Montgomery County, MD Green Party Blog

Violence in 1898 that resulted in the only known forceful overthrow of a city government in U.S. history has historically been called a race riot but actually was an insurrection that white supremacists had planned for months, a state commission concludes.

The violence in Wilmington, which resulted in the deaths of an unknown number of black people, “was part of a statewide effort to put white supremacist Democrats in office and stem the political advances of black citizens,” the 1898 Wilmington Riot Commission concludes in a draft report.

Afterward, white supremacists in state office passed laws that disfranchised blacks until the civil rights movement and Voting Rights Act of the 1960s.

Click here for link.

Announced on Nov. 10, The Kalamazoo Promise _ which already is being referred to by locals as simply “the promise” _ is altering a lot of students’ college plans. It could also have a seismic effect on the community’s economy.

The promise is expected to attract more businesses, jobs and homebuyers to the area and raise property values in and around this largely middle-class city of 77,000 about 130 miles west of Detroit. Officials expect more students and, with that, a need for more schools and teachers.

The scholarships _ funded by anonymous donors _ will be good toward tuition at any of Michigan’s public universities or colleges, and will be available to anyone who has been in the Kalamazoo schools for at least four years at the time of graduation. The amounts will be dispensed on a sliding scale, with those who have been enrolled since kindergarten getting 100 percent of their tuition covered.

Click here for link.

Congress ‘Authorized’ Domestic Surveillance in Iraq War Resolution, Says President, Attorney General
Can you spell “fascism”?

He expressed anger at the fact that someone revealed the secret program, saying he assumed the Department of Justice would launch an investigation to determine the source of the leak. “My personal opinion is it was a shameful act for someone to disclose this program in a time of war. . . . The fact that we’re discussing this program is helping the enemy,” he said.

And he was visibly angered when a reporter asked him what limits there were on “unchecked” presidential authority during wartime. “I disagree with your assertion of unchecked power,” Bush said. “There is the check of people being sworn to uphold the law for starters. There is oversight. We’re talking to Congress all the time. . . . To say ‘unchecked power’ is to ascribe dictatorial power to the president, to which I object.”
*
*
*
The resolution does not mention eavesdropping or detention, which the administration has also said is supported by the authorization. It says, “The President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.”

Click here for link.

Sharers Must Marry Their Needs

After years of struggling with trying to be mother and executive, hoping to hang on to a career in finance while also trying to hang on to sanity, [Martha] Mensch and [Andrea] Pesta heard a suggestion from their boss that it was time for them to put their heads and lives together and share one job at the firm. At that time, it was an idea that had never been tried before at Booz, particularly at such a high level of the company.
*
*
*
Pesta and Mensch were on the first edges of job sharing. They are also among the few who have succeeded at a job share at such a high level in an organization. But it has worked. The two have shared four jobs now and have even been promoted together. The concept of job sharing is still not incredibly popular with most companies. But as workers attempt to come up with alternatives to an 80-hour workweek, and as baby boomer retirements threaten companies with a major loss of workers, the cliche “work-life balance” is getting a second look. Postings asking for a job-share partner are becoming more common on company bulletin boards, among listings on job Web sites and, naturally, at working women’s organizations.
*
*
*
But the idea of two brains for one job is still a foreign concept to many employers and employees.

Click here for link.

Efforts to Get Medicine To Poor Children Falter

One vaccine, which protects against a life-threatening form of pneumonia, has been available to children in the United States for five years and has had a dramatic impact on disease here. The other, a vaccine that protects against a deadly form of diarrhea, is poised for a rollout soon among middle-income countries in Latin America.
*
*
*
But the efforts have faltered amid a dizzying array of snafus, misjudgments and business difficulties. One company cannot produce enough vaccine, and studies needed to support widespread use of another have been slowed by behind-the-scenes squabbling. The problems have proved so vexing that the vaccines are expected to take an additional three to five years to reach the poorest villages.
*
*
*
Most people have never heard of rotavirus, but every child in the world contracts it early in life. In such places as the United States, some children are hospitalized with rotavirus diarrhea, but they get good care and do not die. In countries with poor health systems, children often progress to catastrophic dehydration and an estimated 440,000 die of rotavirus every year.
*
*
*
Some public-health doctors, although regretting that the original goal will not be met, urged a sense of perspective, noting that the vaccine might reach poor children just a few years after it reaches those in rich countries. “If we can cut the lag time from 30 years to a decade or less, that’s 20 years of lives saved,” said Nils Daulaire, president of the Global Health Council, an advocacy group in White River Junction, Vt.

The sentiment, however valid, is a measure of the degree to which the public-health world has become accustomed to death on a mass scale.

Click here for link.

The Baltimore Sun has revealed that the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) worked closely with the power industy to defeat the “four pollutants” bill that would have tightened restrictions on emissions of mercury, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and carbon dioxide.

On March 23 Maryland environmental Sectretary Kendl Philbrick faxed a letter to Senate Finance Chairman Thomas Middleton that the bill would cause the closing of coal fired power plants, blackouts and higher electricity rates. But emails received by a Sun freedom of information act show that the language of the letter was written by a lobbyist for the state’s largest owner of power plants, Constellation Energy, and emailed to Philbrick for his signature.

The released documents reveal meetings between the power industry and the MDE including a joint “strategy session,” and cooperative drafting of a “fact sheet” and letters by the MDE and Constellation.

Maryland resembles the Bush administration in that industry executives are now setting environmental policy.

But there is one important difference: Democrats hold a substantial majority in both houses of the Maryland legislature.

How did they get rolled so easily if they really care about the environment?

Clearly Democrats have some explaining to do on this issue. The need for a strong Green presence was never so clear.

This is either the height of hypocrisy or else the Republicans are trying to create a false reason to derail or modify the legislation.

House Republicans made a last-minute attempt Saturday to limit individual political donations to independent organizations. It was a move aimed at hampering Democratic-aligned groups that were powerful in 2004 and could threaten GOP candidates next year.

As Congress rushed to finish for the year, Republican leaders met privately and sought to attach the campaign finance legislation _ which has idled in the House for months _ to a defense bill that was ready for final passage.
*
*
*
Because of the stalemate, it’s possible that Congress will not send a bill setting Pentagon policy to the president’s desk for the first time in more than 40 years.

Gone would be legislation, sponsored by Graham, that would put into law military procedures for the detention and prosecution of terror-war suspects held at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, prison.

The ban on mistreating prisoners, sponsored by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., also is included in the defense bill. His measure also is part of the Senate-passed version of a separate military spending bill and is expected to be attached to the final House-Senate version of it.

Click here for link.

Minority Women Have Made Strides, But Hurdles Linger

When Rockville resident Saquiba Ahmed, 38, sought a corporate job in 2000, she researched the diversity policies of several companies and networked mostly with women of color. On her rsum, she listed her fluency in the Urdu and Hindu languages and her involvement in an organization that assists Pakistani women.

But while Ahmed did not downplay her ethnic and racial background to potential employers, she was unsure how comfortable she would feel as a South Asian American in the workplace. “I was nervous about not being able to fit in because of my cultural values and the color of my skin,” she recalled.

Ahmed was hired by Sodexho Inc., a food- and facilities-management services company, as a generalist in the human resources department. She’s now the company’s diversity coordinator. She was among the 150 attendees at a recent Women of Color Multicultural Town Hall, an all-day event held recently in downtown Washington. It was sponsored by New York-based Working Mother Media, publisher of Working Mother magazine.

Click here for link.

After years of hiding their love, Barbara Kenny and Tibby Middleton found a place where they felt comfortable being a couple — until Virginia’s lawmakers chased them across the Potomac

Click here for link.

Somehow I doubt that the word “Fair Trade” is going to make it in the mainstream media’s vocabulary…

As thousands of trade diplomats meeting in Hong Kong this week struggle to break an impasse over a global trade agreement, some surprising new economic research threatens to throw a fresh damper on their efforts.

In a recently released book, the World Bank says that the potential benefits for the world’s poor of a far-reaching trade deal “are significantly lower” than it had previously thought.

The bank has long served as a source of authority for claims — by commentators, public officials and others — that the ongoing trade negotiations, known as the Doha round, could lift multitudes of people out of poverty. The scaling back of the bank’s projections is noteworthy, and comes at a sensitive time, as the Hong Kong meeting of the World Trade Organization remains stalled due to fierce disputes among the WTO’s 149 member nations.

Click here for link.