A new study about the effects of immigration on U.S. employment supports the long-standing arguments of immigration advocates: Rather than displacing American workers, immigrant labor actually makes our economy stronger. Kevin Drum has the details at Mother Jones.
Now, with reports that undocumented laborers are a mainstay of disaster relief efforts all over the country, Americans are beginning to get a sense of the unsavory work relegated to many immigrants, and the high price immigrants pay for the simple privilege of employment.
Undocumented workers driving wages up
Going back to Mother Jones, new research examining the relationship between immigration and U.S. employment found that—contrary to conventional anti-immigrant wisdom—immigration does not negatively affect American employment. Instead, immigration drives wages up by pushing low-wage American workers into higher-paying jobs.
Here's how it works: As less-educated immigrants gravitate towards work that requires fewer English language skills (like manual labor), their less-educated American counterparts move on to higher-paying, communications-intensive work that capitalizes on their comparatively better English language skills. This naturally drives wages up, and makes for a more productive economy overall.
The irony, as Drum notes, is that those who complain about immigrants stealing American jobs are the same people who want immigrants to learn English and assimilate as quickly as possible. “If they did,” Drum argues, “then they'd just start competing for the higher paying jobs that natives now monopolize.”
Stiffed in New Orleans
The reality of being an undocumented worker in the U.S. is starker than most Americans realize. Not only are immigrants doing work that most would rather not, they are also often cleaning up the messes that Americans leave behind.
Five years after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, undocumented laborers remain a key component of reconstruction efforts. Initially drawn to the city by the prospect of work and the Department of Homeland Security's decision to suspend employment immigration enforcement, many undocumented laborers relocated to New Orleans to assist with rebuilding. But, as Elise Foley reports at the Washington Independent, their immigration status renders them especially vulnerable to rampant wage theft, threats of deportation and workplace violence.
The situation is so dire for many workers that numerous nonprofit groups have initiated projects in the city and are calling for legislation to combat the problem. However, a key concern is that rising anti-immigrant sentiment in other parts of the U.S. could exacerbate difficulties in New Orleans. If such sentiment results in even greater labor abuses or renewed immigration enforcement, whole communities of people who have been dedicated to rebuilding the city could find themselves without livelihood, or even be displaced.
Exploited undocumented workers clean up oil spills
Given the reality that undocumented workers are charged with some of the dirtiest and most unsafe work American employers have to offer, it shouldn't be surprising that U.S. companies rely on immigrant labor to clean up their worst messes. Not only do undocumented workers have fewer employment options, their immigration status renders them far less likely to report unsafe working conditions, exposure to hazardous materials, and underpayment—making them especially attractive to employers looking to save money or hide bad behavior.
So, naturally, undocumented workers were called in to deal with the catastrophic BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico (though their compliance only earned them the undue attention of Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and, more recently, an oil spill in Michigan.
As Todd A. Heywood at the Michigan Messenger reports, one company in particular has come under fire for hiring and then exploiting undocumented laborers. Hallmark Industrial, a Texas contractor hired to clean up the oil spill, allegedly paid its workers only $800 for up to 100 hours of work per week. Additionally, the company subjected them to unsafe and hazardous working conditions, and even failed to provide workers with on-site toilets—forcing workers to relieve themselves in the areas they were charged with cleaning.
Just 24 hours after the Michigan Messenger broke the story, Hallmark Industrial was fired from the oil spill clean up, its contract terminated by the company which hired it, Garner Environmental Services, Inc. Whether that's a victory is questionable. Following the termination of the contract, 40 undocumented workers were arrested in Texas, on a bus chartered by Hallmark—presumably just returned from Michigan. While the termination of the contract ensures that its workers won't be subjected to further workplace abuses, it also ensures that those same individuals must begin the difficult task of finding similar work elsewhere.
Unemployed in California labor camps
Clearly, despite an inexorable willingness to perform low-wage manual labor, undocumented workers are not impervious to the unemployment epidemic. In U.S. labor camps—where migrant agricultural workers can find seasonal or even long term lodging near ranches—farm work is increasingly harder to come by.
As David Bacon highlights at New America Media, both undocumented immigrants and legal “guest workers” are adversely affected by the recession. While the latter possess work visas and may therefore stay in the country legally, both groups live together in the same labor camps, where they remain, ironically, unemployed. Given the present economic climate, there isn't enough work for even the lowest-wage workers. And in spite of their legal status, even guest workers are barred from applying for unemployment benefits.
The recession has cast both undocumented and legally sanctioned agricultural workers into circumstances even more dismal than those advertised by UFW when it launched its "Take Our Jobs" campaign earlier this summer. Outlining the long hours, low pay, and back-breaking labor associated with farm work, UFW satirically invited American citizens to replace the scores of overworked and undocumented laborers that keep our agricultural industry afloat.
Though meant to be a tongue-in-cheek response to the misconception that immigrants steal American jobs, the campaign exposes a real, if unfortunate, truth about undocumented workers: Even as their presence drives Americans into higher paying jobs, Americans employers are all too happy to subject the undocumented to the worst indignities.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about immigration by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Diaspora for a complete list of articles on immigration issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, and health care issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Pulse . This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.
]]>by Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium blogger
Women on along U.S.-Mexico border are buying black market misoprostol to induce abortions, according to a new report by Laura Tillman in the Nation. The drug is easily available over the counter in Mexico.
DIY abortion is cheaper—a bottle of misoprostol costs can cost as little as $70, a fraction of the price of a medical abortion. The DIY approach can also be more convenient and private. One abortion provider told Tillman that about 20% of his patients tried misoprostol before coming to see him.
He estimates that many others took the drug successfully. Misoprostol is about 80%-85% effective when used as directed, but if it doesn't work the woman needs immediate medical help. Potential complications include severe bleeding and uterine rupture. For more information on misoprostol abortions, see last week's edition of the Weekly Pulse.
Comprehensive ignorance
As the bumper sticker slogan goes: If you think education is expensive, try ignorance. Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota bought some very expensive ignorance this week by turning down $850,000 in federal funding for comprehensive sex education through the federal Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP).
According to Andy Birkey of the Minnesota Independent, Pawlenty opted to apply for the Title V State Abstinence Education Grant Program instead of the PREP, a comprehensive sex ed program. Comprehensive sex ed teaches kids how to say no to sex and how to reduce their risk of pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections if they do become sexually active. Now, cash-strapped Minnesota will have to come up with $379,307 in state funds in order to get $505,743 in federal funding for abstinence-only-until-hetero-marriage education.
Robin Marty of RH Reality Check observes that Pawlenty is trying to burnish his conservative credentials in advance of a possible presidential run in 2012. It's part of a national race to the bottom where conservative presidential hopefuls compete to see who can take away more rights from women.
E. coli comes home to roost
The agribusiness giant Cargill Meat Solutions recalled 8,500 pounds of ground beef after 3 people contracted salmonella, Mac McDaniel reports for Care2. The Cargill recall comes on the heels of the largest egg recall in U.S. history. So far, 550 million potentially salmonella-tainted eggs from to factory farms in Iowa have been recalled. McDaniel argues that these food recalls should prompt a larger discussion about the state of our food safety net and the wisdom of factory farming.
At AlterNet, food scientist and activist Dr. Marion Nestle writes that "Industrial egg operations have gotten out of hand in size, waste, and lack of safety." So far, at least 1500 people caught salmonella from tainted Iowa eggs. Nestle urges the Senate to pass the long-awaited food safety bill, S. 510, which the upper chamber has been sitting on for over a year. It's about time. Powerful agribusiness interests have hijacked the regulatory process for too long. The chickens are coming home to roost.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about health care by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Pulse for a complete list of articles on health care reform, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.
]]>Last week, Social Security advocates learned something they had long suspected. Arguments for cutting Social Security aren't really about economics or the deficit. They're all about waging war on social services.
In short, some very prominent policymakers are out to dismantle Social Security on ideological grounds. The most recent example of this view comes from Alan Simpson, a former Republican Senator from Wyoming who now serves as co-Chair of President Barack Obama's Federal Debt Commission. Earlier this summer, Simpson was caught on video spreading absurd lies about Social Security, but his latest outburst explains why he's been so willing to distort the facts. Simpson simply hates Social Security.
As Joshua Holland highlights for AlterNet, Simpson fired off a nasty email to Ashley Carson, who advocates for elderly women, in which he referred to the most successful social program in U.S. history as "a milk cow with 310 million tits."
Social Security is doing just fine
But Simpson has a lot of power on the Debt Commission, which is expected to recommend that Congress reduce the deficit by cutting social programs in a report this year. But as Holland notes, Social Security isn't in trouble:
Social Security is in fine shape. It's got a surplus that will run out in 2037, but even if nothing were to change by then, it could still continue to pay out 75 percent of scheduled benefits seventy-five years from now, long after the surplus disappears, and those benefits would still be higher than what retirees receive today.
What's more, as William Greider notes for The Nation, Social Security has never added one cent to the federal budget deficit. According to the law that created the program, Social Security never can. Targeting Social Security in order to fix the deficit is like invading Iraq to fight Al-Qaeda. The issues are not related.
Raising the retirement age robs workers
The Debt Commission is likely to recommend raising the retirement age—the age at which Social Security benefits begin to be paid out. But as Martha C. White notes for The Washington Independent, it's a "solution" that simply robs low-income workers of their tax money. Everybody pay Social Security taxes when they work, and when they retire, they receive federal support. If you don't live long enough to actually retire, you don't get any benefit from Social Security.
"The hardship of raising the retirement age falls disproportionately on low-income workers who work in physically demanding professions, jobs they may not be able to continue through their seventh decade. ... Moreover, though the average lifespan has increased since Social Security’s creation, those extra years aren’t enjoyed equally by all Americans. Overall, Americans are living about 7 years longer. But the poorest 20 percent of Americans are living just two years longer."
Raising the retirement age, in other words, disproportionately hurts the poor—the very people Social Security is supposed to help most.
Subprime scandal 2.0
So who would pick up the slack if Social Security were to be cut? The same crooked Wall Street scoundrels who brought us the financial crisis. If the government cuts back on retirement benefits, the financial establishment can step in and manage a bigger piece of the retirement pie. The more we learn about the financial mess, the less we should want to see our retirement money controlled by bigwig financiers. Truthout carries a blockbuster new investigative report by ProPublica's Jake Bernstein and Jesse Eisinger that reveals a new, multi-billion-dollar subprime scam engineered by the financial elite.
We've known about Wall Street's subprime shenanigans for some time, but the report reveals that banks were essentially selling their own products to themselves in order to create the illusion that people really wanted lousy mortgages. It's called "self-dealing," and it's supposed to be illegal.
Subprime Disaster, meet Mortgage Nightmare
Here's how the scam worked: Wall Street crammed thousands of mortgages into securities, then sliced and diced those securities into new products called CDOs. Those CDOs, in turn, were divided into different "buckets" and sold to investors. The riskiest buckets paid out the most money to investors, but were the most likely to take losses if the underlying mortgages ever went bad. As the housing bubble grew more and more out-of-control, investors became wary of these risky buckets, and stopped buying them.
Wall Street banks were still making a killing from the packaging and sale of everything else, though, so they devised a plan to get rid of some risky bits: they'd buy them up themselves, without telling anybody. A bank would create a CDO called, say, Mortgage Nightmare CDO. Then it would create a separate CDO, called, say, Subprime Disaster CDO. Subprime Disaster would buy up a risky bucket from Mortgage Nightmare, creating the illusion to the market that banks were still able to sell off risky mortgage assets without any trouble, even though the bank was basically just selling garbage to itself.
That illusion propped up the prices of these risky assets and created more revenue for the tricky bankers who sold them, and plump, short-term profits for the banks. It also strongly encouraged other bankers to issue lousy mortgages to the public, since those loans could be packaged into lousy CDOs and score short-term profits for Wall Street's schemers.
Ultimately, this scheming resulted in a multi-billion-dollar disaster for Wall Street, which taxpayers ended up footing the bill for. Anybody want to see that happen with Social Security?
Social programs did not cause the deficit
As Seth Freed Wessler notes for ColorLines, deficit hawks' emphasis on social programs is at odds with the factors that actually created the deficit. The Bush tax cuts, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the bank bailouts are the big-ticket items when it comes to government revenues and expenses. Yet deficit hawks in Congress have been refusing to extend paltry unemployment benefits or food stamps to the people hit hardest by the recession. And pretty soon they're going to go after Social Security too.
In reality, the deficit is only a problem if investors are afraid that the government will default on its debt. Markets measure this worry with interest rates—high rates mean investors are worried, low rates mean they are not. Right now, interest rates on government bonds are at their lowest in decades. With the recession dragging on and the recovery weakening, now would be a great time for the government to spend more money to create jobs and help those knocked out of work.
Instead, the policy debate features cranky old men whining about 310-million-titted cows.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the economy by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Audit for a complete list of articles on economic issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, health care and immigration issues, check out The Mulch, The Pulse and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.
]]>Joe Miller, Sarah Palin's choice candidate for one of Alaska's Senate seats, does not believe in climate change. That didn't bother Alaska voters: this week, Miller bested Sen. Lisa Murkowski in the state's Republican primary. If that weren't worrisome enough, it also emerged that the fossil fuel industry spent eight times more than environmental groups on lobbying in 2009, the year the House passed the climate change bill. It's been a bad year already for environmental causes, and as the November election edges closer, progressives might want to start working overtime to regain momentum on climate and energy issues.
Murkowski was solidly against the idea of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulating carbon. But she was willing to talk about cap-and-trade programs, and at the very least, she was willing to admit climate change was happening. Depending on how November's election shakes out, the shift towards climate-denial in Congress may only worsen. A slew of Republican candidates are convinced that, as one put it, "only God knows where our climate is going," as Care2 reports.
A tougher tomorrow
Current political trends bode badly for the planet. If Congress couldn't pass climate legislation while are in Democrats control of the House and Senate, there's little hope that lawmakers will step up when facing opponents who don't believe in climate change.
Carla Perez has a few ideas about how progressives and environmentalists can fight back — and they begin with accepting that, yes, giving up fossil fuels would mean sacrifice, but it wouldn't be the end of the world. Perez, a program coordinator at social justice group Movement Generation, appeared recently on National Radio Project's Making Contact and imagined how life would look without fossil fuels:
No iPods. No iPads. No plasma TVs. No motorized individual vehicles. No plastic bags. No pleather boots for $9.99 from Payless.... Then again, no island of plastic twice the size of Texas. No plumes of sulfuric acid over Richmond, California. No skyrocketing rates of cancer and diabetes concentrated in native and people of color communities all over the world. No spontaneous combustion of flames off of contaminated rivers.
"How bad would it be?" she asked.
Target practice
To move from iPods to environmental justice, though, people like Perez will have to keep politicians like Joe Miller out of Washington. In an interview with Yes! Magazine, Riki Ott, a marine biologist and Exxon Valdez survivor, makes a good point about the challenges that environmental advocates face.
"This BP disaster, like the Exxon-Valdez, is more than an environmental crisis—it's a democracy crisis," Ott says. "Right now we’re playing the game: Going through regulatory arenas, tightening some laws. But that’s not good enough. The real question is, how do we get control of these big corporations?"
Electing politicians that don't take corporate money or listen to industry lobbyists will help. Another way to move away from the dominance of fossil fuel companies is offering real alternatives to using their products.
Brave new NOLA
In New Orleans, in the five years since Katrina hit, the people rebuilding the city have worked to create greener alternatives, as Campus Progress reports. Here's just one example:
Go Green NOLA encourages homebuilders to think small, since smaller homes use less energy. The group also makes suggestions such as installing windows and insulation systems with special attention to local weather and climate — think: humidity, and lots of it—and using shade trees and other landscaping to help beat back the southern sun.
Change can happen without devastation preceding it. In Massachusetts, the Green Justice Coalition worked to ensure that environmental justice provisions made it into the state's $1.4 billion energy efficiency plan, The Nation reports. What's more, the coalition made certain that Massachusetts citizens would feel the impact of the new plan directly:
There will be a financing plan to make energy-saving home improvements more affordable. Many of the 23,300 jobs to be generated by the plan will go to contractors who pay decent wages and meet "high road" employment standards. Finally, four pilot programs across the state will test a radically new outreach model by going door to door and mobilizing low- and moderate-income families in building greener neighborhoods.
Women lead the way
Progress doesn't happen on its own, of course. At RH Reality Check, Kathleen Rogers suggests that female leaders make all the difference. "Women get the connections between climate change, public health and economic growth, because climate change is disproportionately affecting women," she writes. "A new generation of women entrepreneurs, leaders and civil society, have demonstrated the potential for being the solution to the climate crisis. But they must be mobilized and given an opportunity to influence government and business."
Rogers is right. Leaders are out there. Just listen to the whole of Carla Perez' comments on Making Contact. The Green Justice Coalition's Phyllis Evans also gets it. And even Sen. Murkowski was willing to work on climate change compromises, on some level.
Of course, it's not just women who can lead the country and the planet away from current environmental and democratic crises. Paths forward are emerging; anyone can follow them.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the environment by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Mulch for a complete list of articles on environmental issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Pulse, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.
]]>After decades of misguided policies and patchwork practices, the high human costs of our disordered immigration system are only starting to emerge. Stricter immigration policies and overcrowded detention centers aren't making our streets safer or our social services more accessible.
Instead, mounting evidence shows that our immigration policies are just creating a space for immigrants to be brutalized—socially, financially and physically. From reports of sexual abuse inside of detention centers to news of legal residents being denied social services, the ineffectiveness of the prevailing system has never been more apparent, nor the need for reform so great.
Women and children sexually assaulted in detention centers
As Michelle Chen writes at Colorlines, allegations of sexual abuse within a Texas detention center have sparked investigations by the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights Watch. According to reports, a guard at the T. Don Hutto Residential Center sexually assaulted several women while transporting them prior to their release.
Human Rights Watch, which this week released a comprehensive report on sexual abuse in detention, regards the incident as representative of a larger problem that affects both women and children caught in the web of the detention system. From the report:
Children, too, have apparently been subject to alleged abuse in Texas immigration detention facilities, although their care is overseen by the US Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), rather than ICE. Nine Central American children, one of whom was identified as 16 years old, reported sexual and physical abuse while in the custody of Texas Sheltered Care […] the children were fondled, groped, and forced to perform oral sex on one guard, and some were beaten by other guards.
While sexual assault is pervasive within the prison system, women in the immigration detention are particularly vulnerable. The threat of deportation and the lack of comprehensive oversight of detention centers (many of which are operated by for-profit corporations rather than ICE itself) both contribute to a culture of impunity. The fact that most individuals detained in ICE facilities are non-criminals only renders the situation even more reprehensible.
As Chen points out, it is likely many victims of abuse have already been deported, were offered no recourse, and have no incentive to report the crimes now.
Marginalizing undocumented victims of violent crime
Outside of detention centers, immigrant victims of violent crime are similarly handicapped by the justice system. While U-visas are available to undocumented crime victims who cooperate with prosecutors, Elyse Foley of the Washington Independent reports that such visas are issued inconsistently and at the discretion of local law enforcement.
In Maricopa County, Arizona (the land of Sheriff Joe Arpaio) former Attorney General Andrew Thomas allegedly ignored numerous requests for U-visas because he believed that undocumented immigrants were trying to use them to stay in the country.
Such politicking on the part of local law enforcement can have disastrous consequences, particularly in Arizona, where Arpaio’s aggressive policing of immigrants has created a culture of fear. Local immigrant rights groups now claim that migrants are refusing to report even violent crimes committed against them for fear of being arrested for their immigration status.
Criminalizing immigrants clogs the system
The impunity with which crimes are committed against immigrants, both in and out of detention, isn’t likely to end as long as our immigration system remains overcrowded and mismanaged. But, as Jim Loebe writes over at AlterNet, “real reform is still a long way off.” The government continues to increasingly criminalize immigration violations. Citing a new paper by the Global Detention Project, Loebe argues that more people, not less, are going to end up in detention in coming years, in spite of the president’s promise of reform.
Certainly, the Obama administration’s enforcement programs, from expanding the controversial Secure Communities program to the new border security bill, have been successful at detaining and deporting record numbers of undocumented immigrants. But in spite of President Barack Obama’s assurances that his programs only target dangerous immigrants, the majority of those deported and in detention have no criminal records. Our broken system even penalizes refugees and asylum seekers, many of whom find themselves incarcerated for months or years while their cases are processed.
The unexpected impact of health care reform
In this anti-immigrant climate, legal immigrants and their American children are also facing unprecedented challenges, even as other citizens are enjoying greater security.
At The American Prospect, Maria C. Abascal argues that, while health care reform clearly excludes undocumented immigrants, it also hurts legal immigrants in less obvious ways. Not only are legal residents subject to a five-year waiting period to qualify for Medicaid (meaning low-income migrants and their children will likely remain uninsured), some analysts also believe that “health reform reduces the likelihood of immigration reform because it significantly increases the fiscal cost of amnesty.”
While the anti-immigrant sentiment that infused the health care debate earlier this year certainly suggested that reform wouldn’t be kind to the undocumented, few could have guessed that the Affordable Care Act would impact legal migrants and their American children so unfortunately. It begs the question: Should comprehensive immigration reform becomes a reality, what kind of unintended consequences might it bring, and who might it ultimately hurt?
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about immigration by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Diaspora for a complete list of articles on immigration issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, and health care issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Pulse . This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.
]]>According to the judge’s logic, a scientist is destroying an embryo when she tests a drug on an embryonic stem cell that is the great-great-great-granddaughter of a cell that belonged to a 5-celled embryo that was destroyed in 1998. Hundreds of scientists all over the world might be working with cells from that embryo at this very moment. According to the judge, each of them is destroying an embryo that ceased to exist 12 years ago. So, every day, they all get up, go to work and destroy the same non-existent embryo? What happens when come back from a coffee break? Do they destroy it again?
Ignoring the facts
Half a billion eggs have been recalled because they may be tainted with deadly salmonella bacteria. The eggs may have already sickened thousands of people. Democracy Now! reports that the entire batch can be traced to just two factory farms in Iowa, Hillandale Farms and Wright County Egg. This is the largest egg recall in U.S. history. Critics say the mass contamination exposes deeper failures in the U.S. food system.
Steve Benen of the Washington Monthly notes that Wright County Egg’s parent firm has a rap sheet of health, safety, and labor violations stretching back two decades. However, Benen argues, the problem is deeper than one poorly inspected operation.
After the outbreak, former FDA Commissioner William Hubbard admitted in an interview that the George W. Bush White House would not let the FDA impose tougher standards on the egg industry because the administration was “very hostile to regulation.” If the Invisible Hand of the Market tries to make you breakfast, don’t eat it!
Back alley abortions are back
More women are inducing their own abortions with a drug called misoprostol, Robin Marty reports at RH Reality Check. Misoprostol, aka “Cytotec,” is usually prescribed to treat ulcers. Doctors use it in combination with the so-called “abortion pill” RU-486 to induce chemical abortions, but only under controlled conditions.
Misoprostol is a prescription drug in the U.S., but it is available over the counter in many other countries. Some women misuse misoprostol that is prescribed for other conditions, some buy it on the black market, and some have families send it from overseas. Unsupervised misoprostol abortions are risky because about 10%-15% of the time, the drug will start the process but not finish the job. If that happens the woman is at risk for bleeding, infections, and other complications.
The anti-choice movement has campaigned for decades to throw obstacles in the path of women seeking abortions. The longstanding ban on federal funding for abortion means that many poor, uninsured women are stuck paying the costs of an abortion out of pocket. Even a few hundred dollars for the procedure and the cost of transportation to the nearest abortion clinic may be beyond the reach of many women. It’s not surprising that these women are taking matters into their own hands.
Thanks to the machinations of anti-choicers and the compromises of the Obama administration, health care reform will provide little relief for women who can’t afford abortions.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about health care by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Pulse for a complete list of articles on health care reform, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.
Over the past decade, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac transformed themselves into some of the worst-run companies in recent history. But contrary to current talking points, the firms' failings had almost nothing to do with their programs for low-income borrowers. As policymakers debate what should be done with the mortgage giants, a battle is now beginning in which the very availability of affordable housing for the middle class may be at stake.
A history of affordable housing
As Tim Fernholz emphasizes for The American Prospect, before the U.S. government created Fannie Mae in 1938, mortgages were very pricey 5-year loans, so expensive that only very wealthy Americans could ever hope to own a home. Fannie Mae changed all that by rolling out the 30-year mortgage, which lowered monthly payments for borrowers by providing a government guarantee against losses for banks. It worked.
But as Fernholz notes, without some kind of government involvement in the housing market, home ownership will revert to its pre-Depression status a privilege reserved for elites. Policymakers will have to implement significant changes in the mortgage finance system to ensure stability in the U.S. housing market, but whatever changes may come, a robust role for the government in housing will be essential.
Fannie and Freddie have been justifiably but inaccurately maligned in the aftermath of the mortgage crisis. In recent years, their executives ran the firms like out-of-control hedge funds, lobbied Congress like arrogant Wall Street banks and did nothing beyond the bare minimum required by law to help low-income borrowers. But Fannie and Freddie did not go headlong into subprime mortgages—the primary source of their losses came from loans to relatively high-quality borrowers.
The terrible mortgages that crashed the economy were issued by banking conglomerates and Wall Street megabanks—Fannie and Freddie were almost entirely divorced from that line of business. The problem with Fannie and Freddie was largely structural-- investors and managers saw the potential for big profits from taking on loads of risk, but believed (accurately) that the government would eat losses if those risks backfired. So Fannie and Freddie ramped up risk, taking on as many mortgages as they could while keeping as little money as possible on hand to cushion against losses. Eventually the strategy destroyed them.
Fixing the mortgage system
Exactly how the government stays involved in the mortgage market is still open to debate, as Annie Lowrey emphasizes for The Washington Independent. Nearly every member of the private sector who testified at a recent housing forum sponsored by the Treasury Department endorsed some kind of government backing for the housing market. This was a meeting of private-sector bigwigs—no community groups or affordable housing advocates were invited to speak at the meeting. Proposals ranged from scaling back government support for some types of mortgages, to the full nationalization of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (Fannie was a nationalized entity for the first 30 years of its existence).
In other words, the government is going to have to keep subsidizing housing, but it will have to find new ways to do it. The old Fannie and Freddie model didn't work, but the private sector will be unable to get the job done by itself. Private-sector banks and mortgage brokers, after all, were the source of all the predatory loans issued during the subprime crisis, and the source of all of the most offensive loans that drove the economy off a cliff.
Inefficient and often predatory players on Wall Street are still causing problems today. As Ellen Brown highlights for Yes! Magazine, the mortgage system is so bizarre that banks are finding themselves unable to document their right to foreclose on properties—and courts are (fortunately) refusing to let them do it.
It's a rare situation in which borrowers may actually hold the higher legal ground against powerful corporations. About 62 mortgages are registered through an electronic documentation system called the Mortgage Electronic Registration System (MERS), which helps banks with the foreclosure process. But MERS has repeatedly been unable to show proper documentation assigning a mortgage to a specific bank, and courts are now challenging its right to foreclose on behalf of big banks.
That's good news, Brown notes, because MERS' shoddy documentation has made it very difficult for borrowers to figure out who actually owns their loan. If you don't know who owns your mortgage, it's impossible to modify it if you find yourself unable to pay it off.
As Shamus Cooke argues for Truthout, even successful innovations like the 30-year mortgage are beginning to look a little outdated in an era of heavy, chronic unemployment. Many people can no longer expect to be gainfully employed for three decades on end. If the government refuses to repair our damaged jobs infrastructure, even simply maintaining the status quo in housing could become impossible.
Deficit reduction is not a cure-all
That brings us to another favorite conservative bogeyman, the federal budget deficit. The deficit and jobs generally stand in direct opposition. Creating jobs costs money, and spending that money expands the deficit. Cutting the deficit, by contrast, means cutting support for jobs.
As Steve Benen emphasizes for The Washington Monthly, conservative lawmakers are still harping on deficit reduction as a cure for everything that ills the nation, when the real solution to our problems is a serious jobs bill.
Even if the deficit were a huge problem, trying to cut important social services in the middle of a deep recession is not a good way to go about solving it. Drastic cuts to government spending in a recession result in lower tax returns for the government, which can often be self-defeating, especially in the face of expanding joblessness. The resulting push for deficit reduction—known in economic circles as an "austerity policy," is better understood as the active pursuit of economic decline. As economist Robert Johnson notes in a New Deal 2.0 piece carried by AlterNet:
Deterioration of government services is bad enough, but imposing austerity due to lack of trust in a time of high unemployment and slack resources is tragic. It is a means to accelerate the decline of living standards of those who have taken a beating since 2007. Double dip or stagnation is too subtle a distinction. We are amidst an unfolding collective choice to pursue a downward spiral.
The government has taken several dramatic steps to repair the nation's financial system, but it has done almost nothing to help troubled borrowers and not nearly enough to create jobs. Some of this is due to misguided policies enacted by President Barack Obama, and much of it is due to cynical obstructionism. But we cannot repair the economy without fixing jobs and housing. Both are still in a full-blown crisis, and policymakers should feel an urgent need to deal with them.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the economy by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Audit for a complete list of articles on economic issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, health care and immigration issues, check out The Mulch, The Pulse and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.
]]>Yesterday, Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) took Obama administration officials to task for encouraging Americans to believe that the majority of the oil in the Gulf of Mexico had dispersed.
"People want to believe that everything is OK and I think this report and the way it is being discussed is giving many people a false sense of confidence regarding the state of the Gulf," Markey said.
Belief, after all, is powerful force. As coal baron Don Blankenship says, "You have to have your own beliefs, your own core beliefs, your own strengths and do what you think is right. You can’t do what others believe is right, you have to do what you believe is right."
But what if your beliefs, even those backed up by science, are wrong? If you believed government officials who reported the oil in the Gulf of Mexico had dispersed—wrong. If you believed McDonald's or Sara Lee really was helping save the planet—wrong. (Does anyone actually believe that one?) And if you believed you were conserving tons of energy by flicking off the light switches when you left the room—wrong again!
Gullible Greens
Wait, what? Yes, it turns out that environmentally friendly folk don't know how little energy they save by line-drying clothes, recycling bottles, or turning off the lights, Mother Jones' Kevin Drum writes. Don't worry! Those activities still conserve energy. Just not as much as you might have thought.
Drum's evidence comes from a study that asked people to estimate the amount of energy they were saving by engaging in a given activity. Green-minded people tended to miss the mark on how much energy certain activities conserved. Perhaps they want to believe their conservation activities have a more dramatic impact, the studies' authors suggested.
There's a kicker, though. "The most accurate perceptions about energy use, it seems, are held by numerate, conservative homeowners who don't bother trying to save energy," Drum writes. Ouch. Apparently, knowing how much energy they'll save, conservatives decide it's not worth it to even try.
"A green-tinged fog"
But perhaps energy conservationists aren't to blame for their own confusion. After all, as Anna Lappé writes at Yes! Magazine, corporations increasingly are using green messaging to sell their products:
McDonald’s recently launched an “Endangered Species” Happy Meal, “to engage kids in a fun and informative way about protecting the environment,” explains project partner Conservation International.... Earlier this year, Sara Lee unleashed with much fanfare a new line of “Earth Grains” bread that promotes “innovative farming practices that promote sustainable land use” as part of what the company calls its “Plot to Save the Earth.”
Lappé calls the confusion created by these campaigns "a green-tinged fog" that consumers can get lost in. And in the same way that green advertising is increasing, tips for green living are proliferating, which could explain the confusion about which ones are actually useful.
Government spin
But for the government, there's no excuse for spreading misinformation. For instance, earlier this month, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released a report showing that most of the oil in the Gulf had either been collected or dispersed. Scientists questioned the report from the very first day of its release, and this week evidence is mounting that the report misrepresented the situation in the Gulf.
At the Washington Independent, Andrew Restuccia writes that a group of scientists in Georgia have released a report countermanding the claims of the government's study, and that other scientists have found a 21-mile smear of oil still in the Gulf.
Riki Ott reports at Chelsea Green on a more vivid argument against the Obama administration's claims that the oil in the Gulf is no longer a problem:
Off Long Beach, Mississippi, on August 8, fisherman James “Catfish” Miller tied an oil absorbent pad onto a pole and lowered it 8-12 feet down into deceptively clear ocean water. When he pulled it up, the pad was soaked in oil, much to the startled amazement of his guests, including Dr. Timothy Davis with the Department of Health and Human Services National Disaster Medical System. Repeated samples produced the same result.
How'd it happen?
So what is the government's excuse? Right now, NOAA is standing by its analysis, Restuccia reports. Bill Lehr, a senior scientist with the agency, said yesterday that NOAA will release more documentation supporting its claims in two months.
“I assure you it will bore everybody except those of us that do oil spill science,” he said, according to Restuccia.
But as Ott explains, part of the government's issue is the standard they're using to evaluate the fate of the oil to begin with:
The problem is the ‘rigorous safety standards’ are outdated. The protocol relies on visual oil. What of the underwater plumes? The chart produced by NOAA last week shows, in effect, that over 50 percent of the oil (not to mention dispersant) is still in the water column as dispersed or dissolved oil. Scientists have found that the oil-dispersant mixture is getting into the foodweb.
In other words, just because you can't see it, doesn't mean it's not there. And in this case, what NOAA believes is less important than the scientific facts on the ground. To deal with the oil spilled in the Gulf, NOAA and its partners might have to admit that they were wrong.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the environment by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Mulch for a complete list of articles on environmental issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Pulse, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.
]]>"The average death rate in the city during normal times is between 360 to 380 people a day. Today, we have around 700. This is no secret. Everyone thinks we are trying to keep it secret. Look, it is 40 degrees Celsius on the street," Andrei Seltsovsky, head of Moscow's public health department, quoted on Democracy Now!
Russia is in the grip of the worst heatwave in its history. The country hasn't seen temperatures like this since record-keeping began 130 years ago. Months of drought have turned the countryside into a tinderbox and wildfires are burning out of control. Moscow is besieged by acrid smoke and soaring temperatures.
Meteorologist Jeff Masters tells Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! that the heat wave could kill tens of thousands of Russians. A similar smoky heat wave in France in 2003 killed 40,000 people, most of them elderly. Even in the U.S., heatwaves kill more people than hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, and earthquakes combined.
Killer coal
The U.S. is feeling the health effects of summer pollution, too. In AlterNet, Bruce Nilles notes that Monday and Tuesday were Code Orange unhealthy air alert days in Washington, D.C. When the air gets that bad, children aren't supposed to be outdoors.
We're all familiar with the link between car exhaust and air pollution, but Nilles draws our attention to the impact of burning coal on air quality. Coal-fired air pollution is especially noxious to human health. Research shows that the tiny particles of coal soot can burrow deep into the lungs and even work their way into the bloodstream, causing permanent damage to the heart.
The coal industry is still fighting to strip the EPA of enforcement powers that might cut into profits. "We are literally killing ourselves by burning coal, and yet the coal industry continues to fight against the Clean Air Act and any safeguards that might prevent them from spewing their pollutants into the air," Nilles writes.
The Doctors' Tea Party
The long, hot political summer drags on. Nick Baumann of Mother Jones notes that two GOP Senate candidates, Dr. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Sharron Angle of Nevada, are linked to "a radical group of right-wing, conspiracy-theorist doctors, the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons" (AAPS).
Angle was headlined an AAPS rally in San Diego this week. Eric Kleefeld of TPM Muckraker notes that Rand Paul is a full-fledged member of the group. The AAPS party line states that it is "evil and immoral" for doctors to participate in Medicare or Medicaid. An article on the AAPS website speculated that President Barack Obama may have won the presidency by hypnotizing the electorate. Documents from famous tobacco lawsuits reveal that AAPS provided methodologically dubious "scientific" cover for Philip Morris when the company sought to fight indoor smoking bans and tobacco taxes.
Stephanie Mencimer of Mother Jones has more about this "Doctors' Tea Party."
Cycling Conspiracies
You probably think that bicycling is a healthy transportation alternative. Good for your heart and lungs, good for the atmosphere. Win win, right? You see fun and fitness, but Colorado gubernatorial hopeful Dan Maes (R) sees an internationalist plot. Steve Benen of the Washington Monthly describes one of the most bizarre campaign attacks of the silly season. Maes blasted his opponent, Denver mayor John Hinckenlooper (D) for promoting cycling in the city.
While bicycling may conjure up "warm fuzzy feelings" in the weak minded, Maes contents that the pro-cycling agenda is closely orchestrated by the United Nations as part of a plot to impinge upon our personal freedoms.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about health care by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Pulse for a complete list of articles on health care reform, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.
]]>Who needs ethics when you’ve got foreclosure mills?
Want to make money quickly, but don’t want ethics to get in the way? Big banks are outsourcing their foreclosure duties to fraudulent law firms, known as foreclosure mills, and getting away with it. Zach Carter explains the latest get rich quick scheme for AlterNet. Foreclosure mills are ethically questionable law firms that process legal documents for foreclosures. They tend to have an emphasis on quantity, not quality. Carter writes:
Big banks are not outsourcing their foreclosure processing to shady law firms with a history of breaking the law for a quick buck. These foreclosure scammers forge documents, backdate signatures, slap families with thousands of dollars in illegal fees and even foreclosure on borrowers who haven’t missed a payment.
Andy Kroll chronicles the evolution of foreclosure mills for Mother Jones. Kroll also exposes a notorious Floridian law firm founded by David J. Stern that is using every trick in the book—including backdating documents and illegally charging clients massive fees—to profit from the foreclosure crisis:
While rushing foreclosures isn't illegal, Stern's fledgling firm was promptly accused of something that is: gouging people who are trying to get out of default. In October 1998, Tallahassee attorney Claude Walker filed a class-action lawsuit involving tens of thousands of claimants, alleging that Stern had piled excessive fees on families fighting to keep their homes. (Walker, who visited Stern's offices in 1999 to collect depositions, described the place as "a big warehouse" where hordes of attorneys holed up in tiny, crowded offices "like hamsters in a cage.")
Don’t blame Social Security for the deficit
Fact: Social Security benefits will be able to be paid, in full, through 2037.
Fact: 75% of Social Security benefits will be able to be paid through 2084.
Fact: There is a huge surplus in Social Security trust fund- $2.5 trillion. So why the big push to trim the program? In an interview with The American Prospect, Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL) explains his proposed legislation that will actually expand benefits:
Ninety-five percent of the people in our country [already] pay Social Security tax on 100 percent of their income. The bill provides both contribution and benefit fairness: Even as people are going to be paying in more, they're going to receive more benefits. Doing that, by the way, will also ensure the solvency of Social Security, which is terribly important.
The Fed's failure and the AIG Bailout: A brief history
In The Nation, William Greider explains how the Federal Reserve Board gambled with American taxpayers’ money by not considering alternatives to the AIG bailout. Grieder highlights a report from the Congressional Oversight Panel, which “provides alarming insights that should be fodder for the larger debate many citizens long to hear—why Washington rushed to forgive the very interests that produced this mess, while innocent others were made to suffer the consequences.”
In short, the Fed acted “under the business-as-usual expectations of the private financial system, while skipping lightly over the public consequences."
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the economy by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Audit for a complete list of articles on economic issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, health care and immigration issues, check out The Mulch, The Pulse and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.
]]>BP is on the verge of escaping headlines, and if you're ready to forget about the oil spill, fine. But disasters just like the Gulf spill are playing out across the country.
Yesterday, BP cemented the well that has been spewing oil into the Gulf of Mexico shut. The Obama administration is saying that the majority of the oil released is no longer a problem. The spill was supposed to drive the Senate to finally pass a bill touching on energy issues and taking the oil industry to task, but this week Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) pushed back work on his minimalist energy bill until the fall.
But in states like Michigan and New York, similar stories are developing on smaller scales. For-profit companies, unburdened by strong regulations, are taking what they want, regardless of the consequences for the environment or for communities that depend on having clean soil, air, and water.
The last of the BP oil spill?
One hundred and eight days after the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded, it looks like oil will finally stop flowing into the Gulf. On Wednesday, the Obama administration released a report showing that much of the 5 million barrels of the spilled oil — three-fourths, even — had been collected, dispersed or evaporated.
By Thursday morning, those claims were already on thin ice, with some scientists saying the administration had rested its analysis on assumptions that would help them paint a rosy picture.
At Mother Jones, Kate Sheppard was skeptical from the get-go: “There's still a lot of oil out there—about nine and a half Exxon Valdez spills in total,” she wrote. And much less than from three-quarters of the oil has disappeared. According to Sheppard’s reporting, “It's actually closer to half. And, most importantly, the impacts of dispersing so much of that oil throughout the water column are still not well understood.”
Where did it all go?
In at least one case, it is painfully clear where the leftover oil has gone: Into communities populated by people of color. Michelle Chen reports at Colorlines:
“We do know the destination of around 40,000 tons of the spill waste: it's headed for the families that have been getting dumped on for years. In what may be yet another calm before the storm, BP's colorfully advertised waste management plan appears to follow a haunting pattern of environmental racism.”
Chen gets her information from an analysis conducted by the Environmental Justice Resource Center at Clark Atlanta University. In essence, the study says, the dumping grounds to which BP is sending 61% of disposable oil spill waste are located in places where people of color make up the majority of the surrounding community.
Hullabaloo on the Kalamazoo
The repercussions of the BP spill may linger, but similar stories are playing out all the time. The clearest example right now comes from Michigan, where a faulty pipeline let almost one million gallons of oil spill into a tributary of the Kalamazoo River.
The spill may be the biggest in Midwest history, and at the Michigan Messenger, Eartha Jane Melzer is reporting that the company at fault, Enbridge Energy, has offered to buy houses along the affected stretch of river.
In Washington, a couple of Congressmen have begun sniffing around Enbridge's practices. The Washington Independent's Andrew Restuccia found that the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, which is charged with overseeing the integrity of the pipelines carrying oil from place to place, is riddled with familiar rot. According to his report, the agency boasts both leaders who've been through the revolving door and a willingness to grant safety waivers that could put normal people in harm’s way.
The Kalamazoo spill has garnered additional attention due to the larger BP spill. But so far it looks like the company at fault will not have to face major consequences for its errors.
Frack that
Another example: The push for natural gas drilling is creeping eastward from Colorado and Wyoming to Pennsylvania and New York. As National Radio Project’s Making Contact explains, “While the BP oil spill has increased calls to use natural gas as a so-called ‘clean energy’ alternative, activists are sounding the alarm bell about this controversial gas drilling technique – hydraulic fracturing.”
In some places, “local groups aren’t waiting for federal regulation,” host Andrew Stelzer reports. “New York in particular is a hotbed of opposition.”
And indeed, AlterNet writes, the state senate in New York voted this week to wait on natural gas drilling. The state’s assembly must approve it, too, however. Like the oil spill in Michigan, like the BP oil spill, natural gas drilling is one more case where big energy companies are more concerned with profit than people—or the planet on which we live.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the environment by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Mulch for a complete list of articles on environmental issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Pulse, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.
]]>Deflation essentially tells everyone to hunker down and wait. Instead of buying big-ticket items, consumers wait for prices to fall further. Instead of investing in new production, companies wait for cheaper opportunities, cheaper labor.
Government austerity and cuts in workers' wages will simply reduce demand, slowing recovery from the Great Recession or even creating a second downturn. And weak recovery will bring lower tax revenues, continued pressure for austerity and difficulty repaying debts. In short, the medicine the financial markets and their political allies prescribe will make the global economy sicker.
Yesterday, 9th Circuit Judge Susan Bolton struck down many of the most controversial provisions in Arizona’s Senate Bill 1070, including the section requiring police to ask anyone they suspect of being undocumented for proof of citizenship. It’s a small victory. Today, a modified version of the bill goes into effect.
Although Bolton’s decision weakened the state law, several problematic provisions remain in place, including one that allows Arizona residents to sue local police for not enforcing SB 1070, as well as one that makes it a crime to knowingly transporting an undocumented immigrant under any circumstance, even in an emergency. ColorLines has a good breakdown of pending lawsuits against SB 1070.
How 287 (g) paved the way for SB 1070
As GritTV’s Laura Flanders explains, both supporters and opponents of SB 1070 agree that the feds laid the groundwork for such stringent enforcement measures. Section 287 (g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act made it possible to contract law enforcement to arrest immigrants on suspicion. Arizona’s then-Governor Janet Napolitano was the first to sign up for the program, and the biggest federal contract was given to none other than infamous Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona’s Maricopa County.
The passage of SB 1070 made it clear that the federal government had created a monster. It remains to be seen what will happen next, but fully striking down SB 1070 may have to take a backseat to revisiting the precedent set by 287 G.
Record enforcement under Obama
Conservatives have continuously attacked President Barack Obama and his administration for being weak on immigration, failing to enforce laws, or to secure the border. But, as Elize Foley explains for the Iowa Independent, immigration enforcement is at an all time high.
It’s estimated that the number of deportations this year will increase by nearly 10 percent over 2008’s total under the Bush administration. In addition, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has been auditing companies business? at a rate about four times higher than in 2008. What’s more, rates of illegal immigration have actually fallen in recent years. But with an economic crisis caused by so many of conservatives’ closest allies, it seems that immigrants are the only remaining scapegoats.
Obama polling poorly among Latinos
A new poll conducted by Univision and the AP shows Latino support for Obama and Democrats is slipping, as ColorLines reports. Obama currently has a 57 percent approval rating among Latinos. That figure has dropped significantly from 70 percent in January.
Latinos have been hit especially hard by the unemployment crisis, which could in part account for the drop. Nearly half of those polled reported that they or a family member had lost a job since September, compared to 30 percent for all Americans.
Additionally, the poll found that Obama’s approval rating was closely related to the way he dealt with SB 1070. The poll also found a pronounced split among Latinos based on language. Obama’s approval rating decreased by 21 points among Spanish-speaking Latinos since January, and only 5 points for English-speaking Latinos. As Daisy Hernandez writes, the message for the Obama administration is that “It's probably time...to take a cue from California gubernatorial hopeful Meg Whitman and start working on those Spanish ads.”
Fighting hunger in Arizona's immigrant communities
Public News Service reports that two “Hunger Fellows” will begin efforts to increase awareness and participation in the food stamp program among Arizona's Hispanic and Latino communities this coming fall. Enrollment in the food stamp program in Arizona has risen steadily in recent years, with over one million receiving benefits and growing. Many Spanish-speaking Arizonans are hesitant to seek them out, even though they are eligible. The apprehension is exacerbated by the harsh anti-immigrant sentiment prevalent in the state. According to Arizona Community Action Association director Cynthia Zwick:
"The political environment right now has created some barriers to application for food stamps for families that are eligible, people who are legal residents...The bottom line, really, is that families who are eligible have access to those benefits."
Suns are shining
Finally, in more SB 1070 protest news: The Phoenix Suns basketball team have taken a stand against Arizona’s anti-immigrant bill SB 1070 by wearing “Los Suns” jerseys and vocalizing their opposition. National Radio Project has the story.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about immigration by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Diaspora for a complete list of articles on immigration issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, and health care issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Pulse . This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.
]]>The American Life League (ALL) has seized upon the Center for Disease Control's (CDC) latest teen sex stats as proof that kids don't need sex ed after all. The data show that 58 percent of girls and 57 percent of boys between the ages of 15 and 19 report that they had never had intercourse. According to the ALL, these stats somehow prove that sex ed is a waste of time.
Amanda Marcotte of RH Reality Check argues that ALL is disingenuously lumping all non-sexually active teens together: A 15-year-old virgin is not necessarily a committed proponent of abstinence. The CDC data suggest that many teens of these erstwhile virgins are doing their best to shed their virginity. Marcotte notes than only about 12 percent of teens are interested abstinence messages, and presumably, an even smaller percentage of those kids will live up to their ideals. What the study really shows is that nearly half of teenagers are already having sex, and many others are doing their best to get in on the action. It's hard to imagine a more perfect audience for comprehensive sex ed.
Protecting sex workers
Scientists, policy-makers, and activists gathered in Vienna last week for the International AIDS Conference. The conference is supposed to be a global meeting of the minds, but some groups feel left out of the discussion. Sex workers are on the global front lines of the battle against HIV and other sexually transmitted infections. Yet, Titania Kumeh reports in Mother Jones that President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), a key U.S. program to fund AIDS prevention in the developing world, continues to shut out sex worker activist groups unless they repudiate their clients' livelihood. As you might expect, denouncing sex work is not an effective way of winning the trust of sex workers.
Kumeh profiles Peninah Mwangi, an AIDS activist and sex worker. She works with several NGOs that have been turned down for PEPFAR funding because they refuse to reject sex work. Mwangi and 100 other sex workers marched outside the International AIDS Conference in Vienna last week to draw attention to PEPFAR's discriminatory policy against sex workers.
Preventing HIV
In other HIV prevention news, Lori of Feministing follows up on a blockbuster new study out of South Africa which found that an inexpensive vaginal gel can reduce a woman's risk of HIV infection by 39% and her risk of contracting herpes by 51%. This is huge news because the gel is a female-controlled protection method. Women apply it before and after sex. They don't have to negotiate protection with their partners, as they do with condoms.
Putting a pretty face on femicide
High fashion and good taste don't always go hand-in-hand. Last week, a blogger Jessica Wakeman noticed that MAC cosmetics had teamed up with the house of Rodarte to produce a line of cosmetics inspired by the U.S.-Mexico border. Some of the nail polishes had names like "Factory", "Juarez", and "Ghost Town." One of the collection's designers gushed that her clothes were inspired by female factory workers trudging to work at four o'clock in the morning, looking like they'd gotten dressed in the dark. The show featured models made up to look like extras from "Pride and Prejudice with Zombies."
Somehow, despite their fascination with female death, the designers didn't seem to realize that Juarez has become synonymous with violence against women, many of whom are poor factory workers picked off on their way to work.
Hundreds of women have been kidnapped and killed in Juarez since the early nineties. The situation is so dire that human rights activists brought the Mexican government before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in 2009 to answer for its inaction in the face of mass slaughter. "This crime had to be named explicitly to make it clear that these women were killed because they were women," said Mexican researcher Julia Monarrez.
In Working In These Times, I explain some of the social and economic factors that made the dark streets of Juarez ideal hunting grounds for femicidal maniacs.
MAC falls flat
Nicole Guidotti-Hernández of the Ms. Blog brings a unique perspective to the MAC/Rodarte controversy, having worked for a decade as a professional makeup artist before getting her PhD:
Knowing what I know about the industry and who works in it–and knowing that MAC, in particular, markets to women of color a makeup line that caters to their skin tones with multiple pigments–I am appalled by the lack of social awareness that spawned the Rodarte/MAC collaboration.
MAC and Rodarte eventually apologized, agreed to retract the controversial names and made vague promises to donate a percentage of the proceeds to people in need in Juarez. Guidotti-Hernandez is unmoved by the gesture, "It’s hip to personify death in cosmetic colors rather than engage a bleak and violent reality."
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about health care by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Pulse for a complete list of articles on health care reform, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.
]]>"If you pay people to do nothing, they'll find themselves doing nothing for very long periods of time. Long-term unemployment is at an all-time high in the United States, and it is a direct consequence of a misconceived public policy."
"Imagine there's a massive, dangerous fire. Those responsible for the blaze insist that some lighter fluid should take care of the problem, while the fire department recommends water. Forced to compromise, the fire department uses less water than is needed, and the blaze is only partially contained."