Father with ALS asks Sen. Jeff Flake on flight to oppose tax bill
Father with ALS asks Sen. Jeff Flake on flight to oppose tax bill
An activist who suffers from ALS protesting the GOP tax cuts confronted Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) over his support for...
An activist who suffers from ALS protesting the GOP tax cuts confronted Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) over his support for the controversial proposal and asked him to change his mind.
“Why not take your stand now?” Ady Barkan asked Flake as they waited for their Thursday night flight to depart Washington, D.C. “You can be an American hero. You really could — if the votes match the speech.”
Read the full article here.
Tipirneni Gains Momentum In Last Week Of CD8 Special Elections, Outraises Lesko
Tipirneni Gains Momentum In Last Week Of CD8 Special Elections, Outraises Lesko
The democrat gained her financial advantage mostly through small donors, but also recently received support from...
The democrat gained her financial advantage mostly through small donors, but also recently received support from healthcare activist Ady Barkan, who launched a six-figure ad campaign supporting her bid for congress. Barkan’s group, Be A Hero plans on supporting Democratic candidates across the nation, starting with Tiperneni’s campaign in CD8.
Read the full article here.
NY Democrats Seek Citizen Rights for Illegal Immigrants
New York Post - September 15, 2014, by Carl Campanile - Illegal aliens in New York could score billions in Medicaid...
New York Post - September 15, 2014, by Carl Campanile - Illegal aliens in New York could score billions in Medicaid and college-tuition money — along with driver’s licenses, voting rights and even the ability to run for office — if Democrats win control of the state Senate in November, the Post has learned.
A little-known bill, dubbed “New York is Home,” would offer the most sweeping amnesty available anywhere in the country to nearly 3 million noncitizens living in the Empire State.
It would bar police from releasing any information about them to the feds, unless it involves a criminal warrant unrelated to their immigration status.
Under the proposed legislation, undocumented immigrants could also apply for professional licenses and serve on juries.
The plan hinges on Democrats — who now control both the governorship and the state Assembly — wresting control of the Senate from Republicans, who oppose immigration amnesty.
Bronx Sen. Gustavo Rivera, who is sponsoring the legislation in the upper chamber, said he thinks the bill would be in position to be passed “if we have a stable Democratic majority in the Senate.”
He also likened his measure to the campaigns to legalize same-sex marriage and medical marijuana.
“It’s something I believe in,” Rivera said Sunday night. “It’s something the state can do and should do.
Democratic Brooklyn Assemblyman Karim Camara, the chief Assembly sponsor, agreed that taking the Senate was key, saying “The bill would have a better shot at passing with a Democratic Senate.”
“I look forward [to] having a robust conversation about how significant this bill is.”
But the GOP plans on using the proposal to warn voters how radical New York would become if Democrats take charge.
Republicans are already referring to it as the “illegal immigrants benefits legislation” and will make the bill their poster child in elections in more conservative upstate and suburban districts.
“This bill could pass if the Democrats are in charge of the Senate. They’re out of their minds,” said Sen. Marty Golden (R-Brooklyn).
“This is astounding. This undermines our nation’s immigration laws and procedures.”
Said state Conservative Party chairman Mike Long: “This is absolutely amnesty. It disregards the laws of the United States. It’s unconscionable,” Long added.
The bill was introduced during the waning days of the legislative session in June, and is backed by immigrant-rights groups including Make the Road New York, the Center for Popular Democracy, and La Fuente.
GOP officials maintain that amnesty for illegal aliens would open the door to fraud and abuse and increase the risk of terrorism.
For example, the bill would let illegals vote in local and state elections, but they would be barred by federal law from voting for presidential or congressional candidates.
Mayor de Blasio pushed through a new city law that created a municipal ID card that provides some benefits to noncitizens.
Camara, chairman of the New York State Black, Latino and Asian Caucus, insisted that only immigrants who prove they have been living productively would get benefits under his bill.
They would also have to show that they have been living in New York for at least three years and have paid taxes to the state.
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Economic Sector Bias at the Federal Reserve
Economic Sector Bias at the Federal Reserve
In part one of this two-part posting, I looked at the gender bias at the Federal Reserve, showing how men vastly...
In part one of this two-part posting, I looked at the gender bias at the Federal Reserve, showing how men vastly outnumber women in key posts at Federal Reserve Banks throughout the United States despite the Fed's Congressional mandate. In part two of this posting, I want to take an additional look at the Fed's bias; its failure to represent the economic diversity of America.
For those of you that either didn't read part one or who are unaware of the Federal Reserve's organizational setup, here is a graphic from a report by the Center for Popular Democracy showing the link between the Federal Reserve and its Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) and its district banks known as Federal Reserve Banks:
Here is a map showing the regions covered by each of the 12 district banks (Federal Reserve Banks) and the 24 branches within each district:
Note that Alaska and Hawaii are covered by the San Francisco district.
If we start at the top of the organizational chart, the seven members of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors are appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate for a 14-year term of office. The President (and Senate) also confirm two members of the Board to be Chair (currently Janet Yellen) and Vice Chair for four year terms. The FOMC consists of 12 members; the seven aforementioned Board members, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and four other regional Federal Reserve Bank presidents on a rotating, one-year term basis. The Federal Reserve Banks form an important link between the Federal Reserve and their local economy and help to dictate the Federal Reserve's monetary policies. Each of the twelve district banks has their own president and boards of directors (nine directors in total for each bank); in addition, each of the 24 district branches has its own directors (seven directors in total for each branch). The Board of Directors for each Reserve Bank are appointed in two ways; the majority are appointed by the Reserve Bank and the remainder are appointed by the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors. The directors for each district bank then appoint their own president and vice president. It all sounds rather nepotistic, doesn't it?
By law, under the Federal Reserve Reform Act of 1977, the Boards of Directors of the Federal Reserve are to be
"...elected with due but not exclusive consideration to the interests of agriculture, commerce, industry, services, labor and consumers.".
That is, each of the leaders/directors of the world's most influential central bank and its district banking system are to represent a wide variety of each of the economic sectors that make up the American economy.
The report by the Center for Popular Democracy compares the economic sector representation during the period from 2006 to 2010 when the Government Accountability Office examined the composition of the Federal Reserve Bank Boards and the present. Here is a graphic showing the past and present composition:
In both 2006 to 2010 and 2016, directors from the banking sector filled over one-third of the board seats, growing by 3 percentage points over the timeframe of the study. In combination, in 2016, representatives from the commercial and industrial sector and the banking sector filled 68 percent of seats, up from 63 percent in 2006 to 2010. The service sector's representation fell from 26 percent of seats to 18 percent and agriculture and food processing saw their representation fall from 6 percent of seats to 3 percent. Interestingly, even though they are relatively poorly represented compared to the other sectors, the number of directors affiliated with consumer and community organizations rose from 3 percent to 8 percent.
For your illumination, here are a few of the Directors for each of the Federal Reserve Banks that you can get a sense of who is dictating America's monetary policies:
If you are interested in who is on the boards of the other Federal Reserve Banks, please see the original report.
Interestingly, during the "financial crisis" of 2008, there was some question about directors' independence and actions taken by the Federal Reserve banks since there was at least the perception of conflicts of interest when director-affliated institutions took part in the Federal Reserve System's emergency programs. With a preponderance of representation from the banking and commercial sectors, it certainly doesn't take a genius to figure out which sectors of the economy will likely be favoured by Federal Reserve policies should there be another "financial crisis", does it?
By A Political Junkie
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Here’s Where You Can Donate To Those Affected By The Earthquakes In Mexico And Hurricanes In Puerto Rico
Here’s Where You Can Donate To Those Affected By The Earthquakes In Mexico And Hurricanes In Puerto Rico
After the recent earthquakes in Mexico and hurricanes in Puerto Rico, it can be heartbreaking to see, from afar, all...
After the recent earthquakes in Mexico and hurricanes in Puerto Rico, it can be heartbreaking to see, from afar, all the devastation people in affected areas are currently enduring. While we might be at a loss about how to help our family and friends in Latin America during these trying times, there are ways to help. Here’s a list of charities, fundraising campaigns and other organizations helping those affected in Mexico and Puerto Rico.
Read the full article here.
Austin Passed a Landmark Paid Leave Policy. Will Texas Republicans Undermine It?
Austin Passed a Landmark Paid Leave Policy. Will Texas Republicans Undermine It?
It can have a chilling impact on the introduction of policies that have the potential to be pre-empted,” said Sarah...
It can have a chilling impact on the introduction of policies that have the potential to be pre-empted,” said Sarah Johnson, director of Local Progress, which was involved in advocating for the legislation. But Austin decided to take a different approach. The city “realiz[ed] their power and [fought] back and [went] on offense despite that.
Read the full article here.
The Fed needs a revolution: Why America’s central bank is failing — and how we can make it work for us
The Fed needs a revolution: Why America’s central bank is failing — and how we can make it work for us
One reality hanging over the presidential election and our politics in general is this: No matter what terrific plan a...
One reality hanging over the presidential election and our politics in general is this: No matter what terrific plan a politician has for creating jobs and boosting wages, it must contend with the Federal Reserve’s ability to unilaterally counteract it. If the Fed decides higher wages risk inflation, they can raise interest rates and deliberately strangle economic growth, reversing the wage effect. Why come up with ways to grow the economy, then, if the Fed will react by intentionally slowing it?
The reason the Fed operates as a wet blanket on the economy has to do with who really controls the institution. If the desires of bankers and the rich outweigh the desires of laborers, then their fear of inflation (which cuts into their profits) will always take precedence over full employment. Former Fed Chair Ben Bernanke unwittingly gave a perfect example of that yesterday. Talking about how the Fed could institute “helicopter drops” of money to supplement federal spending and jump-start the economy, he stated from the outset, “no responsible government would ever literally drop money from the sky.” Who sets the boundaries of what’s “responsible” matters a great deal here.
To make the central bank work in the public interest rather than the interests of a select few, you must reform the very structure of the Federal Reserve. That’s the purpose of a new proposal from Andrew Levin, an economics professor at Dartmouth College and former advisor to Fed Chairs Ben Bernanke and Janet Yellen. In conjunction with the activist group Fed Up, which advocates for pro-worker policies at the Fed, Levin has devised a framework to make the central bank a fully public institution, with all the transparency and accountability demanded of other government entities.
It’s such an important idea that Warren Gunnels, policy director for Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign, talked it up yesterday on a conference call with Levin. While stopping short of endorsing taking the Fed public, Gunnels did say, “Senator Sanders believes we need to made the Fed a more democratic institution, responsive to the concerns of all Americans, not a few billionaires on Wall Street.”
Right now, the Fed is a quasi-public, quasi-private hybrid, taking advantage of that status to maintain high levels of secrecy. Members of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors are nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate, like other federal agencies. But the twelve regional Federal Reserve banks are legally owned by commercial banks in each of those regions. Banks like JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo hold stock in these regional banks, which happen to be one of their primary regulators.
This was how central banks worldwide operated at the time of the Fed’s founding, but that has changed. “Every other central bank around the world is fully public,” Professor Levin said, citing the Bank of Canada’s shift in the 1930s and the Bank of England in the 1940s.
Not only does having private banks own a chunk of the Fed raise questions about regulatory supervision, it implicitly privileges banker concerns over the public at large. This is particularly important because the Fed has failed as an institution consistently over the past decade.
First it failed to identify an $8 trillion housing bubble, along with increases in leverage and derivatives exposure that magnified the housing collapse into a larger crisis. Then, it failed to deploy all its policy tools and allowed a slow recovery to take hold that left millions of workers behind, as growth never caught up to its expectations. British economist Simon Wren-Lewis believes the third big mistake is happening now, through premature interest rate hikes to return to “normal” operations. “Central banks are wasting a huge amount of potential resources” by tightening too quickly, Wren-Lewis says. For everyday Americans, that translates into millions more people out of work than necessary.
So Levin’s plan would cash out the banks’ stock, and begin to remove their influence over the Fed. The board of directors of the regional Fed banks, which currently includes commercial bank executives, would be chosen through a representative process with mandates for diversity (no African-American has ever served as a regional Fed president) and a variety of viewpoints. Nobody affiliated with a financial institution overseen by the Fed could serve on any regional board.
These newly elected boards of directors would choose the regional presidents, which have a say on monetary policy decisions. That selection process would include public hearings and feedback. Under the current system, Fed presidents are re-elected through a pro forma process, with no opportunity for public engagement. Four of the 12 regional presidents were formerly executives at Goldman Sachs, and it’s hard to call that a coincidence.
In addition to breaking the conflict of interest inherent in current Fed governance, making the institution public would subject it to disclosure requirements, Freedom of Information Act requests, and external reviews that all other public agencies must submit to. Levin’s proposal calls for an annual Government Accountability Office review of Fed policies and procedures, and would allow the Fed’s inspector general new authority to investigate the regional banks.
The Levin proposal too often makes concessions to preserving central bank “independence,” like preserving the regional structure and giving Fed officials nonrenewable seven-year terms, which seems a little arbitrary. This impulse also led Democrats to reject Sen. Rand Paul’s legislation to audit the Fed earlier this year. The rhetoric of Federal Reserve “independence” conceals an institutional capture that allows it to ignore workers’ needs in favor of the wealthy. And its persistent failures and banker influence weaken the case for that independence.
Nevertheless, the heart of the proposal is to return democracy to the Fed, so the institution will edge away from its commitment to capital over labor. “The fundamental piece is that the Fed must be a public institution,” said Ady Barkan of the Fed Up Coalition.
Liberals too often ignore the Fed and the role it plays in the economy, but that’s starting to change. An obscure piece of the Federal Reserve Act statute identified by then-House staffer Matt Stoller led to a remarkable cut of billions of dollars in subsidies to big banks last year, under a Republican-majority Congress. Now the Fed Up coalition is not only rolling out this reform plan, but pushing the presidential candidates to answer whether the Fed should deliberately slow down the economy, make sure their institution looks like the general public, and reduce the power of private banks on its operations. (Bernie Sanders laid out his views on Fed reform in the New York Times last December, some of which intersect with the Fed Up proposal. Warren Gunnels, Sanders’ Policy Director, would only say that the Fed Up plan “deserves serious consideration.”)
A public, inclusive debate over Fed transparency and accountability is critical, given the importance of this institution to the economy. “These reforms would put the Fed on a path to serving the public for the next 100 years,” said Professor Levin. And that has to mean all the public, through democratic principles, not just the executives at our biggest banks.
By David Dayen
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Let's Choose Children Over the Charter Industry
Roll Call - May 14, 2014, by Kyle Serrette and Sabrina Joy Stevens - Our children are too precious, and education...
Roll Call - May 14, 2014, by Kyle Serrette and Sabrina Joy Stevens - Our children are too precious, and education funding too scarce, to risk turning either over to unscrupulous or incompetent organizations. That’s why charter schools were originally supposed to be something akin to a small, controlled experiment: public school laboratories intended to encourage new ways to educate students. That way, if something turned out not to work, the risk to students, educators and communities could be contained.
Unfortunately, the modest educators and community members of the charter school movement’s early days have been eclipsed by members of the charter school industry: an industry rife with fraud, waste and abuse. Yet advocates, particularly among elected officials, have been unwilling to confront this fact and deal accordingly.
Fraud and abuse is rampant in the charter sector. Last week, our organizations issued a new report detailing how charter operators wasted or stole more than $100 million in taxpayer dollars. That number only reflects cases that have been reported in 15 states; it boggles the mind to consider what an examination of all states would uncover.
We found examples of operators embezzling millions in public funds for years before being detected, spending public funds on vacation homes instead of textbooks. In one case, someone bought a private airplane; in another egregious example, they used the money for visits to a strip club. In other cases, unfit operators just plain lost vast amounts of taxpayer money.
Sadly, H.R. 10, the charter schools bill recently approved by the House, fails to address the corruption within this poorly regulated industry.
Ignoring several representatives who offered common-sense amendments, the House passed a bill that fails to call for even basic protections like conflict-of-interest guidelines. It “requires” annual audits, yet allows states to waive the requirement, making it easier for fraudulent actors to hide their theft. It does not extend open meetings laws to charters, nor does it require charter operators to include community representation on their boards.
The bill further erodes community input and oversight by awarding priority status to states that allow entities that are not local education agencies (LEA) to be charter authorizers. Not only will this make it harder for local communities to control access to our tax dollars, it will also erode the quality and consistency of children’s education. For example, 17 charters abruptly closed in Columbus, Ohio, last year alone. In most cases, their non-LEA authorizers’ slipshod vetting processes missed red flags that would have allowed them to thwart fraud and mismanagement.
Disturbingly, the bill awards priority to states that don’t have charter caps, encouraging states to further accelerate charter growth before they’ve established the protections that could prevent the aforementioned abuses. States already struggle to monitor the charter schools they have; it is simply reckless to incentivize them to open more before establishing necessary protections.
H.R. 10 ignores many of the most pressing community concerns about charters. Any new funding for charter schools must encourage more, not less, oversight and involvement by local taxpayers and families. Specifically, a new bill should ban the practice of requiring parent contracts, one of many practices that charter operators use to avoid serving the neediest students.
Charter operators should also be required to collect and publicly report information on student attrition, mobility, and transfer before coming back to the public till. This crucial information will ensure that public funding stays with the students it’s intended to benefit. It will also allow families and policymakers to make informed comparisons between charter and public schools.
If our senators want to ensure success and opportunity through quality public schools, they should create legislative protections that promote quality, and mandate the transparency and accountability that make a school public. H.R. 10 does none of this. Children and taxpayers deserve better.
Kyle Serrette is the director of Education Justice Campaigns at the Center for Popular Democracy. Sabrina Joy Stevens is the executive director of Integrity in Education.
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New York Plans $15-an-Hour Minimum Wage for Fast Food Workers
The labor protest movement that fast-food workers in New York City began nearly three years ago has led to higher wages...
The labor protest movement that fast-food workers in New York City began nearly three years ago has led to higher wages for workers all across the country. On Wednesday, it paid off for the people who started it.
A panel appointed by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo recommended on Wednesday that the minimum wage be raised for employees of fast-food chain restaurants throughout the state to $15 an hour over the next few years. Wages would be raised faster in New York City than in the rest of the state to account for the higher cost of living there.
The panel’s recommendations, which are expected to be put into effect by an order of the state’s acting commissioner of labor, represent a major triumph for the advocates who have rallied burger-flippers and fry cooks to demand pay that covers their basic needs. They argued that taxpayers were subsidizing the workforces of some multinational corporations, like McDonald’s, that were not paying enough to keep their workers from relying on food stamps and other welfare benefits.
The $15 wage would represent a raise of more than 70 percent for workers earning the state’s current minimum wage of $8.75 an hour. Advocates for low-wage workers said they believed the mandate would quickly spur raises for employees in other industries across the state, and a jubilant Mr. Cuomo predicted that other states would follow his lead.
“When New York acts, the rest of the states follow,” said Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, citing the state’s passage of the law making same-sex marriagelegal. “We’ve always been different, always been first, always been the most progressive.”
The decision, announced in a conference room in Lower Manhattan, set off a raucous celebration by hundreds of workers and union leaders outside.
Flavia Cabral, 53, a grandmother from the Bronx who works part-time in a McDonald’s for $8.75 an hour, pointed out the scars where fry baskets had seared her forearms. “At least they listened to us,” she said, referring to the panel. “We’re breathing little by little.”
Bill Lipton, state director of the Working Families Party, called the decision a victory for the “99-percenters.” Mr. Lipton, who has campaigned for better pay for low-wage workers for years, said, “There’s clearly a new standard for the minimum wage, and it’s actually a living wage for the first time in many, many decades.”
The decision comes on the heels of similar increases in minimum wages in other cities, including Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle. On Tuesday, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors agreed to raise the county’s minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2020, matching a move the Los Angeles City Council made in June.
But a more complicated political terrain in New York forced Mr. Cuomo to take a different route.
Mayor Bill de Blasio has demanded a higher minimum wage in the city to account for its higher cost of living. But neither he nor the City Council has the power to set wages citywide.
When lawmakers in Albany balked at the idea, Mr. Cuomo convened a board to look at wages in the fast-food industry, which is one of the biggest employers of low-wage workers in the state, with about 180,000 employees.
After hearing testimony from dozens of fast-food workers, the board members decided the state should mandate that fast-food chains pay more. Advocates often pointed to the giant pay packages the chains gave to their top executives.
The board’s decision removed the last significant hurdle to raising wages, since the acting labor commissioner, Mario Musolino, who must act on the recommendation, is widely expected to accept it.
The board said the first wage increase should come by Dec. 31, taking the minimum in the city to $10.50 and in the rest of the state to $9.75. The wage in the city would then rise in increments of $1.50 annually for the next three years, until it reaches $15 at the end of 2018. In the rest of the state, the hourly wage would rise each year, reaching $15 on July 1, 2021.
The mandate should apply to all workers in fast-food restaurants that are part of chains with at least 30 outlets, the board said. They defined fast food as food and drinks served at counters where customers pay before eating and can take their food with them if they choose.
The restaurant industry has chafed at these decisions. “We continue to say that we think it’s unfair that they singled out a single segment of our industry,” Melissa Fleischut, the executive director of the New York State Restaurant Association, said.
McDonald’s, a multinational corporation that paid its chief executive more than $7.5 million last year, said in April that it would raise the minimum wage it pays workers in company-owned stores to $9.90 by July 1 and to more than $10 next year.
Source: The New York Times
One Day Before GOP Debate, New Report Highlights Ties Between Prominent New Yorkers and Anti-Immigrant Groups
One Day Before GOP Debate, New Report Highlights Ties Between Prominent New Yorkers and Anti-Immigrant Groups
Note: Photos and Video of Protest available upon request. New York, NY (10/27/15)—Today, the Center for Popular...
Note: Photos and Video of Protest available upon request.
New York, NY (10/27/15)—Today, the Center for Popular Democracy Action (CPDA) and the Make the Road Action Fund (MRAF) released a new report, “Backers of Hate in the Empire State,” highlighting the ties between several prominent New Yorkers and the nation’s largest anti-immigrant network, which has fueled the anti-immigrant rhetoric being deployed in the Republican primary contest. Immigrant New Yorkers gathered outside a midtown diamond business connected to Barbara Winston, one of the individuals identified in the report, and called for candidates and other organizations to dissociate themselves from these xenophobic New Yorkers. They then marched to Trump Tower, picketing outside both buildings with chants of "No to Hate!" and "Sí se puede!" (Yes, We Can!).
The “Backers of Hate” report (download here) finds that, while New York is home to over 4.3 million immigrants from all corners of the world, the state is also home to wealthy New Yorkers who are funding and supporting an entire network of anti-immigrant organizations. Such organizations have fed the hateful rhetoric that current GOP presidential candidates are using—and will likely deploy again in tomorrow night’s debate.
Maria Rubio, a member of Make the Road Action Fund and Brooklyn resident, said, “These New Yorkers should be ashamed of supporting groups that have promoted the anti-immigrant rhetoric and organizing across the country that has become central to the Republican debates. The money and connections of a wealthy few have strengthened these fringe groups, that say terrible things about immigrants and prevent us from being able to live in peace with our families. But make no mistake: immigrants and Latinos are watching, and there will be a heavy political price for politicians that follow the lead of the Barbara Winstons of the world.”
Ana María Archila, Co-Executive Director of the Center for Popular Democracy Action, asserted: “The type of hate that these New Yorkers are spewing should have no place in New York State. The vast majority of New Yorkers support a pathway to citizenship and policies that welcome immigrants, while Barbara Winston and the others are working to vilify immigrants, undo birthright citizenship, block immigration relief for immigrant families, and insinuate their anti-immigrant attitudes into mainstream politics. Barbara Winston, Henry Buhl, and others are using their money and connections to advance a hateful agenda that not only hurts immigrants but frays the fabric of our entire society."
Elva Meneses, member of New York Communities for Change, affirmed, “I’m here to demand that these millionaires and billionaires stop supporting hateful organizations that say terrible things about immigrants like me and try to make our lives miserable. Instead of thinking fighting for opportunities for everyone, these wealthy New Yorkers are supporting hate as they trying to block immigration reform and immigration relief for undocumented immigrants. We call on all politicians and organizations to stop taking their dirty money immediately.”
“Backers of Hate” identifies five key individuals and the Weeden Foundation as key New Yorkers who are financially backing the work of anti-immigrant groups long associated with well-known white nationalist John Tanton. These groups include the Federation of American Immigration Reform (FAIR), which provides the political infrastructure for this anti-immigrant network and has been identified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center; the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), a so-called think tank that continuously produces faulty statistics utilized by the anti-immigrant network; NumbersUSA, which serves as the watchdog of the network, and; Keeping Identities Safe (formerly the Coalition for A Secure Driver’s License). In recent months, Donald Trump, Carly Fiorina, and other GOP candidates have sought to mainstream the hateful ideas and false “facts” about immigration promoted by the Tanton network of organizations, fueling an ugly national debate that has also led to violent attacks against immigrants in different parts of the country.
Note: Photos and Video of Protest available upon request.
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www.populardemocracy.org
The Center for Popular Democracy promotes equity, opportunity, and a dynamic democracy in partnership with innovative base-building organizations, organizing networks and alliances, and progressive unions across the country. CPD builds the strength and capacity of democratic organizations to envision and advance a pro-worker, pro-immigrant, racial justice agenda.
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