News Release Archive - 2010

Public Citizen has just released a pair of reports assessing the election:

DAVID ARKUSH, via Angela Bradbery
Arkush is director of Public Citizen’s Congress Watch, which just released the report “Outside Job.” The group writes: “Of 74 contests in which power changed hands in Tuesday’s congressional elections, independent groups engaging in a spree of secretive, corporate- and wealthy- individual-funded electioneering in the wake of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission spent predominately on behalf of the winning candidate in 58 contests, according to Public Citizen’s initial analysis. Just 14 of the losing candidates received more help than their opponents from independent groups.”

LORI WALLACH, via Bryan Buchanan
Wallach is director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, which just released the report “Election 2010: The Best Defense Was a Fair Trade Offense.” The group states: “House Democrats that ran on fair trade platforms in competitive and open-seat races were three times as likely to survive the GOP tidal wave than Democrats who ran against fair trade.”

Wallach said today: “That Democrats and the GOP alike ran against the trade policy status quo highlights the intensity of public ire about our job exporting trade policy — a phenomenon also seen in national polls. It also reveals the trouble that the White House and GOP leaders will face if they try to pass the leftover Bush trade pacts with Korea, Colombia and Panama.” See PDF: “Election 2010: The Best Defense Was a Fair Trade Offense”

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167

JAMES K. GALBRAITH
Galbraith is Lloyd M. Bentsen Jr. chair in government/business relations at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. His latest book is The Predator State: How Conservatives Abandoned the Free Market and Why Liberals Should Too.

He said today: “This election was lost in February-March 2009 by (a) the failure to take over, reform and restructure the failed banks and the failure to prosecute bank fraud; (b) Larry Summers’ incredible assertion that unemployment would peak at 8 percent and the resulting too-small, too-short-term recovery act, and (c) the promotion of Geithner and (later) reappointment of Bernanke, which gave Obama ownership of every Bush policy on the crisis.

“The result was a bankers’ carnival as unemployment went to 10 percent and stayed there, generating well-justified mass outrage. The Republicans were, alas, the only available outlet for that anger.”

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167

QUENTIN YOUNG, M.D., via MARK ALMBERG
Young, national coordinator of Physicians for a National Health Program, an organization of 18,000 doctors who support a single-payer, Medicare-for-All approach to reform, said today: “Health care reform was botched. People wanted serious reform and didn’t get it. What was adopted was so defective that ultra-conservatives were able to seize on it and use it against the Democrats and, more fundamentally, will use it against real health reform. A recent Associated Press poll shows twice as many people say the reform should have gone farther than say government has no role in health care. We know from multiple surveys over the past two decades that two-thirds of the population would support a single-payer Medicare-for-all plan. That’s the only way to assure universal, high-quality, affordable care.” Almberg is communications director for PNHP.

BENJAMIN DAY
Executive director of Mass-Care: The Massachusetts Campaign for Single Payer Health Care, Day said today: “The health care law Obama signed is largely modeled on the Massachusetts system. Now, there is a movement in Massachusetts to move from that to a single-payer or ‘Medicare for all’ program. In 2008, ten local non-binding ballot measures calling for a single-payer system passed around the state. There are 14 on the ballot today.” See: “Question 4: Non-binding ballot measure pushes ‘Medicare For All’”

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020, (202) 421-6858; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167

BILL FLETCHER Jr.
Fletcher is editorial board member of The Black Commentator and co-founder of the Center for Labor Renewal. He recently wrote the piece “Enthusiasm?: I Am Not Interested in Things Getting Worse!”

JOHN R. MacARTHUR
MacArthur is publisher of Harper’s Magazine and author of the book You Can’t Be President: The Outrageous Barriers to Democracy in America.

He said today: “Many in the Tea Party blame Obama for many things. I think we should blame Obama for the rise of the Tea Party. He could have struck a populist position with the banks. He could have at least reinstated Glass-Steagall (which separated higher-risk investment banking from regular commercial banking).”

MacArthur, who writes for French publications as well, added: “Contrast the passivity of many liberals and the left in the U.S. with what is happening in France.”

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167

WENDY WEISER
LEE ROWLAND, VISHAL AGRAHARKAR, via Jeanine Plant-Chirlin
Weiser is director of the Brennan Center’s Voting Rights and Elections Project. Rowland is counsel, Agraharkar is pro bono counsel and Plant-Chirlin is acting communications director for the Center.

Weiser said today: “The biggest challenges to the vote this year are continued problems with the voter registration system, voting machine glitches and confrontational poll monitoring or voter challenge programs. Hopefully, the majority of Americans will face none of these challenges. For those who do, the non-partisan Election Protection hotline can provide assistance. Call 866-OUR-VOTE.”

Weiser and Agraharkar recently wrote the piece “Ballot Security and Voter Suppression,” which states: “‘Ballot security’ is an umbrella term for a variety of practices that are carried out by political operatives and private groups with the stated goal of preventing voter fraud. Far too often, however, ballot security initiatives have the effect of suppressing eligible votes, either inadvertently or through outright interference with voting rights.”

For more background information, see the Brennan Center’s “Voting Rights and Elections” resource page.

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167

CHIP BERLET
Berlet is senior analyst at Political Research Associates. He recently wrote the piece “Tea Party Loyalists Biased Against Blacks, Latinos, Immigrants and Gays.”

Berlet also recently delivered the talk “Reframing Resentments in the Tea Party Movement,” which states: “The signs, slogans, stories, and tropes of the Tea Party troops are often incomprehensible to many observers. A frequent response is to rely on outdated social science models to describe the Tea Party Movement participants as stupid, ignorant, or crazy. What else could explain the ‘extremist’ idea that Obama is both Hitler and Stalin? Who but a ‘wing-nut’ on the ‘lunatic fringe’ would claim that government reform of healthcare could result in a bureaucrat unplugging grandma?

“The underlying frames and narratives which produce these seemingly absurd claims popular in the Tea Party Movement are common in conservative, economic libertarian or Christian evangelical households; and they have been for decades. The signs and statements at demonstrations might reflect garbled prose, but the ideas have a clear textual pedigree.

“The Tea Party Movement is the latest extension of a campaign by the political right launched in the 1930s to roll back the social welfare policies of the Roosevelt administration. This campaign has always been a loose-knit coalition of large corporate interests, small business owners, economic libertarians, anti-union activists, conservative Christians and moral traditionalists. They all share an antipathy to collectivism in general. Their opposition to taxes, however, is selective. For example, they tend to support funds for the military and law enforcement, but tend to oppose government programs that weave a social safety net. …

“The Tea Party Movement largely has been mobilized using fear-based frames and narratives in which liberal and left ideological opponents are demonized and scapegoated as consciously or unconsciously destroying the America of liberty and freedom. Ask Tea Party activists where they get their news and political information and they mention Glenn Beck, Lou Dobbs, Fox News, AM talk radio, and internet sites such as Free Republic and World Net Daily. …

“Too often major liberal media pundits frame the Tea Party movement as populated by a lunatic fringe of irrational, uneducated, and ignorant rubes. Liberals then dismiss the grievances of Tea Party supporters without engaging them in a discussion that could illuminate issues the nation needs to address.”

Berlet is co-author of Right-Wing Populism in America: Too Close for Comfort.

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167

CHRIS KROMM
Executive director of the Institute for Southern Studies, Kromm said today: “Outlandish claims of ‘voter fraud’ — while backed up by little evidence — are reaching a fever pitch. In the 2010 election season, Tea Party groups like True the Vote in Texas are calling for ‘millions’ of volunteer poll-watchers to challenge and harass ‘suspect’ voters, usually African-Americans and Latinos. Most disturbing, these activists are being backed by wealthy Republican benefactors and aligning with extremist anti-immigrant groups to carry out their project. In the South, this is one of the biggest threats to voting rights since the 1960s.”

Kromm just wrote a piece titled “Art Pope bankrolls dubious ‘voter fraud’ crusade.”

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167

Student Joel Francis presented a debate challenge letter in person to the Wichita, Kansas offices of Koch Industries’ CEO Charles Koch. Koch has bankrolled the California ballot initiative, Proposition 23, with at least $1 million.

JOEL FRANCIS, via Gabriel Elsner
California State University, Los Angeles senior, former Marine and debate team veteran Joel Francis traveled from Los Angeles to Wichita to follow up the promise he made in his viral video (http://www.sustainabilitycoalition.org/_featured/csula-student-challenges-koch-brothers-to-debate) to issue the challenge to debate California Proposition 23 in person if ignored by Koch. Francis was prevented from entering the building to request to see Koch in person. See video

He first issued the debate challenge via video last Thursday as a part of Power Vote California, a project of the California Student Sustainability Coalition (CSSC).

Francis said today: “Californians are concerned that Prop. 23 threatens to gut California’s clean energy economy by suspending landmark climate change laws.”

“As a senior, I’m worried that the dirty energy initiative Mr. Koch is funding would jeopardize $10 billion of private investment in the state’s clean energy economy and ruin one of the California economy’s only bright spots. Many of us who are getting ready to enter the workforce are looking to the clean technology sector as a strong employment option,” Francis said. “If Mr. Koch is going to come into our state with his money, a lot of people would like to hear directly from him why he is trying to wreck our economy’s development. For somebody who has spent three decades and hundreds of millions of dollars funding groups that advocate for personal responsibility and accountability, Mr. Koch is avoiding an opportunity to exhibit it himself.”

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167

JOSH STIEBER
Stieber is a veteran of the Bravo Company documented in the video “Collateral Murder,” released earlier this year by WikiLeaks.

The British Telegraph reports: “An American military legal adviser told helicopter crew that Iraqi men were valid targets as they could not surrender to aircraft, the documents show.

“The Apache helicopter killed the two insurgents after being told that they were still legitimate targets even though they were offering to lay down their arms.

“It is thought that the aircraft, Crazyhorse 18, was the same helicopter involved in the killing of two Reuters journalists later in the war.”

Stieber said today: “We’ve been trying even before the initial WikiLeaks video came out to say that this kind of behavior is not out of the ordinary. The fact that the helicopter unit got the go-ahead to kill Iraqis attempting to surrender shows that it’s policy.”

He is a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War, which just released a statement on the Iraq War Logs, “A Call for Accountability“.

Last week Stieber wrote the piece “Iraq Vet to Congress: Don’t Cover Up Wikileaks’ Iraq Revelations.”

RAED JARRAR
The Guardian reports: “U.S. and UK officials have insisted that no official record of civilian casualties exists but the logs record 66,081 non-combatant deaths out of a total of 109,000 fatalities.”

Jarrar, recently back from Iraq, is an Iraqi-American blogger, political analyst and architect. He was in Iraq during the 2003 invasion where he established and directed the first door-to-door civilian casualties survey in Iraq. He said today: “These documents provide us with candid snapshots of what foreign military occupations look like where Iraqis are killed, injured and tortured. Contrary to the spin many are attempting to put on the disclosure, the take-away point is not that the U.S. just stood there while Iraqis harmed other Iraqis, but that this military occupation has been brutal and destructive, and that it must end now.”

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167

LISA HAJJAR, [currently at Guantanamo]
Hajjar is an editor of Middle East Report and an associate professor of sociology at the University of California-Santa Barbara. She is covering events from Guantanamo Bay. She recently wrote the piece “Travesty in Progress: Omar Khadr and the U.S. Military Commissions.”

MICHAEL RATNER
President of the Center for Constitutional Rights, Ratner said today: “Omar Khadr’s so-called plea was a ‘show plea.’ He pleaded guilty to crimes he was never charged with and crimes about which there was almost no evidence, except a confession made under torture including threats of gang rape. So why did he do it? Here is what he was facing: life imprisonment and/or being held as an enemy combatant for the rest of his life even without a trial. He was being tried in a military commission, not a real court, where the tortured confession had been admitted. Under these circumstances his conviction was almost guaranteed.

“So why did the U.S. offer him a plea, a plea that likely includes no more than a year at Guantanamo and then he is off to Canada, where it is likely he will soon be freed? The sentencing process going on now is a similar charade; Khadr cannot get more than he agreed to. But it gives the administration a chance to parade out all the horribles — none of which will have much to do with Khadr. The Obama administration is trying to save any ‘face’ they have left: this was the first trial of a child soldier by a Western power since World War II. Khadr was 15 at the time of the alleged acts. Such charges and trials of juveniles are utterly illegal. Top that off with torture. What a case to make the first trial case before a commission. So the U.S. wanted its pound of flesh from Khadr to demonstrate their uncivilized system of ‘justice’ works. They trumped up the charges to make it look like this 15-year-old was a really bad guy and guilty. The Khadr case is one of the most disgusting chapters in a post-9/11 detention system that should have long ago been relegated to a trash-bin.”

For updates and background, see the “Guantanamo” blog by Andy Worthington

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167