Two bills to take advantage of concern for young students at risk of not learning to read in order to enrich computer software companies, called the "Early Intervention Program Act" (PDF, p. 6) and the "K-1 Technology-Baed Reading Intervention for English Learners Act" (PDF, p. 8). The former appears to be based on Utah's 2012 HB 513, which since its passage has enriched at least one ALEC corporation, Imagine Learning, to the tune of almost $2 million. Since Imagine did not offer test scores for the beginning and ending of the use of its software in the 2012-2013 school year, little is know of what benefits there may (or may not) have been to students enrolled in the new program, even as it diverted tax dollars from public schools to private corporations.
• Another related bill, ALEC's "Student Achievement Backpack Act," also appears to be based on a Utah bill, 2013 SB 82, which provides access to student data in a "cloud-based" electronic portal format. According to Ed Week, it was inspired by a publication by Digital Learning Now!, a project of Jeb Bush's Foundation for Excellence in Education, which has ties to ALEC and is funded in part by Pearson, an international media company that bought out Connections Education, formerly a very active member of ALEC's Education Task Force.
• Another school privatization bill called the "Course Choice Program Act" (PDF, p. 17), which appears to be based on Louisiana's "course choice," or mini-voucher, program. It lets high school students take free online classes if their regular school does not offer it, or if their school had been rated a C, D or F by the state, and began enrollment in 2013. The Louisiana Supreme Court ruled its initial funding mechanism from the state's "Minimum Foundation Program" unconstitutional. The state's voucher program has been challenged by the U.S. Justice Department on the grounds that it might promote segregation. A federal judge ruled this month that the federal government has the right to examine voucher assignments in order to make sure that's not happening, according to The Times-Picayune.

Stripping Environmental Protections:

• Two resolutions that continue to oppose to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) regulation of greenhouse gases and work to prevent addressing climate change, called the "Resolution in Opposition to EPA’s Plan to Regulate Greenhouse Gases under the Clean Air Act" (PDF, p. 7) and the "Resolution Concerning EPA Proposed Greenhouse Gas Emission Standards for New and Existing Fossil-Fueled Power Plants" (PDF, p. 8). The Supreme Court agreed on October 15 to review the EPA's authority to regulate greenhouse gases from stationary sources like power plants under the Clean Air Act, as CMD reported. The Obama administration and environmental advocates had urged the Supreme Court to reject the case entirely. Environmental regulation experts theorize that the right-wing activists appointed to the court could strip the EPA of its ability to regulate these stationary sources, but that the EPA is on fairly solid legal footing. ALEC's "Energy, Environment, and Agriculture Task Force" (EEA) is populated with fossil fuel corporations that have a vested interest in reducing or eliminating regulation of greenhouse gases -- including American Electric Power, Duke Energy, Energy Future Holdings, Koch Industries, Peabody Coal, BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, and Shell Oil.
• A new attack on clean energy policies, attempting to slow the growth of the clean energy industry by weakening net metering policies (which reduce energy bills of consumers who install solar panels, for example), called the "Updating Net Metering Policies Resolution" (PDF, p. 11). Brian McCormick, Vice President for Political and External Affairs of the Edison Electric Institute -- a member of ALEC -- helped Arizona Public Service -- another ALEC member -- draft the resolution, as the Energy & Policy Institute's Gabe Elsner reported in the Huffington Post.
• The EEA task force will also gauge "interest for [a] future natural gas, hydraulic fracturing, and pipeline symposium." But ALEC members' "interest" in these extractive and environmentally destructive activities is no secret. Last October, as CMD discovered, outgoing ALEC National Chair John Piscopo, a state Representative from Connecticut, went on an ALEC-organized, all-expenses-paid trip to the Alberta tar sands with eight other ALEC legislators. Keystone XL pipeline company TransCanada and oil interests like the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers sponsored the trip. CMD filed a complaint in Nebraska against Sen. Jim Smith, who never disclosed that he received expensive chartered flights in Canada. Rep. Piscopo also didn't disclose the value of flights, hotel rooms, and meals that he received on the trip, although Connecticut law is not as strict as Nebraska law about such influence peddling.

Limiting Patient Rights and Undermining Safety Net Programs:

• A bill in place of ALEC's previous resolutions in support of "Medicaid block grants," called the "Medicaid Block Grant Act" (PDF, p. 10), which would request "federal authorization to fund the state Medicaid program through a block grant or similar funding." Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) has proposed a similar block grant system for Medicaid in several budget proposals. The cuts inherent in this system -- as much as 75 percent -- "would have substantial effects on the ability of millions of low-income Americans to secure health coverage and have access to needed health-care services," according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
• A bill to place new, potentially burdensome restrictions on who can be hired as so-called "insurance navigators" that are providing assistance to people in states to sign up for insurance using the ACA exchanges, called the "Navigator Background Check Act" (PDF, p. 22). Along with an array of other ALEC bills, this would further undermine the effectiveness of the ACA, as CMD has reported.
• A bill to end licensing, certification, and specialty certification for doctors and other medical professionals as requirements to practice medicine in the state and to prohibit the state from funding the Federation of State Medical Boards, euphemistically called the "Patient Access Expansion Act" (PDF, p. 25). This bill was introduced to the task force previously at the 2012 ALEC Winter Task Force Summit and was presumably not approved. It is being re-introduced with no discernible changes.

CMD will be reporting on any news emerging from ALEC's meeting in Washington, DC this week, so stay tuned to PRWatch.org for more. You can also take action to ask Google to stop funding ALEC by clicking here.

This piece was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.

Rebekah Wilce

Rebekah Wilce is a farmer with a degree in writing from the University of Arizona (2003). She researches and reports for CMD in between milking cows at a local farm and serving breakfast at the farmers' market.

Eliz. Warren Is Our Progressives Choice

Warren, Liberal Faction Gaining Control Among Democrats

Monday, 02 Dec 2013 06:14 AM

By Elliot Jager

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A more liberal and populist movement is emerging within the Democratic Party that views President Barack Obama and the party's presumptive presidential front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton as excessively centrist, according to the Washington Post.

This group is looking to Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., as its 2016 presidential standard-bearer.

In contrast to Obama, Warren favors increasing Social Security payments. In a recent Senate floor speech she said, "The absolute last thing we should do in 2013 – at the very moment that Social Security has become the principal lifeline for millions of our seniors – is to allow the program to begin to be dismantled inch by inch."

In addition to opposing any budget deal that would involve Social Security reductions, the more liberal faction favors stronger regulation of Wall Street; a $10.10-an-hour minimum wage, higher than the $9 favored by Obama; student loan debt relief; steps aimed at reducing economic inequality, and measures to protect workers from the aftershocks of globalization.

Clinton is seen by many on the left as being too close to Wall Street and to the devotees of Robert Rubin, her husband's Treasury secretary. Some also complain that Rubin's people have been running economic policy under Obama, according to the Post.

Warren, a former Harvard law professor, has also called for big banks to be broken up.

"Wall Street will fight us, but the American people are on our side," she told a union audience.

The Post reported that Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who calls himself a democratic socialist, said that though he is not keen to run for president he is willing to do so if a sufficiently liberal Democrat does not enter the raise.

Editor:   How about Elizabeth Warren and pro-Labor Bernie Sanders on the same ticket?