Why Won’t the Post Say Jack About Evans?

Posted on November 3, 2011 by admin

Ward 2 Councilmember Jack Evans is one of the city’s most powerful elected officials, and he’s breaking the law, but you’re not likely to read about it in the printed pages of the Washington Post. That’s ironic because the city’s leading newspaper has relentlessly pursued potential official misconduct. At least among black legislators.

Mayor Vincent Gray, Council Chairman Kwame Brown, At-large Councilmember Michael Brown and Ward 5 Councilmember Harry Thomas – all of whom receive strong African-American support, and are black – have been the subject of numerous Post news articles and editorials that question their fitness for office.

Meanwhile Evans, who represents the downtown business community and wealthy Georgetown residents, largely escapes the Post‘s scrutiny, despite the fact that his potential misconduct may be greater than all of the others put together. Continue reading →

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A Truly Scary Halloween: Kevin Kamps Discusses U.S. Nuclear Power Plants and Their Waste

Posted on November 1, 2011 by admin

LISTEN TO KEVIN KAMPS:

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“We are seventy years into the atomic age and we still do not have a basic solution to the radioactive waste problem,” Kevin Kamps told TheFightBack yesterday at a Halloween-themed protest outside the U.S. Department of Energy, which oversees the country’s nuclear industry, or at least it’s supposed to.

Kamps, who’s the radioactive waste watchdog for the organization Beyond Nuclear, was in costume as Mr. Burns, The Simpsons’ character who is the unscrupulous owner of the fictional Springfield Nuclear Power Plant. The protest coincided with the final day of public comment on a draft report of the 15-member Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future. Continue reading →

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Taxi Leader Haimanot Bizuayehu Visits Occupy DC

Posted on October 31, 2011 by admin

Taxi leader Haimanot Bizuayehu speaks with TheFightBack's Pete Tucker at Occupy DC at McPherson Square on K Street

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“I share their ideas,” D.C. taxi leader Haimanot Bizuayehu told TheFightBack in an Oct. 28 interview at Occupy DC at McPherson Square. Inspired by the occupation of Wall Street, the K Street park has been occupied since Oct. 1. Bizuayehu said of the 99 Percenters, they are asking “the government to pay attention [to] the large majority of the public, the people who are struggling under this tight economy. [While] regular people are suffering, the only people who are advantaged at this time are those [at the] corporate level.”

Bizuayehu, who’s a board member of The Small Business Association of DC Taxicab Drivers, knows something about struggling against corporate control. D.C. drivers recently beat back a taxi medallion bill which would have eliminated 4,000 jobs and threatened to turn the city’s drivers, most of whom are independent owner/operators, into employees of a few large companies.
Continue reading →

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Councilman Evans Lashes Out at Veteran Reporter

Posted on October 28, 2011 by admin

Yesterday, Ward 2 Councilmember Jack Evans lashed out at former Washington Post reporter John Hanrahan, calling him “a f—ing idiot” in an interview with City Paper‘s Loose Lips. Over the years, Hanrahan has raised questions about his councilmember’s dealings, including the day before in an interview with TheFightBack.

Evans is the longest serving DC councilmember and chair of the all-important Finance and Revenue Committee. He’s also on the payroll of Patton Boggs, but it’s unclear what the councilmember does for the powerhouse lobby firm in return for his $240,000 salary. (He earns an additional$125,000 a year as a councilmember).

Continue reading →

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Councilmember Evans Represents the 1%, Not the Occupiers in His Ward

Posted on October 27, 2011 by admin

LISTEN TO JOHN HANRAHAN

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Ward 2 Councilmember Jack Evans represents the 1% much more than the 99. Ironically – or maybe appropriately – both of D.C.’s ongoing occupations, at Freedom Plaza and McPherson Square, are located in his ward.

Evans embodies precisely what the occupiers oppose: undue corporate influence on government. In addition to his $125,000 council salary, Evans earns $240,000 a year from Patton Boggs, but good luck trying to figure out what the councilmember does for the powerful law/lobby firm.

As chair of the Committee on Finance and Revenue, Evans consistently calls for cuts to safety net programs, while at the same time he steers hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars towards privately-owned projects like the baseball stadium ($700-plus million), the convention center ($850 million) and the convention center hotel ($272 million). Continue reading →

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Occupy Student Debt

Posted on October 25, 2011 by admin

Stef Gray at Occupy Wall Street.

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“I’d like to tell my 99 percenter story,” 23-year-old Stef Gray said yesterday at Occupy Wall Street in Zuccotti Park, now renamed Liberty Plaza. One of the two signs Gray held as she spoke read, “3 degrees cum laude. Facing eviction. Parents dead. $135K debt.” The other said, “Will work any damn job. Not ‘unpaid internships.'”

“I grew up poor and orphaned,” Gray said. “My dad passed when I was six. My mother passed when I was twelve. I spent my teens bouncing between homes of different family members where I was not necessarily wanted. I was told to stay in school and work hard… [so] I started college when I was sixteen [and] I got great grades.” Continue reading →

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Jim Hightower on the Occupy Movement and the Republican Presidential Candidates

Posted on October 24, 2011 by admin

Photo courtesy of notmytribe.com.

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“This is a movement that can grow into something not only big, but important,” progressive author and commentator Jim Hightower said Oct. 15 after addressing protesters at Occupy DC at Freedom Plaza. “Even a dog knows the difference between being stumbled over and being kicked. The powers that be [have]… kicked too many of us,” said the Texas populist, wearing his trademark cowboy hat.

Since the Sept. 17 occupation of Liberty Plaza on Wall Street, more than 1,500 “occupy together meetups” have sprung up throughout the country and across the globe, according to OccupyTogether.org. What’s more, the occupations have broad initial public backing, which may be unique in the history of progressive movements in the U.S. Continue reading →

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Silencing Dissent: WTU VP Candi Peterson’s Removal From Office

Posted on October 20, 2011 by admin

LISTEN TO THE FULL 40-MINUTE INTERVIEW WITH CANDI PETERSON HERE:

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Seven months after the membership of the Washington Teachers’ Union elected Candi Peterson general vice president, she was unceremoniously, and possibly illegally, removed from office at the behest of WTU President Nathan Saunders. “Our president basically colluded with the chancellor’s office to [get rid of me],” Peterson said yesterday in an interview with TheFightBack that was livestreamed from Occupy DC at McPherson Square on K Street.

Watch 7-minute clip of interview with Candi Peterson:

As a matter of contract, District of Columbia Public Schools grants WTU presidents and vice presidents leaves of absence from their teaching positions, which allows them to serve full time in their capacity as elected union officials. Continue reading →

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Ralph Nader on the Occupation Movement

Posted on October 18, 2011 by admin

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“We’ve got a huge opportunity here because we have huge numbers of people,” said consumer advocate Ralph Nader. “There are twenty-five million Americans who want to work and who cannot find work, who cannot pay for the necessities of life. To take a phrase from history, that’s the ‘reserve army of the unemployed’ that’s going to fill all of these parks and plazas all over the country in the Occupy movement,” Nader said Oct. 15 at Freedom Plaza, the site of one of D.C.’s two ongoing occupations.

The Sept. 17 occupation of Wall Street has touched a nerve and set off a movement that has led to 1,512 “Occupy Together Meetups” throughout the U.S. and across the globe, according to OccupyTogether.org. “It is remarkable what a little more than 100,000 Americans, showing up and staying awhile have done in three weeks,” Nader wrote in an Oct. 11 piece entitled “Rumble from the People.” Continue reading →

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After Breaking Open the Watergate Scandal, Woodward and Bernstein Crossed the Picket Line

Posted on October 17, 2011 by admin

LISTEN JOHN HANRAHAN:

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John Hanrahan, a former Washington Post reporter and editor, summed up his thoughts on the 1976 film “All the President’s Men”: “Outstanding performances, outstanding director, but depicting a lousy institution,” he said. The movie stars Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman, who play Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the Post reporters who broke open the Watergate scandal, which ultimately led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon.

Oct. 14, “All the President’s Men” was back on the big screen, ironically enough for the opening of the 11th Annual DC Labor FilmFest at the AFI Silver Theatre in downtown Silver Spring. Hanrahan was part of a post-film discussion and in written remarks, which time constraints prevented him from delivering, he said, “Even while the Post was pursuing the Watergate scandal, its top management were scheming to bust the Post’s most militant union, Local 6 of the pressmen’s union, and to weaken the newspaper’s other unions.” Continue reading →

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