Obama Uses Weekly Address To Slam Credit Card Industry

The President's address this morning not only lambasted the slimy practices of the credit card industry, he also challenged the Senate to step up and legislate them into treating credit card holders with respect and fairness with a wide range of reforms.

Bloomberg Starts Charging Rent To The Homeless

I could hardly believe the headline, that the Mayor would want to charge the homeless who have gotten jobs and live in shelters, it sounded too perverse, even for me. Yet that is exactly what the Bloomberg Administration started doing this past week.

Imagine being homeless, out on the streets with almost nowhere to turn. Then you manage to get one of those rare openings in one of the city's shelters. With that ounce of stability, in these tough times you also manage to get a job. Then the shelter, under Bloomberg's directive, orders you to pay them up to half of your wages. Feeling hurt? Angry? Whatever your emotion, there is definitely something wrong here.

From The NY Times:

Vanessa Dacosta, who earns $8.40 an hour as a cashier at Sbarro, received a notice under her door several weeks ago informing her that she had to give $336 of her approximately $800 per month in wages to the Clinton Family Inn, a shelter in Hell’s Kitchen where she has lived since March.

“It’s not right,” said Ms. Dacosta, a single mother of a 2-year-old who said she spends nearly $100 a week on child care. “I pay my baby sitter, I buy diapers, and I’m trying to save money so I can get out of here. I don’t want to be in the shelter forever.”

So what's the reasoning behind this?

City officials said the new rent requirement had been in the works since a 2007 state audit that forced them to pay back $2.4 million in state housing aid that should have been covered by homeless families with income. They argued that homeless people with income should be expected to pay for a portion of their shelter costs, a model that echoes the federal Section 8 housing voucher program.

“I think it’s hard to argue that families that can contribute to their shelter cost shouldn’t,” Robert V. Hess, the city’s commissioner of homeless services, said in a telephone interview Friday. “I don’t see this playing out in an adverse way. Our objective is not for families to remain in shelter. Ourobjective is to move families back into their own homes and into the community.”

Oh, well if the state says so, then we must make the homeless shoulder that $2.4 million dollars right?

But advocates for the homeless said the new policy was punitive and counterproductive, and some shelter residents, in protest, have already refused to sign the documents acknowledging receipt of the rent notifications.

“Families have been told to pay up or get out,” said Steven Banks, the attorney in chief for the Legal Aid Society. “The policy is poorly conceived, but even more alarmingly, it’s being poorly executed. What is happening is that we have seen cases of families being unilaterally told, without any notice of how the rent was calculated, that they must pay certain amounts of rent or leave the shelter. We’ve already had a case of a survivor of domestic violence who was actually locked out of her room.”

Banks is right, this is a bad policy and one that is being poorly enforced. $2.4 million dollars to the city and $2.4 million to a group of people struggling to become productive members of society is not even close to being comparable. It is even worse that a twelve-year old rule has begun to be enforced in such devastating economic times. Seriously, have a heart Mayor (or buy one) and stop punishing the homeless, especially those that are trying so hard not to be living on the streets or in a shelter.

Coal Ash Isn't Just A Tennessee Problem

Back when most of us were rushing to do last minute holiday shopping this past Christmas, a break in a coal slurry dam resulted in millions of cubic gallons of coal ash spilling out, injuring several and devastating a large area in Tennessee. Public officials and most of the media helped to tamp down the story from becoming much of a sensation, but the damage still remains. What's worse, the Bush Administration suppressed a report concerning elevated cancer risks in the area. Now that Obama is in office we at least get to see that report, but the effects of coal ash reach much further than Tennessee.

From McClatchy DC:

WASHINGTON — People in 34 states who live near 210 coal ash lagoons or landfills with inadequate lining have a higher risk of cancer and other diseases from contaminants in their drinking water, two environmental groups reported on Thursday.

Twenty-one states have five or more of the high-risk disposal sites near coal-fired power plants. The groups -- the Environmental Integrity Project and Earthjustice -- said that a 2002 Environmental Protection Agency document that the agency didn't release until March of this year adds information about toxic releases from these facilities to nearby water systems and data on how some contaminants accumulate in fish and deer and can harm the health of people who hunt and fish.

The report said that people who live near the most problematic disposal sites have as much as a 1-in-50 chance of getting cancer from drinking water contaminated by arsenic. The highest risk is for people who live near ash ponds with no liners and who get their water from wells.

Basically, you don't have to have a large disaster in order to suffer from the effects of coal ash and the ponds that supposedly help retain the substance. Coal power plants are run in such a way that the process ultimately ends up harming the local population. For all the touting we hear about coal and it's potential to be "clean," there's really nothing clean about it.

Schneiderman Scolds Republicans For Putting M.T.A. In Its Current Mess

Dean Skelos has been holding his minority caucus together to vote no on the M.T.A. bill. His band of 30 have repeatedly criticized the Democratic plan, but with no mention of their culpability in creating the mess that Democratic members have decided to start cleaning up. Well Senator Schneiderman had a few choice words for them from the floor of the Senate today:

Bigotry And Racism Come Easily To Jeff Sessions

With Arlen off to the other side, the wise leadership of the Senate's GOP has decided to make Jeff Sessions the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee. Since Obama will be nominating someone to replace Justice Souter in the next few months, Sessions will help set the tone for Republicans as they try and battle whomever the President chooses. So who is Jeff Sessions? Well, going by his past, it seems as if Mitch McConnell's own pick is going to help solidify the party's image as a white, southern party.

From TPM:

When it became clear that Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) was poised to become ranking member on the Senate Judiciary Committee, we recalled this 2002 article by Sarah Wildman which addresses some of the controversies that kept Sessions from being confirmed in 1986 as a U.S. District Court judge in Alabama.

Wildman writes in particular that the testimonies of two witnesses--a Justice Department employee named J. Gerald Hebert, and a black Sessions subordinate named Thomas Figures--helped to doom Sessions, then a U.S. Attorney, at his Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings. According to Wildman, Hebert testified reluctantly "that in a conversation between the two men Sessions had labeled the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) "un-American" and "Communist-inspired." And Figures--then an assistant U.S. Attorney--told the committee that "during a 1981 murder investigation involving the Ku Klux Klan, Sessions was heard by several colleagues commenting that he 'used to think they [the Klan] were OK' until he found out some of them were 'pot smokers.'"

And that's just the beginning of it, there's plenty more that Talking Points Memo found. Rachel Maddow also does a nice synopsis of Sessions. But all the evidence against Sessions isn't just in the past. There's also that exchange with Fox News when Sessions thought that gay nominees would make Americans uneasy. And of course you can judge for yourself by looking at his record. One thing is for sure though, Sessions is emblematic of the current status of the Republican party. Far to the right of the rest of country, narrow-minded and as you can see above, prejudiced to the extreme.

Quinn's Hollow Support For NYC's Parents

This week we saw two large demonstrations made up of parents who are sick and tired of the way Mayor Bloomberg has run the city's schools. While Joel Klein is spinning up in Albany trying to keep mayoral control as is, down here people are pissed off that their preschoolers have been kicked out of day care and into overcrowded city schools or they have kindergarten-age kids who have been placed on wait-lists to attend public school. Each scenario is a testament to how Bloomberg has failed the city's children and instead of trying to remedy the problem, he mocks the parents' complaints.

With all of that, I was surprised to see Council Speaker Christine Quinn show up at one of the events to speak:

Christine Quinn, the City Council speaker and usually an ally of Bloomberg’s, said that all the major players need to come together and honestly assess the number of seats needed and then figure out how to create them. “It’s later than it should be, but it’s not September,” she said.

The paragraph seems to imply that Quinn is on the side of the parents, but that is hardly the case. Quinn is pretty much a solid ally of Bloomberg and when it comes to mayoral control and its' side-effects, she's completely on board for all the damage that's been done. She supports mayoral control and wants to continue it. She's also given her full support to developers who build and build yet does not require them or the city to increase classroom capability in order to handle the influx of school children.

Being in front of the camera and being mentioned by a newspaper or two for showing up may look great, but having her in office doesn't do those parents any favors.

Unemployment Keeps Climbing

Wall Street may be hopeful because we only lost 539,000 jobs in April (though the number will probably be revised upward in a week or so) but for those people and the 5.7 million who are already out of a job due to this recession there is no reason to celebrate. We are now at our worst levels of unemployment since 1983 and there is no reason to doubt that we'll be surpassing the bad times of the early 1980s.

Specter's Cancer Charity Is Really A Fundraising Tool

If you've ever been personally affected by cancer, this story about Arlen Specter might make you sick. Now Specter is a two-time survivor of Hodgkins disease and yes, a great supporter of cancer research. However, his website "specterforthecure.com" is not exactly what you might think it is. Getting baseline funding for the NIH is a wonderful idea, but the website's motives are not made clear to those that visit it.

From TPM:

The idea is pretty simple. Specter is an advocate in the Senate for setting a $40 billion annual funding baseline for the National Institutes of Health--and if he's defeated at the polls, that bill will lose one of its most storied and influential sponsors. But if he wins, then the money raised by Specter for the Cure will, de facto, also support Specter's various other, eclectic legislative priorities.

But that's not how he sells it. According to the website, "Arlen Specter will seek re-election to the United States Senate. Without Arlen Specter back in the Senate to see it through, Specter for the Cure could be lost to the ordinary politics of Washington that kills real change." Some of the money he uses in that re-election bid will surely come from people who think they're giving to a cancer charity.

If Specter is defeated at the polls he will be replaced by a strong, progressively-minded Democratic challenger. Since there is no way that the right-wing Pat Toomey will win in a general election, Specter can only be tossed out by an actual Democrat. All we'd have to do is ask Joe Sestak or Joe Torsella about their views on cancer research and that would be that.

NY Senate Website Gets An Upgrade

There's more than enough criticism to go around for the New York State Senate but when they do good, it needs to be reported. Of course when you hire several web and blog-savvy progressives to revamp the Senate website, great things are going to happen. After a few weeks of prepping and planning, the new site is ready to go, and it gives the public more access to their legislators than ever before.

From the State Senate:

The New York State Senate took a very big step forward today by bringing New Yorkers into the legislative process in a way that has never been done before, by going live on the internet with a new website that infuses public participation with new technological capabilities.

"We are working to clean up the mess of the last 12 years and return government to the people of this state, and one of the best ways to achieve that goal is to capitalize on the use of new technology and the ways in which people communicate in the 21st Century," explained Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith.

Under the direction of new Senate Chief Technology Officer, Andrew Hoppin, the Senate has been undertaking a number of exciting new initiatives that will open up the Senate to the public, clean up the mess of costly outside vendors controlling content, and provide an unprecedented level of ease for the public to access legislative information.

http://nysenate.gov will host more than 90 unique websites serving all 62 members of the Senate and many committees, utilizing new technology for crowd sourcing, blogging, and linking into social networking sites.

"The previous Senate website was difficult to navigate and didn't provide much to visitors. By comparison, this site was built solely around encouraging public participation in the legislative process. We want to hear what New Yorkers think," added Smith.

The new website, built entirely on open-source software, helps Senators and Committees to more easily share their work with New Yorkers through blogging, the posting of news article, photos, videos, event calendars and public schedules.

The website also makes this information easy to access by providing powerful content search capabilities, RSS feeds, email and SMS text message news signups for all Senators and Committees, and one-click republishing of content from the Senate website to a range of social networking websites such as Facebook and Twitter.

The new website also provides a new platform for public participation in government, featuring public commenting on Senate blog posts, "public markup" on proposed legislation, and "crowdsourcing" of citizen ideas about critical pending legislative issues.

The Open Data section of the website is dedicated specifically to publishing data about the work of the Senate in a form that citizens and good government groups can use to exercise oversight over the Senate and other government entities of New York State.

The new website also gives citizens an in-depth look at critical issues that the Senate is dealing with; for example, the Federal Stimulus site gives citizens comprehensive information about how Federal Stimulus Funds are being used in New York State; the MTASolutions site and Plain Language Initiative helps break down the arcane budget of the MTA into a more intuitive form with visuals and analyses.

"This is the future and with Andrew Hoppin on board, the New York State Senate is going to lead legislative bodies across the country in the use of new technology. Part of the reason the Obama Administration has been so successful is because they have helped open the door to the public, and we want to bring people into this process," Smith concluded.

The change in the site is an incredible thing to see. Opening up and simplifying the business of the Senate is an important door that these bloggers have created. Now we as the public must go up and open it, so we can see what the Senate is up to, and either push them when they're going in the right direction or fight back when the opposite is the case.

Again, great job guys!

Lindsay Graham Peddles Gitmo Lies To Greta

Simply appearing on Fox News does not give someone the authority to blatantly lie (even though it happens all the time there) about the status of detainees at Guantanamo Bay. Yet Senator Lindsay Graham did just that when he spoke to Greta Van Susteren earlier today:



Graham may be trying to look tough for his constituents and fellow Republican kool-aid drinkers, but the status of the detainees is not as clear cut as he might hope for.

Bloomberg Mocks Parents Outraged Over His Mayoral Control

With mayoral control up for debate in Albany, it might be prudent for Bloomberg to show that he stays in tune with the parents that send their children to his unilaterally run schools. Yet after the Mayor decided to pull five year old children out of the city's daycare centers and place them in the larger public school system, parents were up in arms and held two separate demonstrations yesterday denouncing the change. With so little space available in the city's schools for these children, the move makes it even harder for parents to find their kids a space in their neighborhood school. So what was Mayor Bloomberg's reaction to the upset parents?

From The NY Daily News:

"They complained about a couple of hundred kids not being able to get into the schools that they wanted to get into," he said.

"I can tell you how to fix that: just lower the quality of the schools," he said. "Isn't it wonderful that kids want to get into schools?"

Told of the mayor's mocking, Sal Browne, a mother of two at Public School 116 in Murray Hill and toddler twins said, "That's the most absurd thing I have ever heard."

"This is not something to be shrugging off and joking about and saying this problem isn't really a problem," she said.

If the Mayor thinks that he can simply get away with this behavior and not pay a political price he'll be sorely mistaken. He can spend tens of millions of ads to numb the minds of this city but when you scorn a voter over the education of their child, there is no better way of helping your opponent than creating a cadre of pissed off parents.

Padavan Wants Leniency For Convicted Labor Boss

There's nothing like having a good group of friends to stand up in your defense, especially when one of them serves in the New York State Senate. Frank Padavan is the only member of the legislature that has asked the sentencing judge to be lenient with ex-labor boss and Assemblyman Brian McLaughlin. McLaughlin had stolen over two million dollars from the Electchester Little League but now he's looking to have the judge reduce or excuse him from doing jailtime.

From The NY Daily News:

Dozens of letters urge Manhattan Federal Court Judge Richard Sullivan to show sympathy for the former Queens assemblyman when he sentences McLaughlin on May 14 for a brazen $2.2 million cash grab.

McLaughlin, 56, faces up to 10 years in prison.[...]

His lawyers say McLaughlin convinced himself he wasn't stealing money from the Little Leaguers of the Electchester Athletic Association because he knew unused state money would be returned.

"McLaughlin had a major role in rescuing EAA when it fell upon hard times and was its consistent supporter," McLaughlin lawyer Michael Armstrong writes.

The lone lawmaker voicing support for McLaughlin is state Sen. Frank Padavan (R-Queens).

I know he helped to bring Seminerio down, and that does give him some credit. But the guy stole a lot of money and there are consequences for one's actions, even if they suffering from the disease of alcoholism. It's great that he's reforming himself now but the law is the law. When you break it, you're eligible to go to prison for it. If this were a case where a young black man from the South Bronx was arrested for holding up a bodega for $200, there would be no question as to whether the judge would put him away, even if he apologized and had friends express their support. Just because you are sorry, it doesn't undo the crime you committed.

For Padavan to speak up for this criminal is ridiculous. It shows that Frank has no problem standing behind corrupt public officials and is willing to look past the justice McLaughlin deserves. Though to be fair, plenty of other Senators do the same thing, just not with McLaughlin.