The unprecedented level of economic inequality in America is undeniable. In an extended essay, Bill Moyers shares examples of the striking extremes of wealth and poverty across the country, including a video report on California’s Silicon Valley. There, Facebook, Google, and Apple are minting millionaires, while the area’s homeless -- who’ve grown 20 percent in the last two years -- are living in tent cities at their virtual doorsteps.

“A petty, narcissistic, pridefully ignorant politics has come to dominate and paralyze our government,” says Bill, “while millions of people keep falling through the gaping hole that has turned us into the United States of Inequality.”

Full transcript below the fold.

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Via OccupyWallStreet.net:

Date:
Sunday, March 24, 2013 - 3:00pm to 5:00pm

Address:
55th St. and Church Ave.
Brooklyn New York 11203
United States

People in New York: Support Kimani Gray's community and all communities of color besieged by police violence, by coming out for a MASS MARCH SUNDAY THE 24TH. 3 pm, from the site of Kiki's vigil at 55th and Church, marching to the 67th precinct.

WEDNESDAY the 20th, there is a Stop and Frisk Town Hall Meeting (Co-Sponsored by Council Member Williams) 5:30 PM-7:30 PM, 833 Marcy Ave (Concord Baptist Church)

Jose Lasalle of Stop Stop and Frisk has asked people to make this Town Hall about police brutality, not violence amongst kids. There may be a speak-out and planning meeting for the Sunday march as well (for location, check: goo.gl/XjveK).

You have also been invited to come every day at 7 pm to show your support for East Flatbush in its fight against police brutality (55th and Church). Check the WE WANT JUSTICE FOR KIMANI GRAY Facebook page for updates.

Keep in mind that people from outside the neighborhood should come as supporters and take a back seat.
Here are some tips on how to show respect when you arrive (these are tips from OWS, not asked of us by community members):

Do not mic check at these demonstrations. That's for East Flatbush residents and march Organizers to take the lead on. If you do so, and you are not a resident or long-time Organizer in the area, we will know you are not with Occupy Wall Street.

If you choose to take photographs, ask people's permission. Feel free to livestream or film police activity: http://www.livestream.com/userguide/index.php?title=Broadcast_live

When asked whether people from outside the neighborhood should be coming by, a longtime Organizer had this advice to give: "Come, yes. But don't come if you are not internally organized. Come. Come if you can take a back seat. Come if you plan to develop real relationships and maintain them over the long-haul."

In Oakland there will be a solidarity rally, March 21st at 5pm #OaklandProtest in #solidarity w/ #BrooklynProtest

#KimaniGray
#OaklandProtest
#jailkillercops
#Justice4KimaniGray
#Justice4AlanBlueford

In part one of a two-part series, PBS NewsHour Science Correspondent Miles O'Brien travels to Hinkley, Calif. -- the town whose multi-million dollar settlement for groundwater contamination was featured in the movie "Erin Brockovich." Now, almost 30 years later, O'Brien explores the reasons why the groundwater in Hinkley still has dangerous levels of the chemical chromium and its link to cancer.

More than 80,000 chemicals are on the market in the United States, with hundreds added each year. The Environmental Protection Agency and other regulators are supposed to protect the public from contaminants in air, water and consumer products that can cause cancer and other illnesses. But the chemical industry's sway over science and policy is powerful. Toxic Clout explores how the industry's actions create uncertainty and delay, threatening public health.

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputies perform CPR on Larry Delassus Dec. 19 outside the Department A courtroom where he went into cardiac arrest. Photo by Trujillo law partner, Bob Khakshooy

A bank foreclosure can be a horrifically stressful event on a young and healthy person. But imagine coping with a bank trying to take away your home because of a typo on their part, and not any fault of your own, when you are a frail, disabled veteran. That's the battle 62-year-old Larry Delassus had to fight even though court records show he paid his mortgage two months ahead of schedule and also paid his property taxes in advance.

Via:

On the morning of Dec. 19, 2012, in a Torrance courtroom, Larry Delassus' heart stopped as he watched his attorney argue his negligence and discrimination case against banking behemoth Wells Fargo.

His death came more than two years after Wells Fargo mistakenly mixed up his Hermosa Beach address with that of a neighbor in the same condo complex. The bank's typo led Wells Fargo to demand that Delassus pay $13,361.90 ­— two years of late property taxes the bank said it had paid on his behalf in order to keep his Wells Fargo mortgage afloat.

But Delassus, a quiet man who suffered from the rare blood-clot disorder Budd-Chiari syndrome and was often hospitalized, didn't owe a penny in taxes.

One of his neighbors, whose condo "parcel number" was two digits different from Delassus', owed the back taxes.

In a series of painfully tragic events, Wells Fargo relied on its typographical error to double Delassus' mortgage — from $1,237.69 to $2,429.13 — as its way of recouping the $13,361.90 in taxes Delassus didn't owe. Delassus, a retiree living on a $1,655 check, couldn't meet the mysteriously increased mortgage. He stopped paying, and soon was far behind on his mortgage.

One especially difficult moment during his battle with Wells Fargo came in May 2011, shortly after another bad bout of illness, Delassus' condo was sold by the bank. In a videotaped court deposition later, Delassus breaks down crying. "I came back from the hospital, and that very day, they sold the son of a b*tch," he says. "I'm homeless. I did not have a home. My condo — 16 years, gone. Gone."

There's much more on Larry Delassus' battle with Wells Fargo here.

Once Wells Fargo had acknowledged their typographical error, there doesn't seem to be any logical reason that they didn't bend over backwards to return Mr. Delassus to square one with his mortgage...the 16-year mortgage holder who never missed a payment, and return him to that point with all the erroneously tacked on fees wiped away.

Delassus' attorney Anthony Trujillo, a friend and next-door neighbor, recalls deposing Wells Fargo Litigation Support Manager Michael Dolan in 2012, and asked what his definition of “fair” was.

“Fair is a place where they have ponies and merry-go-rounds,” Dolan said.

A homeless woman in her 60s was set on fire as she slept on a street bench outside of a Walgreens Drug Store in Van Nuys, California early Thursday morning. Witnesses reported seeing a man pour something on the woman, then lighting a match before he fled the scene.

NBC:

"It was like when you pour gasoline on something -- like an explosion," said witness Erickson Ipina, who added that he often saw the homeless woman in the neighborhood.

The man purchased the bottle containing alcohol in the Walgreens store, then poured the contents on the woman, Ipina told a Newsreel photographer. Ipina said he called 911 and followed the attacker, who brandished a knife.

"He told me, 'Stop following me, or I will cut you,'" Ipina said. "I kept following him and then the police came."

The homeless woman, whose identity is not known at this time, has been hospitalized in critical condition. Police have one person in custody at this time.

Attacks such as this on the homeless are not uncommon, sadly. In the past week alone, a 55-year-old man was also set on fire as he slept outside a donut shop in southern Los Angeles County.

2010 was the “deadliest in a decade,” according to the National Coalition for the Homeless in its latest report on hate crimes against homeless people.

Forty-three homeless people died from acts of violence committed against them by housed individuals who were biased against them and/or found them a conveniently vulnerable target for aggression.

On November 30th last year around 300 protesters were arrested at the Los Angeles City Hall after being camped out in the vicinity for over two months. An estimated 1,400 police officers showed up and blazed through the encampment in what protesters are now calling a "shock and awe" attack on their rights. The movement activists have now filed a class action lawsuit for the arrests and the protesters' treatment while in custody. RT's Ramon Galindo brings the latest from Los Angeles.

Oh, FSM give me strength. It seems Todd Akin may have a long lost twin brother in California, or at the very least, his intellectual equal.

A long-time California Superior Court judge was admonished recently for comments he made during a rape trial in 2008. Judge Derek G. Johnson had said the victim 'didn't put up a fight' and that the sexual attack was 'technical.' The state agency that issued his admonishment said his remarks "seemed outdated, insensitive and possibly biased."

Wow, is that ever putting it mildly! The LA Times reports:

At a sentencing in 2008, Johnson denied a prosecutor's call to impose a 16-year prison term on Metin Gurel, who had been convicted of rape, forcible oral copulation, domestic battery, stalking and making threats against his former live-in girlfriend.

On the day he raped her, prosecutors said, Gurel had threatened to mutilate the woman with a heated screwdriver.

Johnson imposed a six-year sentence.

"I'm not a gynecologist, but I can tell you something," the judge said, according to documents released Thursday. "If someone doesn't want to have sexual intercourse, the body shuts down. The body will not permit that to happen unless a lot of damage is inflicted, and we heard nothing about that in this case.

"That tells me that the victim in this case, although she wasn't necessarily willing, she didn't put up a fight," the judge said.

The judge, who has been on the Orange County Superior Court since 2000, also declared the rape "technical" and not "a real, live criminal case."

"To treat this case like the rape cases that we all hear about is an insult to victims of rape," the judge said. "I think it's an insult. I think it trivializes a rape."

An Associated Press report added that the judge, a former prosecutor in the Orange County district attorney's sex crimes unit, said during the man's 2008 sentencing that he had seen violent cases on that unit in which women's vaginas were "shredded" by rape.

Judge Johnson -- who still remains on the bench as he has since back in 2008 -- apologized to the panel. No word on if he apologized to the woman he made these comments to. And how many more cases like this have there been?

And although the Commission on Judicial Performance didn't hear about Johnson's comments during this rape trial, the OC Weekly did report about his remarks back in 2008.

Johnson should be removed from the bench, and barred from practicing law altogether.

Nevada City, California will provide a handful of permits to homeless persons if they submit themselves to a police background check. Even if they have done nothing illegal, the small number of permits give the police the power to send anyone else having the audacity to want to shut their eyes and rest their weary head while living in abject poverty moving on down the road to the next town.

How is it that when your world falls down around you, your basic rights vanish and the police treat you like some vermin that must be eradicated?

Via:

Nevada City, California has passed a new law which requires homeless people to have a permit to sleep in public.

Chief James Wickham told CBS Sacramento: “The goal is to start managing the homeless population within our city. Those are the ones we really don’t want in our city and that we’re trying to keep from camping in our city.”

A no-camping ordinance was also passed by the city, which would criminalize the poor for sleeping in a car, tent or in the woods.

However, if the police give a permit to a homeless person, then that poor person would not be arrested for sleeping.

There are no similar permits required for non-homeless people who might take a nap in a park.

Wickham says he has identified about 60 homeless persons in Nevada City, and will hand out approximately 6 to 10 sleeping permits. If it "works out" he will consider more permits in about 6 months.

The Chief claims that the majority of the area's homeless are "troublemakers," and "criminals," and he hopes his goal of managing the city's homeless population will rid them of these undesirables.

I've got more than a handful of people now that I would like to see be visited by three spirits in the night, and not a moment too soon.

Ouch, talk about pain at the pump! The average price of gasoline in California rose to $4.65 on Sunday, which is 84 cents higher than the national average. Gas prices in the state have been on the rise all week and jumped almost 20 cents to $4.49 on Friday, then continued increasing Saturday and Sunday. California often has gas shortages at this time of year, as refiners switch to fall gasoline blends to meet state pollution standards. But this year, rationing has caused gas stations to close pumps, created gas lines, and pushed prices above $5 in some areas of the state.

Gov. Jerry Brown has decided to intervene by calling for the immediate release of a cheaper, but less environmentally friendly blend of gasoline.

Brown directed the California Air Resources Board to permit oil companies to start selling winter-blend gasoline, which evaporates more quickly in warm weather than the summer blend. Normally, winter blend isn't permitted to be released until Oct. 31:

The air resources board will follow the governor's direction and tell refineries and importers that they can start selling the cheaper gasoline right away, said Stanley Young, a spokesman for the agency.

"This would immediately increase the supply of gasoline in California," said Chris Faulkner, an energy expert and chief executive of Breitling Oil & Gas Corp. in Dallas.

The early release of the "winter-blend" gasoline is expected to speed up the process of bringing fuel prices down, says Denton Cinquegrana, executive editor of the Oil Price Information Service, and estimates the per gallon price to reach "$4.15 or so" by Thanksgiving.

Foreclosure fraud is on the rise in California and Occupy Los Angeles activists say elected officials are doing nothing to stop it. California had the nation's highest foreclosure rate this summer, contributing to at least two major cities seeking bankruptcy protection. The state attorney general has promised relief but homeowners have yet to see it.