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by Al Baker

Saying the New York Police Department seems to have little regard for constitutional rights, a federal judge on Wednesday elevated to class-action status a lawsuit accusing officers of using race as a factor in stopping people on the city’s streets, opening the door to a vast number of additional plaintiffs.

The decision by the judge, Shira A. Scheindlin, of Federal District Court, (see also below) provides possible legal recourse for hundreds of thousands of people who have been caught up in the Police Department’s increasingly vigorous stop-and-frisk practice, which critics say unjustly ensnares blacks and Latinos.

Over the weekend, in fact, the police disclosed that they had made more than 200,000 such stops in the first three months of 2012 – placing the Bloomberg administration on course for the largest number of annual stops in the 10 years the department has been measuring them.

In granting the four named plaintiffs class action, for a legal effort mounted in January 2008, the judge wrote that she was giving voice to the voiceless.

“The vast majority of New Yorkers who are unlawfully stopped will never bring suit to vindicate their rights,” Judge Scheindlin wrote.

Judge Scheindlin said the evidence presented in the case showed that the department had a “policy of establishing performance standards and demanding increased levels of stops and frisks” that has led to an exponential growth in the number of stops.

The judge sharply criticized the Police Department’s stance in its filing opposing the granting of class-action status. The department argued that if the court were to grant a blanket injunction banning its stop-and-frisk practice, it would not prevent any questionable stops from happening. Instead, such a ruling would represent “the kind of judicial intrusion into a social institution that is disfavored.”

Judge Scheindlin chided the department’s arguments, calling them “cavalier” and saying that they displayed “a deeply troubling apathy towards New Yorkers’ most fundamental constitutional rights.”

And she said that if the department were “engaging in a widespread practice of unlawful stops, then an injunction seeking to curb that practice is not a ‘judicial intrusion into a social institution,’ but a vindication of the Constitution and an exercise of the courts’ most important function: protecting individual rights in the face of the government’s malfeasance.”

Asked about Judge Scheindlin’s decision at a news conference at 1 Police Plaza, Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said he had no comment because the litigation was continuing. In the past, Mr. Kelly has vociferously rejected the notion that officers engage in racial profiling, but has argued that the street-stop tactics have helped to reduce crime and saved lives by leading to guns being confiscated by officers.

“It is what it is,” the commissioner said of the ruling.

Asked if the city would appeal the judge’s ruling, which is allowed, Connie Pankratz, a spokeswoman for the city’s Law Department, said it was too early to say. “We respectfully disagree with the decision and are reviewing our legal options,” she said.

The decision comes as the issue has already become a flash point in the 2013 mayoral race. Last week, the prospective candidates for mayor laced into the effectiveness of the street stops that the department and many officers view as a core of policing: The right to stop people and ask them questions. The department has released data showing that in about half of the cases, a frisk of a person is carried out when the officer perceives some danger to themselves or others.

The stops – as a practical matter – are notable for the measure of racial disparity that occurs: black and Hispanic people generally represent more than 85 percent of those stopped by the police though their combined population makes up a smaller share of the city’s racial composition. Critics, including the New York Civil Liberties Union, also point out that the number of those who get arrested or issued a summons hovers around 10 percent of the stops – and that it is proof that the majority of those stopped have done nothing wrong.

The suit was filed on behalf of the lead plaintiff, David Floyd, and three others, by the Center for Constitutional Rights.

Darius Charney, a lawyer with the center, pointed out a portion of the decision in which the judge noted that there was “indisputable evidence” that the department’s street-stop program stemmed in design and implementation from the highest levels of the agency.

“This is not just about five or six bad officers; this is about a whole department’s policies and practices,” Mr. Charney said. “Which is why the best way to proceed with this case is as a class action because if affects hundreds of thousands of people in the city.”

Copyright 2012 The New York Times
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/16/judge-allows-class-action-s...

REUTERS

PORTLAND, Oregon (Reuters) - A vote for Oregon's top law enforcement post on Tuesday has turned into a referendum on pot, with one candidate wanting to make enforcing medical marijuana rules a low priority and another who calls the state's system a "train wreck."

The Democratic primary for state attorney general pits former Attorney Dwight Holton, who once cracked down on pot, against retired judge Ellen Rosenblum. Republicans have not fielded a candidate, so the primary victor will become the presumptive winner in the general election.

"As attorney general, I will make marijuana enforcement a low priority, and protect the rights of medical marijuana patients," Rosenblum, who has a strong lead in polls, said on her website.

By contrast, Holton sent a letter to owners, operators and landlords of Oregon medical pot shops last year as U.S. Attorney, warning they faced prosecution for involvement in the sale of cannabis. He has criticized the state's pot system.

"The law as it is currently running, I believe, is a train wreck because it's putting marijuana in the hands of people, in the hands of kids, who are not using it for pain management purposes," Holton said at a debate in March.

The outcome of the primary could have implications beyond largely Democratic Oregon, providing one of the first chances to gauge the public response to a federal government crackdown on marijuana in states that allow it for medical purposes.

"A victory for Rosenblum could have symbolic power which would reach beyond the state into the national debate," said University of Oregon political science professor Joe Lowndes.

The results of Oregon's mail-only ballot are expected to be announced Tuesday evening.

The contest also comes as two groups in Oregon are racing to collect enough signatures for two separate ballot initiatives seeking to legalize marijuana for recreational use in the state.

If their efforts are successful, Oregon voters will join those in Colorado and Washington state who will decide on the matter in November. Those states are among 16 and the District of Columbia that already allow medical marijuana, though cannabis remains an illegal narcotic under federal law.

POLL SHOWS ROSENBLUM AHEAD

A Survey USA poll released last week showed Rosenblum in the lead with the support of 52 percent of likely Democratic voters, versus 27 percent for Holton. But 21 percent remained undecided. The survey of 432 people had a margin of error of 4.8 percent.

The Rosenblum campaign has drawn financial support from marijuana legalization supporters. She has raised at least $185,000 from backers of medical marijuana out of her total contributions of roughly $650,000 from all sources.

Among the largest contributions from medical marijuana supporters is $80,000 from Drug Policy Action, an affiliate of the New York-based Drug Policy Alliance, campaign records show.

Holton's total contributions stand at $794,000, with some of the largest coming from unions. He has vowed to respect and enforce the state's medical marijuana law if elected. Other priorities include protecting consumers, the environment and civil rights.

With Rosenblum pledging a similar list of priorities if elected, the two candidates' views on medical pot have emerged as a key issue that divides them.

While medical marijuana is legal in Oregon, the sale for profit of cannabis to any of the state's 55,000 registered cannabis patients is considered illegal, although growers can be reimbursed for supplies and utilities.

Even so, some medical marijuana "cafes" have sprung up in the state, drawing the ire of groups opposed to drug use.

Jill Harris, managing director of strategic initiatives for Drug Policy Action, said a Holton loss would be noticed by other U.S. attorneys interested in elected office.

"(They) might look at this and say, 'People who support medical marijuana actually care about this and they actually have the resources to hurt me politically if I thwart the will of the voters,'" Harris said.

(Writing by Alex Dobuzinskis; Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Cynthia Osterman)

Copyright 2012 Reuters

by Dean Baker

This is the week of the third annual Deficit Fest, the event sponsored by Wall Street billionaire Peter G. Peterson. At this event, many of the people most responsible for the current downturn come together to tell us why we should be worried about the deficit at a time when 25 million people are unemployed, underemployed or have given up looking for work altogether and millions face the prospect of losing their homes.

Past deficit fests included exchanges where Peter Peterson and former Treasury Secretary and Citigroup honcho Robert Rubin mused about their comparative net worth. We also got to witness President Clinton bemoan the fact that the Democratic and Republican leadership in Congress teamed up to prevent him from cutting Social Security. Had Clinton gotten his way, millions of seniors would be getting by on Social Security checks that are more than 10 percent smaller than what they now receive.

Peterson is also known for his sponsorship of the "Economic Sleepwalk" tour, which was officially billed as the "Fiscal Wakeup" tour. This involved sending a group of policy wonks around the country to complain about the budget deficit at a time when the housing bubble was growing to ever more dangerous levels. While some of us were doing our best to warn of the imminent disaster, Peterson was using his money and political connections to dominate media space at a time when the country's debt-to-GDP ratio was actually falling.

But why harp on the past? We should be focused on the future.

And one of the items that this group would like to see in our future is a deficit deal like the one proposed by Erskine Bowles and former Senator Alan Simpson, the co-chairs of President Obama's deficit commission. (The Bowles-Simpson plan is inaccurately referred to on the commission's website as a report of the commission, ironically on a page titled "Moment of Truth." In fact, it is only the report of the co-chairs since it did not receive the 14 votes needed to be approved as an official report of the commission.)

This plan includes a wide range of budget cuts, including cuts to Social Security and Medicare. It would reduce the annual Social Security cost-of-living adjustment by 0.3 percent, which would lower lifetime benefits by an average of more than 3 percent. It would also raise the retirement age for Social Security. To balance these cuts to programs that benefit tens of millions of ordinary workers, Bowles and Simpson would cut the corporate tax rate from 35 to 28 percent and would lower the tax rate paid by the very wealthy from 40 percent to 28 percent. While these reductions in tax rates are supposed to be offset by the elimination of loopholes that benefit the wealthy, people have good cause for skepticism.

If these policies seem out of step with the interests of ordinary workers, it should not be surprising given their parentage. Erskine Bowles in particular could be the poster boy for everything that is wrong in national politics today. Bowles rose to become chief of staff in the Clinton White House in the 90s. He then twice competed unsuccessfully for Senate seats in North Carolina. As a consolation prize he became the President of the University of North Carolina.

Since it is hard to make ends meet on a university president's salary these days, Mr. Bowles also did a little bowling for dollars. He moonlighted as a director on corporate boards, serving stints at Morgan Stanley, the huge Wall Street investment bank, General Motors (until it went bankrupt), and most recently Facebook.

Being a director on a corporate board typically involves attending 4-8 meetings a year. For this, directors receive several hundred thousands of dollars in compensation. For example, in 2008 Erskine Bowles received $335,000 in compensation for his work on Morgan Stanley's board.

This year is noteworthy because Morgan Stanley's dealings in mortgage-backed securities brought it to the edge of bankruptcy in the fall of 2008. It was only saved from disaster by the generous intervention of Ben Bernanke. He allowed the bank to change its status in the middle of the post-Lehman crisis, and become a bank holding company. This gave it the protection of the Fed and the FDIC.

Given this near brush with death, shareholders might ask what Mr. Bowles did for the $335,000 that we paid him. "We" is appropriate in this sentence, since much of the public has a stake in Morgan Stanley either through an index fund in a 401(k) that likely holds some of the company's stock or the defined benefit pensions that most state and local governments still have for their workers.

In fact, we should be asking this question of directors more generally. When shareholders voted "no" last month on the pay package of Citigroup's CEO, Vikram Pandit, they were saying that the company's well-paid board was not doing its job. These directors were getting paid $250,000 each year for just a few days' work. Their job is precisely to prevent such outlandish pay packaged for top management.

The failure of these highly paid directors is a major national problem. Their compensation looks more like payoffs than paychecks. After their palms get greased, they look the other way when the CEOs walk away with tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars of the shareholders' money. And the outsized pay of the CEOs corrupts pay scales throughout the economy. Even heads of charities can now command pay packages in excess of $1 million a year.

Anyhow, when we hear Erskine Bowles and his friends rant about the deficit this week, we should remember that once again they are distracting the public from the country's real problems. And this crew is at the center of those problems; it is not the solution.

http://www.cepr.net/

Dean Baker is the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR). He is the author of The Conservative Nanny State: How the Wealthy Use the Government to Stay Rich and Get Richer and the more recently published Plunder and Blunder: The Rise and Fall of The Bubble Economy. He also has a blog, "Beat the Press," where he discusses the media's coverage of economic issues.

WASHINGTON, DC — Four US representatives introduced an amendment to the Justice Department appropriations bill, House Resolution 5326, which would bar the agency from spending funds to attack medical marijuana operations in states where it is legal. The bill was being considered Wednesday, before failing on a voice vote Wednesday evening. A roll call vote was postponed until after press time [Note: This story written before final roll call vote noted in article above.]

The House heard Reps. Barney Frank (D-MA), Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), Jerold Nadler (D-NY), and Steve Cohen (D-TN) speak in favor of the amendment, while the most notable opposition came from committee Chairman Frank Wolf (R-VA).

Hinchey was a cosponsor of the amendment, as was Rohrabacher, of Huntington Beach, and his California colleagues Reps. amie Farr (D-Carmel) and Tom McClintock (R-Auburn).

As a presidential candidate, then-Senator Obama said his administration would not use its resources to undermine state medical marijuana laws, especially if people were following their state’s law. At first, the administration lived up to his word. Shortly after he was elected president, the Department of Justice issued a memorandum to US Attorneys urging them not to waste taxpayer dollars and law enforcement resources arresting and prosecuting people following their state’s medical marijuana law.

But according to the medical marijuana defense group Americans for Safe Access (http://www.safeaccessnow.org/), the DEA has undertaken more than 200 raids against medical marijuana dispensaries and associated businesses since it took office in 2009, with most of them coming in the past year. Beginning in March 2011 with raids on dispensaries across Montana, the Justice Department has shifted its stance on medical marijuana, becoming much more aggressive in enforcing federal law.

It’s not just the DEA. Federal prosecutors in dispensary states, such as California, Colorado, and Montana, have also been aggressively targeting medical marijuana operations. They typically try to intimidate dispensary operators and/or their landlords in voluntarily closing their doors by issuing threat letters in which they warn that operators and/or landlords could face civil asset forfeiture or even criminal prosecution if they do not comply.

The threat letters are based on arbitrary standards having nothing to do with state medical marijuana laws. Instead, federal prosecutors typically allege that targeted dispensaries are within 1,000 feet of a school or playground. There is no federal law disallowing dispensaries in those areas, but there is a federal sentencing enhancement for drug law violations within them, and federal prosecutors are using that statute as a measuring rod for deciding which dispensaries to pick on.

The federal crackdown has, to some extent, worked. The Montana medical marijuana distribution scene was all but wiped out by federal raids and prosecutions, dozens of dispensaries have been forced out of business in Colorado, and more than 200 have closed in California.

But medical marijuana supporters and advocates have been mobilizing their forces, too. The crackdown has been criticized by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and drug reform friend Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), as well as elected officials in all three states and local Democratic Party organizations in the San Francisco Bay area.

And this week, the fight came to the House.

“It is time for the federal government to stop targeting the legal vendors that are providing safe access to this treatment, and instead focus limited resources on those who sell illicit drugs,” Farr said in a statement. “The amendment I will offer with my colleagues will work to assure funds under the Department of Justice do not target the safe access to treatment patients need.”

A plethora of medical marijuana and drug reform groups and even labor unions were mobilizing their members to contact Congress this week in a bid to show popular support for reining in the feds. Among them was the Drug Policy Alliance (http://www.drugpolicy.org/).

“Both Democrats and Republicans are telling the Obama administration: enough is enough, stop wasting taxpayer money to undermine state medical marijuana laws, said Bill Piper, the group’s director of national affairs. “President Obama needs to realize his assault on patient access is not just immoral — but a serious political miscalculation. For more than a decade, polling has consistently shown that 70% to 80% of Americans support medical marijuana.”

For the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), which represents dispensary workers in California and Colorado, smothering the federal crackdown is not just about compassion, it’s about jobs and the economy.

“The UFCW supports the Hinchey-Rohrabacher amendment,” the group said in a statement Wednesday. “Medical marijuana laws have been enacted to allow patients safe and legal access to appropriately produced and compliantly dispensed medical marijuana in the safest possible environment and UFCW members in the medical cannabis industry work in accordance with state laws to provide safe and effective medical treatment for persons suffering from cancer and other serious medical conditions.

“At a time when millions of hardworking Americans are out of work and still struggling to make ends meet, the use of taxpayer money for the misguided targeting and prosecution of an industry that provides Americans with good middle class jobs with benefits is counterproductive. The US Justice Department should not use the fewer resources it has to focus on targeting patients and dispensaries abiding by state law. That is a problem that the Hinchey-Rohrabacher Amendment will solve and the UFCW wholeheartedly supports it,” the union said.

The political calculus behind the Obama administration’s crackdown on medical marijuana is unclear. What is certain is that the opposition to it is broad and cuts across party lines.

“History is calling on President Obama to protect terminally ill patients from suffering, and he is dangerously close to falling on the wrong side,” said Piper. “He will continue to pay a political price as long as his administration continues to waste taxpayer money undermining state law.”

The Obama administration may have won a victory Wednesday night, but even victories come with a cost.

by Yves Smith

Student loan debt slavery is even worse than you probably thought. The Grey Lady tonight has a long, informative story, “A Generation Hobbled by the Soaring Cost of College“, that early on presents the stunning tidbit that 94% of the recipients of bachelor’s degrees borrowed in order to pay for it. The Times doesn’t report what average debt levels are in this cohort, but the average across all borrowers, per the New York Fed, is $23,000. Remember, this total includes graduates who have have been paying down debt, meaning they’ve amortized principal and almost certainly had borrowed less on average to complete school.

Contrast this “certain to be higher on average than $23,000″ for new graduates with their earning power, or more accurately, lack thereof. The Times article also mentions a Rutgers survey which seems to have some sample bias or underreporting of borrowing (of 2006-2011 graduates, only 55% of the respondents said they had borrowed to help fund college, and the median reported debt level was $20,000). The 2009-2011 graduates’ income averaged $27,000. In addition, only half said that their job required a college degree.

This juxtaposition confirms that colleges, like the financial services industry, have become increasingly extractive: whatever financial benefits accrue to getting an undergraduate education, they are more and more captured by the schools, though their ability to persuade students to go into hock to get a degree. And like late housing bubble borrowers, more are defaulting early on, meaning the loans were badly underwritten (ie, many should probably have never been made because it the odds of default were high):

Nearly one in 10 borrowers who started repayment in 2009 defaulted within two years, the latest data available — about double the rate in 2005.

The Times focuses on colleges in Ohio, in many ways the ground zero of the student debt bubble because tuitions and borrowing levels are high relative to other states. One factor is arguably not the schools’ fault: Ohio started earlier and has gone farther in cutting support for higher education. But even so, the story, in its understated way, depicts clear predatory behavior: students told by colleges not to worry about the costs, to see education as an investment (with nary a thought as to whether the kid wants to major in something that has a snowball’s chance in hell of leading to a decent paying job). Even worse, not only do schools deliberately avoid telling students what debt service costs will be, they even avoid language that reminds the college candidate that he is taking on a potential millstone:

College marketing firms encourage school officials to focus on the value of the education rather than the cost. For example, an article on the cover of Enrollment Management, a newsletter aimed at college admissions officials, urged writers of admissions materials to “avoid bad words like ‘cost,’ ‘pay’ (try ‘and you get all this for…’), ‘contract’ and ‘buy’ in your piece and avoid the conflicting feelings they generate.”…

The financial aid award letters to newly admitted students can also be a minefield for students and parents sorting through the true costs of a school. Some are written in a manner that suggests the student is getting a great deal, by blurring the line between grants and loans or not making clear how much the student may have to pay or borrow.

The story includes the usual cast of recent graduates up to their eyeballs in debt, describing their own particular version of naivete and overoptimism that got them in that mess. It does not get into the thorny terrain of why costs have escalated and whether any of these increases have improved the quality of education. It does highlight the exploitative practices of for-profit colleges, but makes clear that the not-for-profits have nothing to be proud of.

Now of course, there are well endowed, elite schools who do give some students sizable scholarships. But for the students who aren’t from affluent families and are shrewd enough to be wary of big debt loads, it puts more of a premium on making the cut. Other accounts have discussed how nightmarishly competitive high school has become. It isn’t hard to imagine that kids who don’t use Adderall are at a serious disadvantage. Saying “let them get scholarships” is hardly an adequate answer to a bigger social problem, that of underinvestment in education (both faltering secondary school education and out-of-control college bills). Remember, the US is the only advanced economy to show falling levels of educational attainment.

One of the distressing threads in the article was elected officials and even students arguing that it was completely reasonable to expect students to carry most of the freight of their education. I wonder if any of the ones over, say, 35 giving that view would be anywhere near as comfortable as they are now if that had been required of them. You can see the open, casual rendering of one of the obligations of society, that of educating the young.

I’ve never understood when (once in a while) someone (clearly young) shows up in comments and rails against Social Security and Medicare because of the burden it imposes on him. Now I get it. The student debt issue is deepening social fractures. If young people are asked to stand on their own, and given only unpalatable choices (forego a college degree, the entrance ticket to middle class life, or accept debt slavery at a tender age), no wonder they adopt a “devil take the hindmost” attitude. I hope some of these people who so cavalierly argue for loading up the next generation with debt realize that the young may not want to take care of them either, and they are far more at risk. The outcome of cutting social safety nets to the elderly ultimately means that old people will die faster.

© 2012 Yves Smith
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/

Yves Smith is the pen name of Susan Webber, a Principal of Aurora Advisors, Inc. and publisher of the Naked Capitalism blog.

Republican lawmakers love to say they are protective of religious freedom and supportive of the military. Last week, Republicans on the House Armed Services Committee passed two measures that undermine both in an effort to deny equal rights to gay men and lesbians.

It was particularly disturbing to see this implacable campaign of intolerance at work during a week in which President Obama announced his support for the expansion of the right to marry to all Americans.

Just hours after Mr. Obama tried to lead the nation forward, the House Armed Services Committee was turning the clock back. On a 37-to-24 party-line vote, the committee approved an amendment to the annual military budget bill that would bar the use of a “military installation or other property owned or rented by, or otherwise under the jurisdiction or control of the Department of Defense” for a same-sex marriage or “marriage-like ceremony.”

This measure is a flagrant violation of the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of religion — a right that conservatives champion when it suits their political agenda. If, for example, a Navy chaplain wanted to perform a same-sex wedding, he would be prohibited from doing so in his chapel — even if it is in a state that recognizes same-sex marriages.

Supporters of this measure call it a “conscience protection” and claim to be shielding chaplains from being compelled to perform weddings between two men or two women. There is no merit to the argument; military policy already says that cannot happen.

Military policy says private ceremonies on military bases cannot be restricted on the basis of sexual orientation, but it permits the use of military property for same-sex weddings only in states where they are legally recognized. That should have erased any concern about states that ban same-sex marriage, but that was not the real motivation for this measure.

It was intended to undermine the law that lifted “don’t ask, don’t tell,” and to interfere with the laws in states that allow same-sex marriage. So much for the supposed ideology of small government that does not meddle with the rights of states.

The other amendment, which passed by a 36-to-25 vote, says the military must accommodate “the conscience and sincerely held moral principles and religious beliefs of the members of the Armed Forces concerning the appropriate and inappropriate expression of human sexuality.”

It also says that no officer may “direct, order or require a chaplain to perform any duty” that contradicts his “conscience, moral principles or religious beliefs.” Note that this does not say any “religious duty,” but merely any duty at all.

The measure is an outrageous interference in the military chain of command. Among other things, it would create a loophole for military chaplains to evade their duty to minister to all soldiers seeking spiritual guidance while in service to their country. It would also invite harassment of gay soldiers by comrades who might feel empowered by Congress to verbalize their antipathy to them under the cover of supposed moral principles, knowing there would be no consequences.

It could even be used as cover by those refusing to serve with gay soldiers, or even service members in interracial relationships, which, after all, could be considered by some intolerant people as an “inappropriate expression of human sexuality.” It certainly has been in the past.

The sponsor of this measure was Representative Todd Akin, a Missouri Republican who is competing in a three-way primary to run against the state’s incumbent Democratic senator, Claire McCaskill, in the fall.

Mr. Obama said his support for same-sex marriage was motivated in part by his recognition of the injustice of not recognizing the right of gay soldiers, airmen, Marines or sailors fighting for their country to marry the people they love. It is sad that Mr. Akin and his colleagues share no similar feeling.

The Senate needs to strip the two offensive amendments from the final bill.

Copyright 2012 The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/13/opinion/sunday/harming-the-troops.html?hp

Local TV coverage of the jail forum can be found here:

http://www.wicd15.com/

http://illinoishomepage.net/fulltext?nxd_id=370012

BD

by Rachel Donadio

ATHENS — The collapse of Greece’s dominant parties in Sunday’s elections swept a new political force onto the scene here: the Coalition of the Radical Left, or Syriza, a pro-euro yet anti-austerity party that has Greece’s creditors trembling with its calls for the country to reject its current loan agreement and nationalize the banks.

Although Syriza’s energetic 37-year-old leader, Alexis Tsipras, failed to form a left-wing governing coalition, his party’s unexpected success — with 16.8 percent of the vote, besting the once-mighty Socialists, who garnered only 13 percent, and placing second after the center-right New Democracy’s 18.8 percent — has upended Greece’s political order.

As political leaders struggle to form a government, Mr. Tsipras has emerged as a rising star in Greek politics. He turned down an offer from the Socialists to join a multiparty coalition, that way making it ever more likely that Greece will be forced into new elections next month. If so, that will be fine with Mr. Tsipras, whose party is now the country’s most popular, with support from 24 percent of the electorate, according to a survey this week by the polling company Marc for the Alpha television channel.

Mr. Tsipras is hoping to follow the success of François Hollande in France and ride a tide of anti-austerity sentiment to convince even more Greeks that Syriza is not simply a protest vote but a responsible alternative to the status quo, a break from four decades of ossified two-party government in a country where the debt crisis has redrawn the political map.

“I could not even imagine some months ago that Tsipras would be the second party and would have a chance to rule,” said Nikos Xydakis, a political analyst. In Mr. Xydakis’s view, after the cold war and the boom years, the debt crisis pushed Greece into a new historical cycle. “We are in the beginning of the great European depression, and Greece is the first link to crack, so politics change and Alexis Tsipras tries to begin another circle. He’s very good at capturing the momentum.”

Yet, with the fate of Greece hanging in the balance, it remains to be seen whether the party’s success in elections that Greeks saw as the triumph of democracy over market forces is evidence of a new “Greek spring,” as one Syriza legislator put it, or a sign that Greece is committing “national suicide,” as a Socialist critic would have it.

Critics say that Syriza is dangerously detached from the reality that Greece must either accept the terms of the loan agreements it signed with its foreign lenders — the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund — or prepare to leave the euro. Mr. Tsipras calls such talk “blackmail” and contends that if Greece is forced to leave the euro, it will be the result of the ill-conceived agreement itself and over-the-top austerity measures that helped batter the economy.

Beyond a rejection of the country’s current loan agreement and the austerity measures that come with it, the party is also calling for a three-year suspension of debt repayment until the economy has recovered and the abolition of immunity for government ministers.

On Thursday, Mr. Tsipras sent letters to European leaders urging an overhaul of the European strategy of austerity and stating that “the common future of the European nations is threatened by these catastrophic choices.”

On the spectrum, Syriza falls between the Greek Communist Party, which never broke with Moscow during the cold war and rejects the euro and the European Union, and the Socialist Party, known as Pasok, which is seen as more of a patronage network than an ideology. Syriza is an umbrella of leftist parties ranging from softer-line communists to Marxists to social democrats. The “radical” in its Greek name translates more accurately as “nontraditional.”

Still, in December 2008, the year Mr. Tsipras assumed party leadership, he was roundly criticized for not having condemned the violent elements that rioted in downtown Athens for days after the police killed a teenager. The party’s nonhierarchical structure means that under the guise of moderates, “far-left groups sometimes control the policy” of the party, said Paschos Mandravelis, a columnist for Kathimerini, a daily newspaper.

Mr. Xydakis said: “He doesn’t want to destroy capitalism. I think that he is much more pragmatic, and he feels now that he has some power, he must give to the suffering people some reforms to make their lives better.”

With dark good looks and a charisma that some liken to that of Andreas Papandreou, the founder of Pasok and a wildly popular former prime minister, Mr. Tsipras ran a disciplined campaign in which Syriza was present in all forms of grass-roots protest movements.

At an energetic Syriza rally here last week before the elections, Vasso Kalfopoulou, 53, an art gallery owner, said she was voting for Syriza “because they are the only clean party” in a system she and many others see as corrupt.

But some say that for a reformer, Mr. Tsipras has shown few practical proposals and little interest in making structural changes to Greece’s dysfunctional public administration.

Critics say the party is immature and question whether Mr. Tsipras has the gravitas or the stamina to govern. “He has never been tested in actually making decisions that have to do with the future of the country; he was just protesting all the previous decisions,” Mr. Mandravelis said.

Those who know him disagree. “There is no doubt that he can govern because not only is he adequate, but he has also done his homework,” said Christophoros Kasdaglis, a Syriza supporter and the author of numerous books on the Greek left. “He has complete control over his party’s policies.” But Mr. Kasdaglis acknowledged that the party was struggling with an identity conflict, being both “Eurocentric and in conflict with Europe.”

Syriza members are trying to shift the debate. A Europe that imposes austerity on citizens while protecting banks “isn’t the Europe that the original inspirators of Europe imagined,” said Euclid Tsakalotos, an economics professor at the University of Athens who was just elected to Parliament with Syriza. “We’re demanding a more democratic, a more social and a more just Europe.”

Dimitris Bounias contributed reporting.

Copyright 2012 The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/12/world/europe/in-greece-leftist-party-s...

by Jeff Blum

What would you rather see your tax dollars fund? Food stamps for 46 million Americans? Or wars we don't need?

The choice for most of us is clear. When asked, "What would you cut if you have to," Americans chose cuts in military spending over cuts in Social Security or Medicare -- three to one.

But poll Congress and you get different answers. On May 7 the House Budget Committee voted to slash the food stamp program and cut Medicaid so the Pentagon can keep pouring money into useless wars and unnecessary weapons. Let's see what this means in human terms.

Half of the 46 million Americans who rely on food stamps are children. According to the Coalition on Human Needs, two million people -- mostly seniors and working families with children -- will lose their food stamps completely. Over a quarter million of the children will also lose free school lunches. Employment and training programs for food stamp recipients will be cut 72 percent. Working adults will also lose childcare and transportation subsidies that they need to get to work.

We're not done with children. GOP leaders want to deny child tax credits to low-income immigrant families who use taxpayer ID numbers instead of Social Security numbers when they file tax returns. This is known as punishing people for paying their taxes. Families who make only $21,000 a year will have to pay $1,800 more.

Actually, children seem to be a target in this campaign to keep Pentagon dollars flowing. Millions of families with children will also lose health coverage under the Children's Health Insurance Program. Childcare and children who are abused will also lose funding, as will senior anti-abuse programs and elder Meals on Wheels.

In the Budget Committee's moral universe, military contractors like Lockheed Martin and Boeing (tax bill on profits of $9 billion: negative $178 million, meaning we gave Boeing our tax money) are more deserving than families who lost their jobs in the Wall Street bonfire three years ago, lost their homes in the bank scams that caused it, or children whose one square meal a day will soon be a school lunch -- if Congress doesn't cut that too.

How do they justify these cuts? In extremely vague language, one thing they're saying is that that we have to protect military personnel and their families. Ask your pastor, minister, rabbi or imam about the morality of sacrificing one set of people to benefit another. Beyond that, it's the Pentagon brass, not liberals or peaceniks, who are trying to cut healthcare benefits and other military family supports. Like any big corporation, they're taking savings out of their workforce.

Here's another vague justification: any cuts would "hollow out the national defense."

It's true, as Capitol Hill hawks repeat, that Air Force pilots are flying 20-year-old F-16 fighters. But that's because the F-22 -- the replacement Pentagon planners ordered over a decade ago --- is so dangerous that some pilots are refusing to fly it. It may already have killed one pilot by cutting off his oxygen supply. The even newer and more expensive F-35 is "overweight, overpriced, underperforming, and unnecessary," says defense critic William Hartung. In fact, it's so overpriced -- $380 billion for 2400 planes, not counting future maintenance and operating costs of $1 trillion -- that cutting this turkey alone would provide the $300 billion that the House Budget Committee is trying to save by slashing safety net programs. If the House Budget Committee is looking for waste in government, the Pentagon is the place to start.

The Pentagon's problem isn't lack of money. The problem is that weapons spending is out of control and no amount of money will fix that. A stiff diet might help focus them, though. Fewer dollars would still provide plenty of money for the "Defense" Department's real mission: actually defending us.

No country on earth comes close to the United States in military firepower. And few countries can match the callousness of the House leaders who would sacrifice children's meals so they can build useless weapons.

America's soul is on the line this week. Call your Representative this week and ask how he or she will vote on the budget bills that are coming up -- the reconciliation bill this week and the deficit reduction bill next week. The answer you get will tell you if our soul is in the right hands.

Jeff Blum is executive director of USAction, a federation of 22 state affiliates that organize for progressive change. Under his leadership, USAction has broken ground on health care, budget and taxes, Social Security and the war in Iraq.