Iraq war protesters zero in on Pelosi Saturday, Mar 24 2007 

Los Angeles Times Stacy A. Anderson 9:22 PM

 

By Stacy A. Anderson, The Los Angeles Times

March 23, 2007

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/complete/la-na-codepink23mar23,1,4482095.story?ctrack=1&cset=true

WASHINGTON — Chanting antiwar slogans and holding up newspaper photos of dead soldiers, members of the activist group Code Pink protested outside the Capitol Hill office of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday, urging the San Francisco Democrat to oppose legislation that would provide an additional $124 billion to fund the Iraq war.

About 15 protesters — wearing foam Statue of Liberty crowns and pink scarves, ties or shoes — were met by a similar number of Capitol Police officers in the hallway of the Cannon House Office Building. After 20 minutes, four were arrested on charges of disorderly conduct because they were “loud and boisterous,” according to a police statement.

The protest, more subdued, then continued outside Pelosi’s office for an additional 25 minutes. The House vote on the legislation, which also would require President Bush to begin withdrawal of U.S. forces by next March, is scheduled for today.

“We want a strong leader to lead us out of the war quickly,” said Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin. Pelosi “needs to be bold and represent her constituents in San Francisco, who voted overwhelming against the war.

“Instead, she has been playing party politics,” said Benjamin, who held a sign that read “Nancy, this war is yours.”

Protester Howard Frick, 62, a Vietnam veteran, said: “This will become another Vietnam. Millions of soldiers are being killed and thousands of Iraqis are being murdered. This is the escalation of the war.”

Code Pink and other antiwar organizations are engaged in what they call the Occupation Project, an eight-week campaign of civil disobedience in which they attend hearings on Capitol Hill and go to congressional offices across the country, reading names of deceased soldiers and chanting “Stop funding the war.”

On March 11, the group set up “Camp Pelosi” outside the speaker’s San Francisco home. Members have remained there since; they also held a rally March 15 outside Pelosi’s apartment building in Washington.

“If we can’t get into your office, we are going into your home,” Code Pink spokeswoman Dana Balicki said. “Pelosi’s plan isn’t good enough. It shouldn’t be a compromise, and we should not play party politics.”

Code Pink members met with Pelosi’s staff this week. They said they did not receive a response when they asked how she planned to vote on the supplemental funding.

Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill said Thursday that the House speaker “respects their rights to express their views on the disastrous war in Iraq.”

 

FDA oversight of tobacco is debated Monday, Mar 5 2007 

Los Angeles Times Stacy A. Anderson 2:42 AM

Health experts say the agency should be able to regulate nicotine levels and limit advertising. 

 

By Stacy A. Anderson, The Los Angeles Times

February 28, 2007

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-tobacco28feb28,1,7538114.story

WASHINGTON — The Food and Drug Administration should be able to limit nicotine levels in cigarettes and require stronger warnings on packages and in advertising, health experts said Tuesday before lawmakers considering a bill to allow the agency to regulate tobacco products.

“FDA regulation will help us to combat the vicious marketing practices of a deceptive industry that has preyed upon our children, minorities and existing smokers who are desperately trying to kick their habit,” Dr. Elmer Huerta, the incoming president of the American Cancer Society, told members of the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

Similar legislation passed the Senate in 2004 but was defeated in the House. Supporters think the Democratic majorities in both chambers will make for smooth passage.

But one committee member, Sen. Michael B. Enzi (R-Wyo.), argued that asking the FDA to set standards for tobacco products implied to consumers that they would be safe.

About 400,000 Americans die each year of smoking-related ailments, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

“The FDA approves cures, not poisons,” Enzi said. “Forcing the FDA to regulate tobacco but not letting them ban it would undermine the long history of the agency protecting and promoting the public health.”

The legislation, introduced this month in the Senate and House with bipartisan support, would require tobacco companies to submit “reduced risk” products to the FDA for inspection and to disclose all ingredients. It would ban manufacturers from using terms such as “light” or “low tar,” which the bill’s supporters say have misled consumers by indicating that such products are less harmful.

In addition, the bill would give states the power to control tobacco advertising and promotion, which often target young people.

Matthew Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, said children were vulnerable to advertisements despite a 1998 agreement between 46 states and five tobacco companies to end the marketing of tobacco products to children.

“The tobacco companies have easily overcome these restrictions by dramatically increasing marketing expenditures and constantly finding new and sophisticated ways to market their products, many of which impact kids,” Myers said.

The tobacco industry doubled marketing budgets and spent more than $15 billion from 1998 to 2003, Myers said. Surveys by his organization said young people were almost twice as likely as adults to remember tobacco advertising.

Health experts said the use of hip-hop music, images of lavish lifestyles, candy-flavored tobacco, and displays at sporting events and similar venues have contributed to increased tobacco use among Latinos, African Americans and young women.

The FDA’s efforts to regulate tobacco products began in 1996, when the agency announced plans to restrict tobacco advertising aimed at young people. Tobacco companies sued, contending that the FDA did not have the authority to do so.

In 2000, the Supreme Court ruled, 5 to 4, that the FDA needed the specific approval of Congress to regulate tobacco products. The legislation being considered would give the FDA that authority.

The country’s largest cigarette manufacturer, Philip Morris USA, supports the legislation, saying in a statement submitted at Tuesday’s hearing that the bill would give the industry “a new framework within which manufacturers can refocus their efforts in reducing the harm of their products.”

“They figure that it’s good business to be perceived that way. They are still trying to make a profit,” said Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond and a former consultant to the FDA general counsel’s office. “They have such a big market share, they don’t mind being regulated. It may benefit them because the bill makes it harder for their competitors to gain a larger market share.”

 

Evacuees call for low-cost housing Saturday, Feb 10 2007 

Los Angeles Times Stacy A. Anderson 7:14 PM

 

By Stacy A. Anderson, The Los Angeles Times

February 7, 2007

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-katrina7feb07,1,7600245.story

 WASHINGTON — In the 17 months since Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, Sharon Jasper has shuffled from place to place, including a cot at the Superdome and temporary housing in Houston.

On Tuesday, she and nine other displaced residents of New Orleans’ public housing projects came to Capitol Hill to tell their stories, as the House Committee on Financial Services examined the loss of affordable housing because of the storm.

“As a New Orleans resident, a mother and a grandmother, I am looking out for the families that need shelter and a place to live,” Jasper said before the hearing at a news conference sponsored by the Advancement Project, a Washington-based civil rights group that filed suit in June against federal and local housing agencies. “Why not bring us back home?”

The lawsuit charges that by failing to repair and reopen undamaged or minimally damaged public housing, the agencies are discriminating against low-income African American residents.

The St. Bernard complex, where Jasper lived, suffered minor flooding and some mold damage from the storm. But the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Housing Authority of New Orleans plan to demolish it and similar complexes to build mixed-income apartments. More than 4,000 mostly black families who lived in public housing have been unable to return to New Orleans because of the demolition plan, according to the lawsuit’s supporters.

Julie M. Andrews, another displaced resident, told the House panel of her concerns about racial and economic disparity in the redevelopment of New Orleans.

“At this time, the rich are getting richer, and the poor are being further oppressed by the vicious plot to eliminate the low-income people of New Orleans, most of who are people of color,” she said. “It is an abomination to attempt to replace one race of people with another for the sake of economic gain.”

Andrews added that she and other evacuees were willing to work with the government to return to New Orleans. “The calls and cries of our people are deafening,” she said. “We need to come home.”

HUD spokeswoman Donna White said in an interview that redeveloping public housing would be more cost-effective than repairing current units, which she described as old and deteriorating even before the hurricane.

“These families deserve better homes and housing, and also a better neighborhood,” she said.

Her agency shares the same concerns as the displaced residents, she said. “We hope to work expeditiously. They should have the opportunity to come back. They have been through a lot.”

 

Maine lawmakers reject national identification Sunday, Jan 28 2007 

Los Angeles Times Stacy A. Anderson 2:58 AM

realid.jpg 

Photo courtesy of ACLU 

By Stacy A. Anderson, The Los Angeles Times

January 26, 2007

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-maine26jan26,1,4679804.story

WASHINGTON — Maine on Thursday became the first state to officially decline to comply with the Real ID Act of 2005, the federal law that critics say lays the foundation for creation of a national identity card.

Both houses of the state Legislature — voting unanimously in the Senate and 137 to 4 in the House — approved a resolution rejecting compliance with the act, which requires states to replace their driver’s licenses by May 2008 with forgery-proof scannable cards embedded with private information. The resolution also urges Congress to repeal the ID act.

To obtain the card, which is meant to ensure that the holder is in the U.S. legally, an individual would be required to present a Social Security card, birth certificate, proof of residency and a photo identity document.

All of this information, plus a biometric identifier such as a fingerprint, would be digitally stored in a nationwide database, accessible by federal, state and local government employees.

Privacy advocates argue that putting every driver’s personal information in that database would facilitate identity theft. Shenna L. Bellows, executive director of the Maine Civil Liberties Union, called it “a real ID nightmare.”

Timothy D. Sparapani, legislative counsel for privacy rights at the American Civil Liberties Union, described the act as “a burden to all kinds of constitutional rights” and said people could find it difficult to provide all of the required documentation. For example, he said, victims of natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina might no longer have their birth certificates.

Congress initially appropriated $100 million to put the system in place nationwide, but officials in Maine estimated that the program could cost $185 million in that state alone. The National Conference of State Legislatures has put the nationwide cost of implementation at about $11 billion.

“The federal government may be willing to burden us with the high costs of a program that will do nothing to make us safer, but it is our job as state legislators to protect the people of Maine from just this sort of dangerous federal mandate,” Maine’s Senate majority leader, Democrat Elizabeth H. Mitchell, said Thursday. “I am proud that this state has led the way in taking a stand against Real ID.”

The law, signed by President Bush in May 2005, grew out of a recommendation by the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks that the government improve its methods of identifying U.S. residents. Several of the Sept. 11 hijackers used fraudulent documents to board airplanes and rent cars.

Under the act, residents of states that refuse to comply with the program will not be allowed to use their driver’s licenses for any activity that requires federally accepted identification, such as boarding an airplane or entering a federal building. Several other states — including Montana, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Georgia and Washington — are considering legislation similar to Maine’s, according to the ACLU.

A spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, Jarrod Agen, did not comment directly on the Maine Legislature’s action, saying only that the purpose of the act was to protect citizens, not make them more vulnerable.

“By enhancing the standards of the license, it adds an extra layer of security against terrorism and use of fake documents to plan or carry out attacks against the United States,” he said. “We are putting extra security features in place to make sure licenses are not fraudulent documents.”

The department is supposed to issue regulations to states on how to implement the system. Agen said his agency was in the final stage of reviewing the guidelines, which are to be released soon.