Washington December 16, 2010 —Today, U.S. Reps. Lloyd Doggett (D-TX), Peter DeFazio (D-OR), Ted Deutch (D-FL), Rush Holt (D-NJ) and Judy Chu (D-CA), along with Max Richtman, Executive Vice President of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, held a press conference during which they expressed concern over the Senate-passed tax cut deal’s impact on the bedrock of seniors’ retirement: Social Security. During the press conference, Rep. Doggett announced his plan to present an amendment to the Rules Committee to strike the payroll provision from the tax deal.
“Social Security’s dedicated funding base is jeopardized by this deal in an unprecedented way and there is a grave risk now that the retirement benefits of America’s workers will have to compete with our other priorities for a share of the general budget. It would result in Social Security being as dependent on annual Congressional action as public television or our National parks,” said Rep. Doggett.
Bradley Manning, the 22-year-old U.S. Army Private accused of leaking classified documents to WikiLeaks, has never been convicted of that crime, nor of any other crime. Despite that, he has been detained at the U.S. Marine brig in Quantico, Virginia for five months — and for two months before that in a military jail in Kuwait — under conditions that constitute cruel and inhumane treatment and, by the standards of many nations, even torture. Interviews with several people directly familiar with the conditions of Manning’s detention, ultimately including a Quantico brig official (Lt. Brian Villiard) who confirmed much of what they conveyed, establishes that the accused leaker is subjected to detention conditions likely to create long-term psychological injuries.
Since his arrest in May, Manning has been a model detainee, without any episodes of violence or disciplinary problems. He nonetheless was declared from the start to be a “Maximum Custody Detainee,” the highest and most repressive level of military detention, which then became the basis for the series of inhumane measures imposed on him.
From the beginning of his detention, Manning has been held in intensive solitary confinement. For 23 out of 24 hours every day — for seven straight months and counting — he sits completely alone in his cell. Even inside his cell, his activities are heavily restricted; he’s barred even from exercising and is under constant surveillance to enforce those restrictions. For reasons that appear completely punitive, he’s being denied many of the most basic attributes of civilized imprisonment, including even a pillow or sheets for his bed (he is not and never has been on suicide watch). For the one hour per day when he is freed from this isolation, he is barred from accessing any news or current events programs. Lt. Villiard protested that the conditions are not “like jail movies where someone gets thrown into the hole,” but confirmed that he is in solitary confinement, entirely alone in his cell except for the one hour per day he is taken out.
In sum, Manning has been subjected for many months without pause to inhumane, personality-erasing, soul-destroying, insanity-inducing conditions of isolation similar to those perfected at America’s Supermax prison in Florence, Colorado: all without so much as having been convicted of anything. And as is true of many prisoners subjected to warped treatment of this sort, the brig’s medical personnel now administer regular doses of anti-depressants to Manning to prevent his brain from snapping from the effects of this isolation.
The United States has the largest prison population and the highest rate of imprisonment on Earth. The prison population across the state of Georgia is on strike. The prisoners are remaining in their cells demanding more humane treatment. Given the diverse racial composition and social groups and gangs in the prison, the complete unity of the prisoners across the state system speaks to the seriousness of the conditions.
Please go to this page to sign a petition to the Georgia Department of Corrections to improve conditions there. Below is a video of Elaine Brown, a prisoner support activists discussing the strike and the conditions.
Inmates in Georgia Prisons Use Contraband Phones to Coordinate Protest
By SARAH WHEATON
Published: December 12, 2010
The prison protest has entered the wireless age.
Inmates in at least seven Georgia prisons have used contraband cellphones to coordinate a nonviolent strike this weekend, saying they want better living conditions and to be paid for work they do in the prisons.
Inmates said they would not perform chores, work for the Corrections Department’s industrial arm or shop at prison commissaries until a list of demands are addressed, including compensation for their work, more educational opportunities, better food and sentencing rules changes.
The protest began Thursday, but inmates said that organizers had spent months building a web of disparate factions and gangs — groups not known to cooperate — into a unified coalition using text messaging and word of mouth.
With our economy struggling, our working families hurting, and our deficit crisis worsening every year, we need to take action to create jobs, bolster the middle class, and bring our budget into balance.
But the agreement you’ve struck with Senate Republicans is a bad deal. It doubles down on a failed strategy of tax cuts for the super-wealthy that would explode our deficit without strengthening our economy. It’s too high a price to pay for the support of those who have continually refused to put the middle class first.
Instead of giving in to obstruction, we should fight it. I am willing to stay in session as long as it takes to overcome a filibuster and extend both unemployment benefits for jobless Americans and tax cuts for the middle class. If our colleagues on the other side of the aisle want to spend their holidays refusing to help working families struggling to enjoy a Christmas of their own unless their wealthy friends get another bailout, let them.
Mr. President, I know that you share my desire to pass good economic policies that help working families. But a deal that also includes bad policies that will worsen our deficit and fail to help our economy falls short. By standing our ground and standing strong for the middle class, we can do better. And I urge you to do just that.
THE NATIONAL COMMITTEE TO PRESERVE SOCIAL SECURITY & MEDICARE ~ Trusted ~ Independent ~ Effective ~
December 10, 2010 NEWS RELEASE
Social Security Experts Detail Why Payroll Tax “Holiday” is No Gift to Americans
Briefing reporters today, National Committee President Barbara Kennelly, Social Security Works Co-Director Nancy Altman and CEPR Co-Director Dean Baker warned that passage of a payroll tax holiday could have devastating effects on Social Security’s long-term financing.
“As we’ve seen in Washington these days, it’s easy to enact tax cuts but virtually impossible to allow them to expire. This payroll tax holiday proposal will be no different. Election year politics in 2012 will doom the repeal of this $120 billion dollar cut and Social Security beneficiaries will then pay the price. The American people understand we’re in an economic crisis yet they don’t want to trade their future security for a short-term benefit. They didn’t ask Congress to cut their Social Security contributions, in fact, poll after poll shows they’d pay more to preserve Social Security. I salute the House for saying we need to give this deal another look because this payroll tax provision is no deal at all.”…Barbara B. Kennelly, President/CEO National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare
I Have to Say Something about Obama,
the Tax Cuts,
and the Federal Pay Freeze
The African World
By Bill Fletcher, Jr.
BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board
I am sorry, folks. I just have to get my two cents in on President Obama’s proposal to extend the Bush-era tax cuts and freeze the pay of federal workers. I will make this brief.
During the campaign, one of the things that I and a number of other commentators warned about was the sense that we had from then Senator Obama that struggle was not a watch-word. In fact, the then Senator seemed to avoid that as best he could. He wanted us to embrace Martin Luther King’s vision of the need for a non-racial and just United States without acknowledging the extent to which the struggle continued.
Since his election we have seen a combination of some bold ideas and rhetoric matched with a consistent pattern of premature compromising. There have been psychological explanations offered for this but I think that they mainly miss the point. There is, however, a psychological aspect that we must acknowledge.
First, President Obama, as we warned, saw himself primarily reforming the image of the USA rather than the substance. The masses that supported him, however, were looking for substantive change. They were far from united on the character of that change, but they were looking for a champion to advance that. Whether Obama intended on making substantive change is beside the point. What he clearly decided, evident immediately after the election and during the transition period, was to seek to stabilize neo-liberal capitalism and focus on assuring the markets and investors that he was reliable. His appointments have almost all been in that direction.
Congressman Jason Altmire is supporting Republican efforts to undermine social security by reducing the social security payroll tax, which goes to savings, instead of the income tax which goes to spending. This will undermine the trust fund’s stability, and justify the Republican’s demand to cut benefits.
Please call Altmire’s office and demand “Hands off Social Security.”
Join us for a noon vigil on Wednesday December 15th.
See the two articles below by Sen. Bernie Sanders and by the National Committee to Preserve Social Security.
by Senator Bernie Sanders
President Obama is right about one thing — Republicans in Congress are holding the middle class hostage.
We have a $13.8 trillion national debt, a collapsing middle class and the most unequal distribution of wealth of any major country. With all this in mind, Republicans in Congress say they will block tax cuts to the middle class and block unemployment benefits to more than two million families unless the President gives huge tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires.
Their behavior is morally bankrupt. It is reprehensible.
But instead of challenging the Republicans for their absurd demands and their outrageous tactics, the President gave them virtually everything they wanted.
I cannot and will not support this deal. I will do everything I can to uphold the promise made to the American people to end the Bush tax cuts for the rich.
One of the most under-reported parts of this deal is a cut to the Social Security payroll tax. In just one year, over $120 billion of revenue will be cut from Social Security under the President’s compromise plan, weakening the program and virtually guaranteeing benefit cuts in the future.
Wednesday, Dec 15, 2010 02:15 ET
In sum, Manning has been subjected for many months without pause to inhumane, personality-erasing, soul-destroying, insanity-inducing conditions of isolation similar to those perfected at America’s Supermax prison in Florence, Colorado: all without so much as having been convicted of anything. And as is true of many prisoners subjected to warped treatment of this sort, the brig’s medical personnel now administer regular doses of anti-depressants to Manning to prevent his brain from snapping from the effects of this isolation.
Briefing reporters today, National Committee President Barbara Kennelly, Social Security Works Co-Director Nancy Altman and CEPR Co-Director Dean Baker warned that passage of a payroll tax holiday could have devastating effects on Social Security’s long-term financing.
Beaver County Blue: Voice of the 17th CD of Progressive Democrats of America 