Senator Elizabeth Warren was in South Boston on Sunday for the annual St. Patrick's Day Breakfast -- with Secretary of State John Kerry’s departure already the state’s senior senator after just three months in office -- she beat a hasty retreat to the exit door, but not before bringing down the house with jabs at fellow politicians.
“To tell you truth, I’ve considered myself the senior senator ever since Howie Carr called me Granny. Thank you, Howie,” said Warren in a kelly green jacket.
“I was going to wear a big ‘Kiss me I’m Irish’ button today, but Lord only knows what the Herald would have said,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren told the crowd at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, referencing the right-wing tabloid’s coverage of her avowed Native American ancestry.
Warren continued to throw out zingers during the breakfast, which is traditionally an excuse for the state’s top politicians to make fun of each other publicly as well as participate in the St. Patrick’s Day festivities, saying, “This is the day we remember St. Patrick, who legend has it drove the snakes out of Ireland. Unfortunately, too many of them went to Wall Street.”
Warren even got in a dig at state Rep. Dan Winslow, of Norfolk.
“I advise everyone to pay very close attention to Dan Winslow’s platform,” Warren said. “He has a 100 percent ranking from the gun lobby and he’s for the legalization of marijuana. He wants us armed and stoned.”
International markets in Asia and Europe opened down on Monday on the news of an unprecedented proposed bailout by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund for Cyprus that would put a tax on bank savings to finance the bailout. Cyprus’s Parliament will hold an emergency session on Monday to discuss the bailout, which has angered the public and caused a bank run as people rushed to remove their savings before being hit with a tax. Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades pleaded to the angry public to accept the deal, saying the country is facing its worst crisis since the Turkish invasion in 1974. Cyprus is the fifth European nation to appeal to the EU for bailout, and the country had apparently invested heavily in Greek debt:
Under the currently agreed terms, depositors with less than 100,000 euros in Cyprus accounts would have to pay a one-time tax of 6.75%. Those with sums over that threshold would pay 9.9%.
Our correspondent says the president may want to lower the former rate to 3%, while raising the levy on the larger depositors to 12.5%.
An EU source told Agence France-Presse there could be a three-way split on the level of levy, grouped into accounts holding less than 100,000 euros, between 100,000 and 500,000 and more than 500,000.
Nobel Prize winning economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman wrote in his Sunday column that "It’s as if the Europeans are holding up a neon sign, written in Greek and Italian, saying “time to stage a run on your banks!”
This is what I see as the most hilarious episode to come out of CPAC 2013. A panel hosted by Breitbart.com known as "The Uninvited" Panel (Because even the regular crackpot Republicans didn't want them there) had quite a moment when Orly Taitz wanted to discuss Obama's citizenship. "Creeping Sharia" Islamaphobe Pamela Geller wasn't about to have any of it, after all, she was there to discuss the threat of Creeping Sharia. (Oddly, many of the people raising the alarm about Sharia share the anti-homosexual, misogynist, religiously intolerant attitudes of Sharia.)
Orly Taitz, better known as the "Birther Queen," was rebuked by blogger Pamela Geller during Saturday's panel, introduced by Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) as “the world experts on global jihad.”
Geller snapped at Taitz after she asked multiple questions about President Barack Obama's birth certificate.
“I think there’s enough substance on this panel, I mean how many topics can you handle,” Geller said, “Inappropriate. really.”
Taitz gathered up her things in a huff, perhaps to go in search of more like-minded individuals.
It's been tough week for the city of Detroit. The city has a $327 million deficit and owes $14 billion, says the Detroit Free Press. Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder said in March that he would appoint a emergency manager to oversee city finances. Detroit's City Council had 10 days to file an appeal, which they did, says The Detroit News. Then Thursday, the governor announced that Kevyn Orr, a Washington, D.C., attorney who handled Chrysler's bankruptcy, would take charge. Emergency management is a touchy subject in the Motor City; the appointment caused some local residents to protest a controller who will take over the city reins from elected officials.
To express frustration and draw attention to state-appointed emergency management, the otherwise peaceful protesters planned traffic jams that were organized in the city this week, says WWJ CBS Detroit. WWJ's Chopper 950, flying over the city on Monday, noted three cars on major highways crawling along (driving under 5 miles per hour). This caused traffic to back up. Slowdowns were staged on I-75, I-94, and the Lodge Freeway. One participant dubbed it a "freedom flash mob."
Meantime, Detroit Mayor Dave Bing, is continuing to offer support to an emergency financial manager, whoever that may be.
The mayor posted on Twitter Monday morning, “An emergency manager can’t come in here and run this city without the help and support of teammates, I’ll be a teammate. My executive staff will be a teammate. What we need to figure out is not fighting the person but how do we get along to make wins for the citizens in the city of Detroit.”
Other demonstrations occurred at Detroit's City Hall and at the attorney general's office downtown in connection with the governor's EM announcement. Protesters have vowed to continue their efforts, and have a federal lawsuit prepared.
Further fueling protesters concerns, a report on Saturday evening revealed that the newly appointed emergency manager Kevyn Orr has tax liens placed on his $4 million Maryland home. Full details here.
On Friday, Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) posthumously awarded internet activist Aaron Swartz the American Library Association’s (ALA) 2013 James Madison Award during the 15th Annual Freedom of Information Day in Washington, D.C. According to the American Library Association, “Swartz will receive the award for his dedication to promoting and protecting public access to research and government information.
“Aaron loved libraries. I remember how excited he was to get library privileges at Harvard and be able to use the Widener library there. I know he would have been humbled and honored to receive this award. We thank you,” said Robert Swartz, Aaron’s father in reaction to the award. “Aaron's goal was to make knowledge freely available to everyone and we can all further his legacy by making this happen.”
Before his suicide in January, Swartz was a co-founder of Demand Progress, an advocacy group that organizes people to take action on civil liberties and government reform issues. Swartz was also a leader in the national campaign to prevent the passing of the Stop Online Piracy Act, a bill that would have diminished critical online legal protections.
Swartz was revered as a gifted computer programmer long before he became a public activist. He helped to develop the web feed format RSS, the website framework web.py and the social news website Reddit. As a teenager, Swartz designed the code layer for the Creative Commons licenses.
16-year-old Kimani Gray was shot seven times – four times in the front of his body, and three times in the back – last Saturday. And for a third straight day demonstrators gathered in his neighborhood, East Flatbush, to protest New York Police Department brutality. After 100 people attended a candlelight vigil near Brooklyn's 67th Precinct, as many as 50 people were arrested as a demonstration spread throughout the neighborhood. Thereafter, according to a range of bloggers and social media activists, East Flatbush became a "frozen area," with media barred.
RT reports, "Brooklynites were heard shouting "murderers!" at the massive police presence Wednesday as officers prohibited people from even stepping onto the street in one of New York's poorer neighborhoods while police helicopters circled overhead." Ray Kelly himself, the Police Commissioner, did not characterize the demonstration as a riot, as some local newspapers did, but he did describe the assembly as disorderly.
Police mistrust runs deep in a neighborhood disproportionately targeted by the NYPD's deeply unpopular Stop and Frisk policy, widely regarded as a racist practice.
Franclot Graham told AP: "I'm not going to tell people don't be angry because we're all angry...It's OK to vent but you have to respect the family's wishes and be peaceful." Graham's teenage son, Ramarley Graham, was shot and killed after police chased him into his Bronx home last year. A New York police officer has since been charged with manslaughter in the death.
Gray's family maintains he wasn't armed. According to AP, a cousin of Kiki, Ray Charles, was still having trouble accepting the NYPD's official version of events: "My cousin was scared of guns...I honestly just want justice. They didn't need to shoot him like that...The real issue in Brooklyn is cops have been harassing us for a long time," he said. "It needs to stop."
ON-THE-SCENE REPORTING FROM OCCUPY WALL STREET
One Occupy activist on the scene, Austin Guest, observed:
At the invitation of a comrade from Flatbush, I went down for the second straight night tonight to the protests surrounding Kimani Gray's murder at 55th & Church. Out of a sea of over three hundred people, I was one of maybe a dozen white faces, most of them journalists. For the the first time in over a year spent organizing non-stop demonstrations on Wall Street, I was at a protest, but I was just along for the ride – firmly and gladly ensconced in the back seat. From that back-seat position, I witnessed one the most mind-blowing protests I have ever been to. I felt humbled and at times scared – in the presence of a deep, intense force surging up, demanding to be heard.
A few moments that stick in my head:
A crowd of protesters being pushed aggressively out of the street in front of the 67th precinct by riot cops, turning on a dime, sprinting in the opposite direction, finding and surrounding a cop car, shoving it and hitting its windows, dispersed only by a barrage of pepper spray to their faces from the terrified cop inside the car
A teenage girl staring down a line of riot cops and yelling "MURDERERS!" fearlessly at the top of her lungs into their stone cold faces
The look of panic on the driver of a police van's face after the rear window of his van was smashed, seemingly from nowhere
A crowd being pushed down a side street by scooter cops, followed minutes later by a shower of glass bottles flying from apartment buildings onto the heads of the scooter cops
A car by Kimani's memorial blasting Bob Marley's "War" and a mass of quiet, somber people pulsing and bobbing their heads in slowly growing rage."
Tensions were high, but according to Yoni Brombacher Miller, "I wasn't worried about getting arrested myself; it was clear they (the NYPD) weren't interested in the non-people of color, or adults. They were clearly going after the youth."
Brombacher Miller added, "How can we best amplify and strengthen their militant struggle for justice? Some, like Councilman Jumaane Williams argued that the 'youth should be controlled', and while he argues that they're right to be angry, he is also stifling their rage instead of agitating with them. The NYPD cannot and will not be part of the restorative process. The only steps that must be taken, are a demilitarized, reduced NYPD with expansion of social programs and services, which currently the NYPD is actively a part in preventing.
"I was roughly thrown over barricade by cops, but I'll be back tomorrow, and the night after and after, because this is truly historical, and Brooklyn's moment. The youth today were brave, and many more shall be inspired to join up."
To show solidarity with those arrested, call 311 and demand that everyone arrested at the Kimani Gray vigil be released from the NYPD 71st + 69th precincts in Brooklyn. Or call the precinct directly: 71st precinct (718) 735-0511, 69th precinct (718) 257-6211
[Editor's Note: Sources tell NY1 that two officers involved in the shooting of Brooklyn teen Kimani Gray last weekend were also involved in five separate cases for alleged civil rights violations, including stop-and-frisks, that were settled out of court. ]
New phone-hacking allegations at Rupert Murdoch's now closed newspaper News of the World have been made.
Sources told The Guardian on Friday that Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. has been hit with 600 new hacking claims, some new victims, and some people who had earlier decided not to sue. Scotland Yard’s new information reportedly comes from a former suspect turned informant for the police. The news comes just days before Britain’s high court will hear arguments from more than a dozen people—including Cherie Blair and David Beckham’s father—who settled last fall with News International, News Corp.’s British wing. With the new claims, the investigation into hacking at News Corp. could last well into 2015:
Further details are expected to emerge on Monday morning at the high court during a hearing relating to the existing litigation by hacking victims against Murdoch's News International (NI) – hours before MPs are due to vote on joint Labour and Liberal Democrat amendments that would introduce a backstop law to stiffen regulation of the press.
Sources say Scotland Yard detectives believe they can identify as many as 600 new incidents after obtaining the phone records of an insider who is now being lined up as a crown witness. As a result of the new information, the force's Operation Weeting is revisitng the timetable for concluding its investigation, which had been due to be completed with the conclusion of trials this year. Police now expect their work to continue into 2015.
The 600 new potential litigants fall into three groups: new victims; others who sued over hacking but signed agreements with NI allowing them to sue the company again; and a third group who signed agreements potentially barring them from suing again. The indications are that there may be "some hundreds of new legal actions" from the first two groups.
On Monday the high court will hear formally of at least a dozen settlements out of the 167 civil claims filed last autumn from individuals including Cherie Blair and David Beckham's father, Ted. Blair was one of 170 victims who chose to sue in the high court instead of going through the NI private scheme, which has so far accepted 254 compensation claims.
And here I thought there wasn't a phone left that Murdock's goons hadn't hacked yet...
From The Onion: To shore up support among female voters, the GOP has introduced a bill banning "putting angry hands to lady necks" and "hurting pretty ladies with mean sex."
Republicans reaching out to anyone but wealthy old white men should should be a give-away.
Oh, the irony and the hypocrisy. Putnam County, NY Assemblyman Steve Katz was ticketed for marijuana possession Thursday after he was stopped for speeding at 80 mph in a 65 mph zone on the New York State Thruway, state police said. Katz, a Republican who voted against a marijuana legalization bill last year, was found in possession of small bag during the speeding stop after a state trooper noticed the odor of marijuana coming from his car.
