Last week, I joined Bruce DePuyt on “NewsTalk” on NewsChannel8 to discuss the military’s treatment of 23 year old Private Bradley Manning who is accused of being the WikiLeaks whistleblower. Manning is being held in solitary confinement at the Quantico Marine Corps base, 35 miles south of D.C.
In a March 14 editorial, The New York Times said, “Pfc. Bradley Manning, who has been imprisoned for nine months on charges of handing government files to WikiLeaks, has not even been tried let alone convicted. Continue reading →
Posted inAnti-war|Comments Off on Discussion of Treatment of Pfc. Manning on News Ch.8 with Tucker
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
“I pay. You pay. Why doesn’t B-of-A?” chanted protesters as they stood outside a suddenly closed Bank of America at 14th and Irving St, NW on Saturday. The D.C. demonstration was held in coordination with US Uncut’s more than 40 other actions across the country. In London, 500,000 people took to the streets to protest U.K. officials’ plans to cut more than 300,000 public sector jobs while at the same time possibly lowering corporate taxes.
Two-thirds of U.S. corporations don’t pay any federal income tax, including America’s largest bank. Continue reading →
SOS organizer Aiyi'nah Ford confronts Mayor Gray's budget director Eric Goulet on March 25
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
The District of Columbia is facing a deficit of more than $300 million. April 1, Mayor Vincent Gray will transmit a balanced budget to the D.C. Council. In order to do so, the mayor must either cut services or raise revenue, or both.
All this past week, Save Our Safety Net (SOS-DC), a grassroots advocacy organization, made and brought lunch to the mayor in the hopes of meeting with him to discuss slightly raising taxes on the District’s highest income earners in order to avoid further cuts to safety net services. The mayor, however, declined to meet with the group. Continue reading →
Posted inDistrict of Columbia|Comments Off on Mayor Gray Declines to Meet with Safety Net Supporters
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
One domino falls and god willing the rest will too. – Sylvia Haider
Outside the White House on Saturday was a sight to behold. Just yards apart, protests were taking place about Yemen, Syria, Bahrain and Libya. Navid Nasr, a local activist, conducted a guided tour of the protests, beginning with the largest of the demonstrations.
That morning’s Washington Post said of Yemen: “A new sense of national identity is spreading across Yemen’s divided society as rival tribesmen and political foes unite to oust President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who on Friday said he would step aside as long as he could deliver power to ‘safe hands.’ Tens of thousands of anti-government demonstrators took to the streets Friday to demand Saleh’s ouster. Continue reading →
Posted inAnti-war|Comments Off on A Guided Tour of Saturday’s Middle East Protests Outside the White House with Navid Nasr, Part I
All this week, Save Our Safety Net (SOS-DC) has attempted to do lunch with Mayor Vincent Gray. Their effort culminates with “a grandstyle picnic” today at 1:00 PM at the John A. Wilson Building, 1350 Pennsylvania Ave, NW. SOS-DC said, “We invite all District residents to join us as we offer Mayor Gray a ‘menu’ of progressive taxes that can take safety net services ‘off the table’ of budget cuts!”
Tuesday, on the Pete in the Street segment of “More Room On the Outside” on DCTV, SOS-DC’s renewed push for a more progressive tax structure was discussed. “It doesn’t make sense. The people who are making more money should be taxed more,” said co-host Toussaint Tingling-Clemmons. “There seems to be a penalty for being poor… our services get cut whenever things are tight. No, we all don’t tighten our belts the same way. The rich really should [pay more]. If capitalism has been that good to you, you should be able to give back. And I don’t want to hear that you gave $1,200 to some charity. No. No, it should go back into the revenue of the city.”
SOS-DC noted, “Over the last three years, the District of Columbia has cut more than $100 million in funding for services like domestic violence resources, affordable housing, and childcare, services that help struggling low-income families, and keep our communities secure and strong.” Continue reading →
Posted inDistrict of Columbia|Comments Off on Today’s Picnic with Gray to Save Our Safety Net
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
“Third world countries require you to hire people from their countries when [you] do work [there]. Other states and cities do it, and D.C. should do it,” said community activist and civil rights attorney Donald Temple on Tuesday as he marched with more than 50 others to the 11th Street Bridge, which traverses the Anacostia River, connecting downtown D.C. to Anacostia, where unemployment stands at 30 percent.
The $300 million reconstruction of the 11th Street Bridge is not benefitting Anacostia residents, according to demonstrators. Michael E. Ruane of the Washington Post reported, “The project – the District’s largest-ever transportation construction endeavor – will replace the two existing bridges with three new spans. Designed to ease traffic flow across the river, it began in December 2009 and is scheduled to be finished in 2013. Continue reading →
Posted inDistrict of Columbia, Labor/Jobs|Comments Off on The 11th Street Bridge Reconstruction Project: $300 million in government funding, too few District jobs
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Who walks into what is expected to be a heated meeting packing heat? No less than the chairman of the D.C. Taxicab Commission (DCTC). As he entered Thursday’s DCTC meeting, Leon Swain was asked if he was wearing a gun and he responded, “Of course I am.” Swain was quickly ushered away from reporters by Dena Reed, DCTC general counsel.
Ms. Reed then turned her attention to Fox 5 photojournalist Jason Smith, telling him, “If the cameras don’t leave the room, we’re not going to have the meeting.” Smith replied, “If you can explain to me the statute that says I can’t be here, I will gladly leave… but if it’s a public meeting you can’t just throw [me out].” Continue reading →
Posted inLabor/Jobs, Taxicab|Comments Off on Leon Swain, Chairman at Arms
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Daniel Ellsberg speaking outside the Quantico Marine Corps base
“One person can make an enormous difference,” said Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg before speaking to some 400 protesters on Sunday outside the Quantico Marine Corps base, where he was stationed in 1954. Today, Private Bradley Manning, who is accused of providing WikiLeaks with classified U.S. government documents, is being held in solitary confinement at Quantico despite not having been convicted, or even tried, of a crime.
Sunday’s demonstration followed Saturday’s action outside the White House, on the eighth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, which saw the arrest of 113 activists who were protesting Manning’s treatment. Both events come on the heels of a high level resignation over statements regarding the 23-year-old alleged whistleblower. Continue reading →
Posted inAnti-war, Prison|Comments Off on Private Bradley Manning: The Quantico Protest
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
“If you ask me, it’s torture. You don’t do this to an American servicemember before he has even been tried and convicted. They had him in solitary confinement before he was even charged with anything. That’s wrong. Last time I checked, one of the most fundamental rights we have according to the Constitution is habeas corpus, and that’s totally been denied for Bradley Manning.”
“We’re here to take a stand for our brother,” said disabled military veteran Jason Hurd while clutching the White House fence. An organizer with Iraq Veterans Against the War, Hurd was the 92 out of 113 arrested at Saturday’s protest on the eighth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. “Bradley Manning is being accused of treason and all these earnest things when all he was doing was exposing lies, and that is not a crime.” Continue reading →
Posted inAnti-war, Prison|Comments Off on Private Bradley Manning: The White House Protest
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
“Should a locally-owned hardware store be taxed more than a branch of a national retailer?” asked DC Fiscal Policy Institute’s Jenny Reed and Elissa Silverman in a January column in Hill Rag. “Of course the answer is no. Yet right now, national retailers and other corporations often have a distinct tax advantage over local DC businesses.”
Some cuts to safety net services could be staved off if the District cracked down on tax avoidance by multistate corporations. Reed and Silverman noted, “Right now, corporations like CVS and Starbucks are taking advantage of weakness in our tax system by shifting profits they make in DC to other states that have lower – or no – business taxes. Continue reading →
Posted inDistrict of Columbia|Comments Off on Implementation of Combined Reporting Would Close D.C. Corporate Tax Loophole
LISTEN TO JASON HURD
