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Monday, June 20, 2011

Obama rejects top lawyers' legal views on Libya

SATURDAY, JUN 18, 2011 06:19 ET


BY GLENN GREENWALD
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Target workers at New York store reject union

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Workers at a Target Corp discount store in New York voted to reject union representation in what would have been the first unionized Target store in the country, while union officials vowed to press for another election.
Employees at the Valley Stream, New York, store voted against union affiliation, 137-85, Target said in a statement released Saturday. The vote was taken on Friday.
"We are looking forward to having another election," said Aly Waddy, director of special projects for the United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 1500, which wanted to represent workers at the store, located about 15 miles east of Manhattan.
"We are definitely going to be invested in this campaign until we make sure the workers can finally have a fair and free election," Waddy said.
Target employs thousands of workers at 27 stores in the New York City area. The Minneapolis-based company has about 1,755 U.S. stores and none have union-represented employees.
The vote was part of a closely watched battle over unionization in the retail sector.
"At Target, it has always been our goal to have a culture where our team members don't want or need union representation," Derek Jenkins, Target senior vice president of stores in the northeastern United States, said in a statement.
"The Valley Stream Target store is filled with a team of dedicated, enthusiastic team members. We want to thank the team for their faith and confidence in Target," Jenkins said.
Target and the union had already filed unfair labor practice charges against each other with the National Labor Relations Board, according to an agency spokesman, and more charges are likely.
Waddy said some store employees were told the store could close or that they could be replaced if they voted for unionization. The store also rented vans, manned by security guards, to take the employees to work to vote, she said.
"There was a serious level of tension in the store and, obviously, the company ran a really aggressive campaign," Waddy said. "A lot of people were taken aback by the fact that they thought the store was going to close."
Union members make up a small percentage of U.S. retail workers, and the percentage fell to 4.7 percent last year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Retailers such as Target and Wal-Mart Stores Inc have long resisted having employees represented by unions at their stores.
(Reporting by Brad Dorfman and Michael Hirtzer; editing by Todd Eastham)
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Sunday, June 19, 2011

Obama’s Golf Diplomacy



President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner teed off on their buzzed-about golf game on Saturday. After Boehner sunk a long putt on the first hole, Obama told reporters, "Did you all catch that?" Then patted Boehner on the back. Naturally, the president took the wheel of the golf cart to bring them to the next hole. Daniel Stone reports on their policy rift.

In a city known for power outings, President Obama’s golf match Saturday with House Speaker John Boehner may wind up being the most high-stakes leisure weekend of the year.
Vice President Joe Biden is joining the pair Saturday, as is Republican Ohio Gov. John Kasich, to round out the partisan balance. But the subject isn’t just golf. The long-planned summit has turned into a de facto negotiating session over government spending aimed at trying to strike a deal on raising the U.S. debt limit before America defaults in early August.
The setting, of course, is designed to allow an air of candidness, away from the Capitol Hill cameras and partisan zingers.

The golf summit won’t completely bridge the divide on addressing the deficit and debt limit. Biden has been overseeing bipartisan talks with congressional leaders and there are signs that the two sides are edging closer on some issues.

Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), a top lieutenant to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, said this week that the talks he has been attending were aimed at securing a deal by July 1. Biden confirmed that progress had been made on health care and education, but the parties still couldn’t agree on how much to cut the deficit, and what to do with long-term entitlements.

The stakes are increasing by the day. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner has set a date of Aug. 2 before the government goes into default with catastrophic effects. With still substantial differences between congressional Democrats and Republicans, a protracted stalemate would push Obama and Boehner to make further concessions to each other.
obama-golf-summit-stone
Olivier Douliery-Pool / Getty Images (left); Win McNamee / Getty Images
Despite the intense media attention, the political golf match is one of two high-profile golf events in Washington over the weekend. Just up the road in Bethesda, Maryland, is the U.S. Open, which has brought big names like Rory McIlroy and Zach Johnson, as well as many gawking members of Congress, inside the Beltway.
If the Obama-Boehner match works—and the White House has long said it won’t discuss the contents of their conversation, or results of the match—it wouldn’t be the first time business usually reserved for marble halls had been hammered out on the greens.

“With still substantial differences between congressional Democrats and Republicans, a protracted stalemate would push Obama and Boehner to make further concessions.”
When Lyndon B. Johnson was scouting for votes for the Civil Rights Act in 1964, he charmed some Republicans on the golf course to seal the deal.
The links also have been used to escape the confines (and decorum) of the Oval Office. In the late 1990s, Bill Clinton took his longtime friend Vernon Jordan, where sex was reportedly the dominant topic of conversation. (“There’s nothing wrong with a little locker-room talk,” Jordan told a reporter in 1996.) Clinton also, on another occasion, made an ethically questionable request of Jordan: to help find a job for Monica Lewinsky, the White House intern at the center of the impeachment scandal.
The sport has ballooned in popularity in Washington over the last few decades, with most politicos getting in at least a round or two each summer. Golf Digest magazine ranked all elected officials based on their handicap. At the top of the list Sen. Mark Udall (D-CO), followed by Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) and John Yarmuth (D-KY).
But the setup of Saturday’s match—a sitting president playing with the leader of the opposing party—is rare. With a low handicap, Boehner is widely expected to breeze by Obama. Of course while discussing numbers in the trillions, what’s a few extra strokes?
Update: Following the match, the White House confirmed that Obama and Boehner teamed up against Biden and Kasich. The president and speaker were said to have won the match on the 18th hole, which apparently came with a $2 prize for each. The foursome then spent about an hour in the clubhouse at Joint Base Andrews to watch coverage of the US Open.
The White House has said details about the group's conversation on the links will remain secret.

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As The 2012 Campaign Heats Up, President Obama To Start Tweeting


From @BarackObama
Leena RaoJun 17, 2011



You’re about to see whole lot more Tweets from the President. President Obama’s Twitter account,@BarackObama, has been around for sometime, accumulated 8.6 million followers but he was rarely sending any Tweets himself-his staff did. Today, the President’s campaign posted a message notifying the public that his 2012 presidential campaign staff (Obama for America) will start managing his Twitter and Facebook  accounts (which were previously managed by the DNC).
And Obama will be Tweeting regularly from @BarackObama, with the signature
“-BO.” Apparently both Facebook and twitter accounts will be posting daily updates from the campaign trail, from Washington, and more.
Now that the campaign has taken over the Twitter account, staff sent out this message in a Tweet a few minutes ago: Welcome to a new @BarackObama. From now on, #Obama2012 staff will manage this account; tweets from the President will be signed “-BO.”
In the past few years, the President’s Twitter account has posted about one update per day on average, so I’m assuming we’re about to see way more Tweets and activity coming from the account.
In the post on BarackObama.com, a staff member writes this of the reasoning behind the change in social media strategy:
As the President said when he launched this campaign a few months ago, he’s focused on doing the job we elected him to do — so he’s counting on all of us to lead this organization from the grassroots up, helping to shape it as it grows. One way we’re putting that idea into practice is by taking the reins of these Facebook and Twitter accounts. This change will give us new opportunities to make the most of these channels, using them not only to report what the President is doing every day but to connect to the millions of supporters who will be driving this campaign.
If the 2008 election was about Facebook, the 2012 election may also centralize around Twitter, which has more mass appeal than four years ago. Obama and his campaign are wise to start engaging constituents and citizens personally. In fact, Republican candidates are already starting to throw punches and jabs over Twitter. The fact that Obama will now be actually Tweeting from the account will add a ton of value to his stream.
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Coming of Age in the Ghetto




 

My father took a stand against a cop in our Cleveland neighborhood back in the 1950s. By doing so, he taught me how to be a man—and gave our neighbors back some of their dignity.

Few males, I would venture to guess, can—upon reflection years later—recall the instance or incident whereupon they started to become men; where, when and what happened that caused them to take their first, tentative, mental steps onto the bridge that would ultimately lead them across the yawning chasm that separates soft, carefree puberty from the onset—the hardening—of eventual manhood. Fortunately for me, I can recall the time and date of the beginning of my personal transition and journey with such an evocative clarity I swear it seems as if the vignette played out only yesterday.
It was not something I did—but rather—something I, in the waning moments of my childhood, was about to witness. It was to be one of those father/son lessons that have been transmitted down from generation to generation since the beginning of time.


It had been a stiflingly hot summer day in the neighborhood where I was born, at home, above the pool room that sat next door to the tavern and barbecue joint owned by my father. It sat on the northwest corner of Scovill Avenue and East 31stStreet in Cleveland, on land now occupied by a high school—on a renamed street.
The corner across 31st Street was occupied by the only new building that had been built in the area in 30 years, Silks Bar. Old man Bob Roberts had built it and his son, a foreman with the city sanitation department, ran it. Silks was definitely more upscale than my father’s joint, King’s Tavern and Grill... which was pretty dumpy by comparison, but never seemed to lack for customers. Due to the proximity of the two watering holes—and the pool room to boot—this was one of the busiest corners on the entire black East Side of Cleveland back in the day. At times the streets literally teemed with people.
Day was fading to early evening and the “corner,” as it was called, was crowded with people just out trying to get some relief from the heat. After all, it was Friday, and this was where everyone hung out. I was leaning on the fender of my father’s Cadillac that was parked directly in front of his tavern, listening to him. He was telling me about a fishing spot he was going to take me and my brother (and usually a bunch of other kids from the neighborhood) to the next day. It was someplace we’d never been to before. Always regaling me (and just about everyone else he came into contact with) with yarns and tall tales, he was saying the fishing there was so good… you had to hide behind a tree to bait your hook.

police officer during the civil rights movement
Jim Bourdier / AP Photo

Oftentimes during the day and early evening hours—while there was still light enough to see—there would be men shooting craps on the side street (my bedroom window was right above it so I learned colorful and salty language at an early age) but the police never caught anyone playing dice since there was always a lookout posted on the corner of Scovill to shout “raise up” before a cop car got within a block of the corner. But this night there was no crap game, no nothing, just people trying to cool off.
So there was no need for anyone to yell “raise up” when the cop car pulled up on the corner, and actually jumped the curb with two wheels, forcing people to scramble to get out of the way to avoid being hit. Two big, beefy Irish cops got out of the patrol car and began walking though the crowd of people, swinging their nightsticks at people’s knees, forcing them to scatter. 
“Move it, move it,” the cops said, and people began to slowly move away… or at least out of the range of the nightsticks. Some of the men, and a few of the women, were grumbling (albeit, half under their breath) as they moved that no one was breaking any laws, so why were they being dispersed? I automatically began to move, even though the cops were not that close to us yet, but they certainly were heading our way. My father, who had huge, strong hands grabbed me on the upper arm and said, “Where are you going? Don’t move.”
“
While I feared the cop, I respected my father more, and respect won out over fear. I didn’t move.
”
Now, no one was going to openly challenge the authority of the police; in my neighborhood, in the mid-'50s, when a cop said move, you moved. The bigger of the two cops came our way, and I was, as the saying goes, feeling trapped between a rock and a hard place—between my father who has told me not to move, and the cop, who is saying something else. While I feared the cop, I respected my father more, and respect won out over fear. I didn’t move.
“You too, Mansfield,” the cop said to my father (his name was Mansfield also, I’m a junior) “move it.”
My father, who had been looking dead ahead, not to the side from where Murphy was approaching, turned to face the cop and in the calmest of voices, but loud enough for everyone to hear, and looking directly into the big cop’s eyes, said, “Murphy, I’m leaning on my car, in front of my business, talking to myson, and if you try to hit me on the knee with that nightstick I’m going to take it from you and shove it up your ass.” My father then slowly turned his head away from Murphy (who was beginning to turn what would eventually be a bright shade of beet red) in a dismissive manner, as if to say, “go ahead, take your best shot, do whatever you got the guts to do, ‘cause I ain’t scared, I didn’t mumble, and I definitely ain’t moving.”
My whole universe froze; everyone who had been moving away stood stock still, as if transfixed, waiting to see what would happen next. I’d never seen anyone challenge a police officer before, and I doubt if any of the other folks on that corner that evening had ever witnessed it either, at least not with the person living to tell the tale. This was uncharted territory we were entering, and no one knew what the outcome would be... but, if the past were to serve as an indicator of what was about to happen next, it was about to get real ugly on the corner of 31st and Scovill that evening. White cops just didn’t take that kind of talk off a black man, any black man... no way, no how. And my father clearly was not in the mood to take anything off of any white cop that evening. Something was going to have to give... or explode. My father always had an Army-issue Colt .45 pistol in his pocket under his bartender’s apron.
Being largely sheltered—at least to that point in my young life—from the sting of racism by a strong black father, I didn’t have the pent-up hatreds boiling inside of me that the black adults who were witnessing this event unfold must have harbored. Hatreds spawned by the daily insults—both large and small—that had to be stoically endured by virtually all African Americans just to make it through the day if they functioned in the white-owned and controlled world. Society and their parents had taught them it was safer to “take low,” as the old folks used to say, to be less—non-threatening—to cast your eyes down, and, when you are told by someone in a position of authority (most often someone white) to move, you just moved, no questions asked.
But my father wasn’t moving. His stand on this hot summer night wasn’t—I don’t think—planned or premeditated; and he certainly wasn’t seeking to become any kind of martyr, living or dead. No, I think, these many years later, that he was—consciously or unconsciously—teaching me a lesson about manhood simply by being a man.
Murphy, who was taken completely aback by my father’s forthrightness, was totally at a loss as to what to do. They didn’t teach this at the police academy... niggas just moved when they were told to move, that was how it went down in the ghetto.
And then, after what seemed like an eternity, Murphy turned on his heels, and with as much gruffness in his voice as he could still muster, said to his partner, “let’s go,” as if they had very important business elsewhere.
It was at that exact moment that I started to grow up—that I started on my journey to manhood. It was from that point forward that I began to measure all of my actions in life by one simple question: What would my father do? And, while I have certainly at times strayed from the path that he set for me, the path he would have wanted me to take, I have never lost sight of the values, the pride and courage, and the sense of manhood that he implanted in me. To this very day (even though he is now 37 years in his grave), he—as it should be—remains my guiding light, my conscience, my bright, shining hero.
Of course the incident became part of the lore and legend of our neighborhood … growing exponentially over the years with virtually each retelling: the time that Mansfield stood up to the police. While he might have taken his stand as a lesson for me in how to be man, everyone there that evening (and some people who weren’t even there but later heard about it) claimed the incident... he was taking this stand for them too, for each and every one of them. He had, by simply standing his ground, reclaimed for them a little piece of their dignity, some of their humanity that is often lost by black folk in America, sacrificed to the ugly gods of institutionalized racism on a daily basis.
I would see my father stand up for himself—and for others—many times over the years in the rough and tumble Cleveland neighborhood where I grew up, but this was the incident that, at age 12, marked the beginning of my personal journey. It was in August 1955, and slightly less then four months later, on December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks would refuse to give up her seat on a Birmingham bus. Looking back over the past 50-plus years, I often wonder if the two events were somehow, in some metaphysical or spiritual way, connected... in my own mind I like to think they were.
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