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Fire on UC Berkeley campus during protest
Scott Morris (BCN)
Fire on UC Berkeley campus during protest
 

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Trump threatens UC Berkeley funding over Yiannopoulos protest

Scott Morris (BCN)
Thursday February 02, 2017 - 11:15:00 AM

"President" Donald Trump threatened today to pull federal funding for University of California at Berkeley in response to violent and destructive protests Wednesday outside a planned speech at the campus by far-right writer and "troll" Milo Yiannopoulos. 

"If U.C. Berkeley does not allow free speech and practices violence on innocent people with a different point of view - NO FEDERAL FUNDS?" Trump wrote on Twitter this morning. 

U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Berkeley, quickly hit back against Trump's tweet, issuing a statement denouncing the violence but promising to stand up to any attempt Trump makes to withdraw funding from the university. 

"Milo Yiannopoulos has made a career of inflaming racist, sexist and nativist sentiments. Berkeley has a proud history of dissent and students were fully within their rights to protest peacefully," Lee said. "However, I am disappointed by the unacceptable acts of violence last night which were counterproductive and dangerous." 

Lee continued, "President Donald Trump cannot bully our university into silence. Simply put, President Trump's empty threat to cut funding from UC Berkeley is an abuse of power. As a senior member of the education funding subcommittee, I will continue to stand up to President Trump's overreach and defend the rights of our students and faculty." 

The protests escalated quickly on the UC Berkeley campus ahead of Yiannopoulos's planned speech at 8 p.m. in the Martin Luther King Jr. Student Union. UC Berkeley police ordered the event canceled around 6 p.m. after protesters breached barricades, smashed windows at the venue and set a large fire on Sproul Plaza. 

Tense and sometimes violent protests have followed Yiannopoulos across the country. A UC Davis event was also canceled amid protests. A man was shot and critically wounded outside a speaking engagement in Seattle, reportedly by a Yiannopoulos supporter. 

Prior to Wednesday's scheduled event, UC Berkeley Chancellor Nicholas Dirks affirmed that the Berkeley College Republicans had a right to invite Yiannopoulos but discouraged them from doing so, calling him a "troll" and "provocateur" and saying that Yiannopoulos' rhetoric is at odds with the university's values. 

Dirks sent a new letter to the campus community today, condemning the violence and blaming it on a small group of outside agitators. 

"Last night the Berkeley campus was invaded by more than 100 armed individuals clad in Ninja-like uniforms who utilized paramilitary tactics to engage in violent destructive behavior designed to shut the event down," Dirks wrote. 

Once the event was canceled, protesters stayed in the area, ignoring repeated calls for them to disperse from university police officers making announcements from a second floor balcony. Despite threats that chemical agents and batons would be used, there were few police present on the plaza to enforce the order. 

Some event attendees stuck around and mingled with the estimated 1,500 protesters. A man wearing a "Make America Great Again" hat had his hat slapped away and was hit with an egg. Another attendee was doused with water as the crowd demanded he denounce racism and Trump. 

University police said that some members of the crowd were attacked by protesters and then rescued by police. UC police said there were six reports of minor injuries. 

One witness recounted seeing a man in a Make America Great Again hat hit with a pole, knocking him to the ground and leaving a pool of blood on the plaza. Police emerged from the building and took him away, according to the witness, who declined to be identified. [This account has not been independently verified.] 

The crowd took to the streets and was allowed to move around the campus area and downtown Berkeley unfettered. Masked protesters smashed several downtown businesses and looted a Starbucks near campus. 

John Caner, CEO of the Downtown Berkeley Association, said that at least 10 businesses were damaged by the protest. 

Some of the black-clad protesters tried to intimidate bystanders who snapped photos of the destruction, slapping phones out of people's hands and pushing them away.  

Reports of fighting in the crowd continued throughout the night. Berkeley police said there were three or four injuries from fights and reports of a vehicle hitting a pedestrian near the intersection of Telegraph and Durant avenues. 

Despite the violence and destruction, protesters encountered little police presence until they returned to campus and lines of riot police prevented them from reentering Sproul Plaza. UC Berkeley officials said the campus called in assistance from other UC campuses throughout the state as well as from Oakland police and the Alameda County Sheriff's Office. 

In a statement this morning, Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguin said, "Unfortunately, last night, a small minority of the protesters who had assembled in opposition to a speaking engagement featuring a prominent white nationalist engaged in violence and property damage." 

"They also provided the ultra-nationalist far right exactly the images they want to use to try to discredit the vast majority of peaceful protesters in Berkeley and across America who are deeply concerned about where our country is headed," Arreguin said. 

ScottMorris1125a02/02/17 

CONTACT: UC Berkeley Media relations executive director Dan Mogulof (510) 642-3715 Berkeley police spokesman Sgt. Andrew Frankel (510) 981-5780 Downtown Business Association CEO John Caner jcaner@downtownberkeley.com Christopher Huntley for Rep. Barbara Lee (202) 225-1882 

EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: Photos to accompany this story can be obtained from the following web link: https://goo.gl/photos/UqeiP4J89vcVA4he8 PHOTOS BY SCOTT MORRIS 

 

Copyright © 2017 by Bay City News, Inc. -- Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. 

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Press Release: Milo Yiannopoulos event canceled after violence erupts: UC Berkeley statement

Public Affairs, UC Berkeley
Thursday February 02, 2017 - 10:20:00 AM

Amid an apparently organized violent attack and destruction of property at UC Berkeley’s Martin Luther King Jr. Student Union, the UC Police Department (UCPD) determined it was necessary to evacuate controversial speaker Milo Yiannopoulos from campus and to cancel his scheduled 8 p.m. event. The Breitbart News editor had been invited by the Berkeley College Republicans.

At about 10 p.m., campus officials lifted the “shelter in place” order issued earlier in the evening and said Berkeley would be back to business as usual on Thursday. However, UCPD asked the community to be aware that protest activity was still occurring in the city of Berkeley and to avoid streets surrounding the campus.

The violence was instigated by a group of about 150 masked agitators who came onto campus and interrupted an otherwise non-violent protest. 

The decision to cancel the event was made at about 6 p.m., and officers read several dispersal announcements to a crowd of more than 1,500 protesters who had gathered outside the student union, where Yiannopoulos was to speak. He immediately was escorted from the building and left campus. 

Of paramount importance was the campus’s commitment to ensure the safety and security of those attending the event, the speaker, those who came to engage in lawful protest and members of the public and the Berkeley campus community. 

Fires that were deliberately set, one outside the campus Amazon outlet; Molotov cocktails that caused generator-powered spotlights to catch fire; commercial-grade fireworks thrown at police officers; barricades pushed into windows and skirmishes within the crowd were among the evening’s violent acts. 

The masked agitators came to campus eastbound on Bancroft Way, and fire damage and other destruction to the Stiles Hall construction site, where a new residence hall is planned, was reported. The group entered campus and immediately began throwing rocks at officers. In an effort to avoid injuries to innocent members of the surrounding crowd who might have been caught in the middle, police officers exercised restraint and did not respond with force. 

Agitators also attacked some members of the crowd who were rescued by police. UCPD reported no major injuries and about a half dozen minor injuries. Mutual aid officers from the city of Oakland and from Alameda County arrived at Berkeley around 7:45 p.m. to assist UCPD and Berkeley city police. 

No arrests had been made by UCPD as of 9:30 p.m. 

Campus officials said they condemn in the strongest possible terms the violence and unlawful behavior that was on display and deeply regret that those tactics now overshadow the efforts of the majority to engage in legitimate and lawful protest against the performer’s presence at Berkeley and his perspectives. 

UC Berkeley officials and UCPD went to extraordinary lengths to plan for this event, working closely with the Berkeley College Republicans and putting the appropriate resources in place to maintain security. Officials were in contact with other university campuses where Yiannopoulos had been asked to speak, and they paid close attention to lessons learned. Dozens of additional police officers were on duty for Wednesday’s scheduled event, and multiple methods of crowd control were in place. Ultimately, and unfortunately, however, it was impossible to maintain order given the level of threat, disruption and organized violence. 

Campus officials added that they regret that the threats and unlawful actions of a few have interfered with the exercise of First Amendment rights on a campus that is proud of its history and legacy as the home of the Free Speech Movement. 

In an earlier message to the Berkeley campus community, Chancellor Nicholas Dirks made it clear that while Yiannopoulos’ views, tactics and rhetoric are profoundly contrary to those of the campus, UC Berkeley is bound by the Constitution, the law and the university’s values and Principles of Community, which include the enabling of free expression across the full spectrum of opinion and perspective.


Dear Berkeley Students: An open letter (Public Comment)

Alexandra Grayner, UCB Class of 2007
Thursday February 02, 2017 - 09:50:00 AM

Most of you did not participate in the violent and destructive acts on Wednesday evening, and many of you are just as angry as me -- a concerned alumna. Nevertheless, in the coming weeks and months, you will have the unfortunate experience of being associated with these acts simply because you are a student at Berkeley.  

Your job now is to foster the environment on your campus where the violent behavior we witnessed last night is unacceptable. This is your university, so protect it. And not just from violence. You must also protect the free speech that previous generations of Berkeley students fought for -- on the same Sproul Plaza that burned last night.  

Do not be the infamous campus that shuns conservative ideas -- even if they are repugnant to your core values. Hate speech is the burden of free speech. And however disconnected you may feel to the events of last night, it is your responsibility to prove to Berkeley alumni that you will be the guardians of our free speech movement.  

I suggest you do so by inviting Milo Yiannopoulos to speak on campus. This would demonstrate the students’ continued commitment to free speech, and you can always have a peaceful protest outside.  

 

 


Updated: Berkeley Mayor's statement on protest

Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguin
Thursday February 02, 2017 - 09:44:00 AM

Destruction and violence are contrary to progressive values and have no place in our community. I support those who peacefully come together in pursuit of a just and inclusive country that stands united with our immigrant population and the many others who are being targeted in this national political climate.

Unfortunately, last night, a small minority of the protesters who had assembled in opposition to a speaking engagement featuring a prominent alt-rightist engaged in violence and property damage. They also provided the ultra-nationalist far right exactly the images they want to use to try to discredit the vast majority of peaceful protesters in Berkeley and across America who are deeply concerned about where our country is heading.

The decision to invite the speaker and cancel the speech was done by the University, and not the City of Berkeley. The strategy deployed by the police was not my decision, but the decision of the department based on professional judgment of the police department. They did an incredible job under these circumstances and prevented further violence.

I represent a city that stands united for community, for inclusion, and for a peaceful dialogue about the issues, and that stands united against bigotry, united against fear mongering, and united against violence towards anyone. For our community to be a beacon of light in these dark times, we must display our values of inclusion, keep each other and our community safe, embrace our right to peacefully assemble, and show the rest of the country our values in both speech and in action.


Berkeley campus cleared after protest violence last night

Alex Kekauoha (BCN)
Thursday February 02, 2017 - 08:30:00 AM

University of California, Berkeley police have cleared the campus following violent protests Wednesday night in response to a scheduled speech by journalist Milo Yiannopoulos. 

Around 11:00 p.m. Wednesday, UC Berkeley police lifted a previously issued campus lockdown, as well as a shelter-in-place order. Police reported substantial amounts of debris on campus, and warned visitors to the campus to be aware of their surroundings.  

Regularly scheduled classes and business at UC Berkeley will continue today, police said. 

Controversial writer and speaker Milo Yiannopoulos was invited to speak at UC Berkeley by the Berkeley College Republicans. His speech was scheduled to begin at 8 p.m., but was cancelled after protests erupted on campus. 

Several injuries and acts of vandalism were reported Wednesday night on campus as well as in various parts of the city of Berkeley.  

BART officials temporarily halted train service at the downtown Berkeley station due to civil disturbance in the area. 

In a statement, UC Berkeley officials said they "regret that the threats and unlawful actions of a few have interfered with the exercise of First Amendment rights on a campus that is proud of its history and legacy as home of the Free Speech Movement." 

AlexKekauoha


Congresswoman Lee’s Statement on Berkeley Protests

Congresswoman Barbara Lee
Wednesday February 01, 2017 - 10:53:00 PM

Milo Yiannopoulos has made a career of inflaming racist, sexist and nativist sentiments. Berkeley has a proud history of dissent and students were fully within their rights to protest peacefully. However, I am disappointed by the unacceptable acts of violence last night which were counterproductive and dangerous. 

President Donald Trump cannot bully our university into silence. Simply put, President Trump’s empty threat to cut funding from UC Berkeley is an abuse of power. As a senior member of the education funding subcommittee, I will continue to stand up to President Trump’s overreach and defend the rights of our students and faculty.” 


Congresswoman Lee is a member of the Appropriations Committee, Vice Chair of the Steering & Policy Committee, former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus and former co-chair of the Progressive Caucus and a Senior Democratic Whip. She serves as chair of the Democratic Whip Task Force on Poverty, Income Inequality and Opportunity.


Updated: Several injuries and extensive vandalism reported after violent demonstration at UC Berkeley

Scott Morris\Dave Brooksher (BCN)
Wednesday February 01, 2017 - 10:44:00 PM
Scott Morris\Dave Brooksher (BCN)
Scott Morris\Dave Brooksher (BCN)
Scott Morris\Dave Brooksher (BCN)

Several injuries have been reported and at least four banks have been vandalized tonight after demonstrators marched away from the scene of a violent protest at a canceled speaking event by controversial far-right writer and speaker Milo Yiannopoulos on the University of California at Berkeley campus. 

UC Berkeley police placed the campus on lockdown and ordered students to leave the area earlier this evening. A shelter-in-place order was issued for the area due to the protest, which police described as a "dangerous situation." They announced a dispersal order on Twitter at 6:45 p.m., but as of 6:55 p.m. there were few officers on the plaza to enforce it. 

Around 7:20 p.m. officers issued a 10-minute warning, threatening to use less-lethal weapons including chemical agents and batons if the crowd failed to disperse.  

An attendee at the event was hit with a pole by protesters. He had been hiding a Make America Great Again hat under his hood before the attack, according to a witness who asked to have his name withheld.  

When the victim revealed the hat, he was knocked to the ground. Other protesters attempted to strike him while he was down, according to the witness. Police watching from a balcony above observed the situation and came down to help him out of the crowd.  

After the attack, blood was seen on the ground in the plaza.  

At least one pyrotechnic device was thrown at police by the demonstrators earlier this evening. It exploded near one of the officers, according to UC Berkeley student Russell Bierle.  

The event barricades were breached and used to smash the windows of the campus bookstore, where the entrance to the event was located. A large fire was set in front of the building and it briefly spread to a nearby tree.  

The barricades directly in front of the bookstore were dismantled by protesters in masks. Many from the crowd gathered on the bookstore's steps. Around 8:05 p.m. the protesters marched south on Telegraph Avenue, away from the scene of the demonstration. They smashed ATMs at a Bank of America branch and set several trash fires on Telegraph Avenue. 

After marching west on Durant Avenue, the group moved north on Shattuck Avenue, smashing windows and vandalizing a Mechanics Bank branch near the corner of Bancroft Way.  

Chase and Wells Fargo branches were also vandalized. A Starbucks location near campus was vandalized and looted. 

At 9:23 p.m., BART officials announced that trains were not stopping at the Downtown Berkeley station due to a civil disturbance in the area. 

At 9:24 p.m., UC Berkeley police reported that protesters were heading back toward campus on Center Street. 

By 10 p.m. the protesters returned to Telegraph Avenue and Bancroft Way, where they began to disperse on their own.  

By 10:15 p.m. BART officials had re-opened the Downtown Berkeley station. 

Berkeley police said that three or four injuries were reported as a result of fighting at tonight's protest, and they are investigating reports of a possible hit-and-run crash in which a driver may have struck a person with a vehicle. 

They also received reports that banks were set on fire in the area of Center Street and Shattuck Avenue, according to police. 

Hundreds of protesters were observed at this evening's event. Over 2,100 people responded to a Facebook post that they would be attending.  

Yiannopoulos's events have drawn tense protests throughout the country, including a recent event that was canceled shortly before it was scheduled to begin at the University of California at Davis due to angry protests outside. 

UC Berkeley spokesman Dan Mogulof said that they have studied how the protests have escalated at other campuses and planned accordingly. 

"The concerted effort was to really take a close look at lessons learned at other events," Mogulof said. 

After Yiannopoulos was invited by Berkeley College Republicans, students at UC Berkeley called for the school to cancel the event and ban him from the campus. 

UC Berkeley Chancellor Nicholas Dirks responded to the outcry with an open letter to the campus community last week, affirming that Yiannopoulos would be allowed to speak because of the free speech rights of the campus Republicans, but said that Yiannopoulos's message is at odds with the values of the campus. 

Dirks called him a "troll" and "provocateur." Critics have said that Yiannopoulos is misogynistic, anti-Islam and racist. Campus republicans called him "amusing and provocative" in the event invitation. 

Yiannopoulos has been a journalist for right-wing news publication Breitbart under Steve Bannon, now an advisor to President Donald Trump. He has a book coming out later this year published by Simon & Schuster, a deal that was widely protested. 

Yiannopoulos issued a statement about the turmoil at this evening's event on Facebook. 

"I have been evacuated from the UC Berkeley campus after violent left-wing protestors tore down barricades, lit fires, threw rocks and Roman candles at the windows and breached the ground floor of the building," Yiannopoulos said. 

"My team and I are safe. But the event has been cancelled. I'll let you know more when the facts become clear. One thing we do know for sure: the Left is absolutely terrified of free speech and will do literally anything to shut it down." 

The Berkeley College Republicans also issued a statement on the night's events. 

"Today, the Berkeley College Republicans' constitutional right to free speech was silenced by criminals and thugs seeking to cancel Milo Yiannopoulos' tour," the group said. 

"Their success is a defeat for civilized society and the free exchange of ideas on college campuses across America. We would like to thank UCPD and the university administration for doing all they could to ensure the safety of everyone involved." 

 

 

Copyright © 2017 by Bay City News, Inc. -- Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. 

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Updated: Police Updates 12, 13

Berkeley Police
Wednesday February 01, 2017 - 10:52:00 PM

Update #13: The total demonstration crowd appears to have dwindled to about 200 persons. 

Over the course of the evening, we have received reports of roughly 5 persons who received injuries (unknown severity) from attacks as well as numerous buildings on Telegraph Avenue, Shattuck Avenue, and Center Street that have suffered damage from graffiti, broken windows, and fire. 

If you later discover damage/graffiti on City of Berkeley property, please report the damage/graffiti to the City of Berkeley’s Customer Service (Dial 311). 

If you later discover that your own personal property has been damaged, please report this to the Berkeley Police Department—(510) 981-5900 (or you may report the crime with BPD’s Online Report System—(http://www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/onlinereport/). 

Because of the violent behaviors of some of the persons in the demonstration, persons should avoid the area bounded by Hearst Avenue, Shattuck Avenue, College Avenue, and Dwight Way. 

Update #12: In addition to others on UC Berkeley campus, we are now receiving reports that there is group of about 150 people now walking eastbound on Bancroft Way—approaching Telegraph Avenue.


Press Release: Police Updates 9, 10, 11

Berkeley Police Department
Wednesday February 01, 2017 - 09:38:00 PM

Update #11: We are now receiving reports that group is now walking through the UC Berkeley campus.

Because of the violent behaviors of some of the persons in the demonstration, persons should avoid the area bounded by Hearst Avenue, Fulton Street, College Avenue, and Dwight Way.

Update #10: We are now receiving reports that persons are vandalizing businesses on the 2000 block of Center Street as the group of hundreds walk eastbound—towards UC Berkeley’s West Crescent.

Because of the violent behaviors of some of the persons in the demonstration, persons should avoid the area bounded by University Avenue, MLK Jr Way, Fulton Street, and Dwight Way.

Update #9: We are now receiving reports that persons are setting fires to banks in the area Center Street & Shattuck Avenue as well as more fighting in the crowds.

Because of the violent behaviors of some of the persons in the demonstration, persons should avoid the area bounded by University Avenue, MLK Jr Way, Fulton Street, and Dwight Way.


Police Update #8:

Wednesday February 01, 2017 - 09:06:00 PM

We are now receiving reports of persons vandalizing businesses on Shattuck Avenue—as the group of 200-300 persons walk northbound on Shattuck Avenue towards University Avenue.

Because of the violent behaviors of some of the persons in the demonstration, persons should avoid the area bounded by University Avenue, MLK Jr Way, College Avenue, and Dwight Way.


Police Update #7:

Berkeley Police
Wednesday February 01, 2017 - 08:43:00 PM

The Berkeley Police Department is now receiving information that the crowd of 200 to 300 persons is now moving westbound on Durant Avenue—from Telegraph Avenue towards Shattuck Avenue. 

Because of the previous violent behaviors of some of the persons in the demonstration, persons should avoid the area bounded by Bancroft Way, MLK Jr Way, College Avenue, and Dwight Way.



Advisory Update #6:

Berkeley Police
Wednesday February 01, 2017 - 08:42:00 PM

We are receiving unconfirmed reports that there may have been hit & run collision involving a white BMW at the intersection of Durant & Telegraph Avenue—where a person may have been struck. At this time, we have not found a victim of this incident. 

Because of the violent nature of some of the persons in the demonstration, persons should avoid the area. 

Persons in the area bounded by Bancroft Way, Shattuck Avenue, College Avenue, and Dwight Way should avoid the area.


Police threaten to use tear gas

Berkeley Police
Wednesday February 01, 2017 - 08:20:00 PM

Update #5: We are now receiving reports that a group of hundreds are now walking southbound on Telegraph Avenue—approaching Channing Way. At this point, the Berkeley Police Department has received reports of at least 3-4 injuries from fights happening in the area as well as reports of some vandalism to businesses in the area. 

Because of the violent nature of some of the persons in the demonstration, persons should avoid the area and be advised that emergency responders may need to use tear gas to disperse the demonstrators. 

Persons in the area bounded by Bancroft Way, Shattuck Avenue, College Avenue, and Dwight Way should avoid the area.


Flash: Advisory: Update: Violent Demonstration happening in the South campus

Berkeley Police
Wednesday February 01, 2017 - 07:39:00 PM

The Berkeley Police Department is now receiving reports that there are fights happening within the crowd along the Telegraph Avenue corridor. The demonstration crowd is now estimated at 1000 persons.

Persons in the area bounded by Bancroft Way, Shattuck Avenue, College Avenue, and Dwight Way should avoid the area.

The University Police Department has requested additional outside police resources to address the violent demonstration happening in the area. Because of the violent nature of some of the persons in the demonstration, persons should avoid the area and be advised that emergency responders may need to use tear gas to disperse the demonstrators.

Persons in the area bounded by Bancroft Way, Shattuck Avenue, College Avenue, and Dwight Way should avoid the area. 


Flash: Provocateur's lecture cancelled amid protests-shelter in place issued

Scott Morris (BCN)
Wednesday February 01, 2017 - 07:18:00 PM
Apparent protesters smash windows
Scott Morris (BCN)
Apparent protesters smash windows
Fire on UC Berkeley campus during protest
Scott Morris (BCN)
Fire on UC Berkeley campus during protest

Police threaten use of batons, chemical agents as protest at canceled Yiannopoulos event turns violent

Police at the University of California at Berkeley have placed the campus on lockdown and asked residents to stay away from the area amid a tense protest at a planned speaking event by controversial far-right writer and speaker Milo Yiannopoulos this evening.

A shelter-in-place order has been issued for the area due to the protest, which police described as a "dangerous situation." They announced a dispersal order on Twitter at 6:45 p.m., but as of 6:55 p.m. there were few officers on the plaza to enforce it.

The event barricades were breached and used to smash the windows of the campus bookstore, where the entrance to the event was located. A large fire has been burning in front of the building. It briefly spread to a nearby tree.

The barricades directly in front of the bookstore were dismantled by protesters in masks. Many from the crowd have gathered on the bookstore's steps. 

Hundreds of protesters were observed at this evening's event. Over 2,100 people responded to a Facebook post that they would be attending. 

Yiannopoulos's events have drawn tense protests throughout the country, including a recent event that was canceled shortly before it was scheduled to begin at the University of California at Davis due to angry protests outside. 

UC Berkeley spokesman Dan Mogulof said today that the university Police Department called in officers from other UC campuses in the area, including Davis, and could ask for help from Oakland police and the Alameda County Sheriff's Office if necessary. 

He said that they have studied how the protests have escalated at other campuses and planned accordingly. 

"The concerted effort was to really take a close look at lessons learned at other events," Mogulof said. 

After being invited by Berkeley College Republicans, students at UC Berkeley called for the school to cancel the event and ban Yiannopoulos from the campus. 

UC Berkeley Chancellor Nicholas Dirks responded to the outcry with an open letter to the campus community last week, affirming that Yiannopoulos would be allowed to speak because of the free speech rights of the campus Republicans, but said that Yiannopoulos's message is at odds with the values of the campus. 

Dirks called him a "troll" and "provocateur." Critics have said that Yiannopoulos is misogynistic, anti-Islam and racist. Campus republicans called him "amusing and provocative" in the event invitation. 

Yiannopoulos has been a "journalist" for right-wing news publication Breitbart under Steve Bannon, now an advisor to President Donald Trump. He has a book coming out later this year published by Simon & Schuster, a deal that was widely protested. 

Tonight's event was sold out. 

Yiannopoulos issued a statement about the turmoil at this evening's event on Facebook. 

"I have been evacuated from the UC Berkeley campus after violent left-wing protestors tore down barricades, lit fires, threw rocks and Roman candles at the windows and breached the ground floor of the building," Yiannopoulos said. 

"My team and I are safe. But the event has been cancelled. I'll let you know more when the facts become clear. One thing we do know for sure: the Left is absolutely terrified of free speech and will do literally anything to shut it down." 


Statement from the UC Berkeley campus administration re cancellation of Yiannopoulos speech

UCB Media Relation office
Wednesday February 01, 2017 - 07:29:00 PM

Amid violence, destruction of property, and out of concern for public safety, the University of California Police Department has cancelled tonight’s scheduled 8 p.m. performance at Pauley Ballroom by Milo Yiannopoulos, who has been invited to speak by the Berkeley College Republicans. 

The decision was made at about 6 p.m., two hours before the event, and officers read several dispersal announcements to the crowd of more more than 1,500 protesters that had gathered outside of the Martin Luther King Jr. ASUC venue.  

Of paramount importance this evening was the campus’s commitment to ensure the safety and security of those attending the event, the speaker, those who came to engage in lawful protest, as well as members of the public and the Berkeley campus community.  

We condemn in the strongest possible terms the violence and unlawful behavior that was on display, and deeply regret that those tactics will now overshadow the efforts to engage in legitimate and lawful protest against the performer’s presence and perspectives. 

The University and the UCPD went to extraordinary lengths to plan for this event and put the appropriate resources in place in order to maintain security. Officials were in contact with other campuses and paid close attention to lessons learned at the speaker’s prior events. Dozens of additional police officers were on duty. Multiple methods of crowd control were in place. Ultimately and unfortunately, however, it was simply impossible to maintain order given the level of threat, disruption, and violence. 

We regret that the threats and unlawful actions of a few have interfered with the exercise of First Amendment rights on a campus that is proud of its history and legacy as home of the Free Speech Movement. As Chancellor Dirks made clear in his message to the Berkeley campus community, while Mr. Yiannopoulos' views, tactics and rhetoric are profoundly contrary to our own, we are bound by the Constitution, the law, our values, and the campus’s Principles of Community to enable free expression across the full spectrum of opinion and perspective.


Press Release: Milo Yiannopoulos Event: Recent Campus Communications

UC Berkeley Communications & Public Affairs | Media Relations
Wednesday February 01, 2017 - 03:29:00 PM

The following message was sent to all UC Berkeley Students today, just before noon:

Dear Undergraduate and Graduate Students,

As you may be aware, a controversial speaker will be on campus the evening of Wednesday, February 1, 2017. The event will take place at the MLK Student Union (adjacent to Sproul Plaza), with doors opening at 7pm and the event beginning at 8pm. We anticipate there will be major protest/demonstration activity leading up to and surrounding this event which may result in large crowds and difficulties transiting the area around the venue. 

Your safety and well-being are our top priorities. We encourage students who do not wish to participate in or potentially be impacted by the events to consider exploring alternative routes that avoid the Sproul Plaza area: www.berkeley.edu/map

If you feel the need for support, please be aware that the campus has several resources you may wish to explore, including counseling services. Remember, you can and should contact law enforcement directly if you experience physical harm, direct threats, or emergency situations. 

Campus Resources: 

 

  • Support: You may contact the Office of the Associate Vice Chancellor and Dean of Students, dedicated to helping create an inclusive environment that supports all students to reach their educational, aspirational, and personal goals. Please contact: deanofstudents@berkeley.edu, or visit the Well Being resource (deanofstudents.berkeley.edu/well-being).
  • Tang Center - Social Services: Social Services provides confidential individual counseling, group counseling, and consultation. uhs.berkeley.edu/social-services, (510) 642-6074. Counseling and Psychological Services are available to all students for emotional support.
  • Reporting: For information and support on reporting hate crimes or hate-motivated acts: stophate.berkeley.edu.
  • Office for the Prevention of Harassment and Discrimination: OPHD (ophd.berkeley.edu, (510) 643-7985) is responsible for ensuring the University provides an environment for faculty, staff, and students that is free from discrimination and harassment on the basis of categories including race, color national origin, gender, age and sexual orientation/identity.
  • Student Legal Services: 510-642-3916, sa.berkeley.edu/legal. Advises students regarding their legal questions, rights, and obligations.
  • Law Enforcement:
    University Police Department (UCPD): police.berkeley.edu, (510) 642-6760.
    Berkeley Police Department: ci.berkeley.ca.us/police, (510) 981-5900.
Please know that the campus is committed to our values of tolerance, inclusion, and diversity. The campus is also committed to freedom of speech and UC Berkeley, as a public institution, cannot ban expression based on its content or viewpoints. We invite you to read the open letter from Chancellor Dirks, which explains the campus perspective (chancellor.berkeley.edu/chancellor-dirks-open-letter-regarding-milo-yiannopoulos-campus-visit). 

 

We encourage those of you who wish to exercise your right to lawful protest to review our standing suggestions regarding how to protest safely. We also want to re-affirm our shared commitment to the campus Principles of Community and the extent to which they capture and support our most important values and aspirations. 

Take care of yourselves and each other. 

Sincerely, 

Stephen C. Sutton, Ed.D.
Interim Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs 

Joseph D. Greenwell
Associate Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs and Dean of Students 

______________________________ 

The following message was sent last night by UC Berkeley’s Office of Student Affairs to the leadership of the Berkeley College Republicans: 

Dear BCR Signatories - 

I am deeply aware of the many complex issues that are swirling around Milo’s visit to our campus and you no doubt have a lot on your plates right now. I must now also make sure you are aware that Milo, Brietbart and the David Horowitz Freedom Center have published an article today, 1/31/17, stating their intention to use the Berkeley College Republican’s event to launch their campaign targeting the undocumented student community on our campus. Here is the article: 

http://www.breitbart.com/milo/2017/01/31/milo-horowitz-start-campaign-sanctuary-campuses/ 

There are concerns that he will be employing the strategies of using pictures and personal information of Cal students during his speech which, as you know, is simultaneously being live-streamed therefore making these images widely available and subsequently putting students at risk. 

Also, please know other targeted groups on our campus have experienced Horowitz’ tactic of publicizing the names and pictures of individuals on posters throughout campus property and there is a likelihood that there will be Horowitz-backed posters pasted throughout our campus tomorrow publicizing the Milo event in conjunction with targeted individual’s names. 

BCR has expressed their position condemning these tactics and, in fact, have been victimized themselves. We are deeply concerned for all students’ safety and ability to pursue their education here at Cal beyond Milo’s speech. At the bottom of this email are campus resources for reporting incidents. 

Please let me know your thoughts on what BCR can do to address the concerns that Milo’s event may be used to target individuals, either in the audience or by using their personal information in a way that causes them to become human targets to serve a political agenda. Let me know if I can be a resource in managing this issue.


New: An Open Letter to the Berkeley City Council about the Kennedy boxes (Public Comment)

Dr. James McFadden
Monday January 30, 2017 - 03:48:00 PM

The Kennedy plan for renting 100 tiny box apartments to the city for the homeless, as suggested in a Berkeleyside article, appears to be a developer boondoggle -- a wasteful use of city funds. I am completely sympathetic with the homeless plight and strongly feel that it is our moral duty to provide shelter options for the homeless. However this crisis should not be used to pad the pocketbooks of investors and developers. This is disaster capitalism at its worst – exactly what Naomi Klein warned against in her book “Shock Doctrine.” Below I outline the reasons that the city of Berkeley should not to get sucked into this developer boondoggle. 

First, consider the relative cost of this development. The developer claims it will cost $25 million to build the 100 unit structure – that is $250k for an 8 x 20 foot cell. Kennedy is claiming that the construction costs are therefore $250k/160sqft = $1562/sqft. This is 10 times the typical construction costs of $150/sq ft for wood frame construction. Even if we doubled these typical construction costs to adjust for higher labor and material costs in the bay area, Kennedy is charging 5 times the going construction rate. 

What is really happening here is either the developer is fudging the numbers about the actual costs or he has constructed shell companies, with investors taking a cut at each phase of construction, in order to create the illusion that costs are >$1500/sqft. The actual return to his investors will likely be 5 times his claimed 5% return – more like a ~25% return on investment. 

This is an investor’s wet dream since the wealth extraction is from a city and therefore entails no risk. The developer can claim high capital costs and rapidly depreciate these claimed costs, effectively reducing his capital gains from rentier extraction – more tax-cheating wealth extraction from the public. In addition, since the developer will not be paying property taxes (since he is just leasing the boxes to the city), there is no long term return to the city on this for-profit capital development. 

In the Berkeleyside article, there was no discussion of management fees or utility costs. Who will pay these? 

Lastly, the city will pay this rent independent of whether the units are actually housing people. This project looks like premium rent extraction from the city – a bad deal for the citizens of Berkeley.  

Second, consider the requirement of the city providing public land, at no cost, for this “for-profit” venture. This is effectively a giveaway of the commons to private developers. 

This was the basic problem with the Bates Administration and why the Council was changed. For the last several years we saw giveaways to developers in the form of discounts and delays in implementing new fees on developers. This venture, Kennedy’s homeless boxes, sounds like the same type of backroom deal making. I hope that Council members are not in on this boondoggle.  

Since the developer will not be paying property taxes (since he is just leasing the boxes to the city), there is no long term return to the city on this for-profit capital development. For the developers, this is the perfect arrangement. The city provides cost-free access to public land – it is a total boondoggle for the developer – as are all land giveaways. 

Please don’t support this crony capitalism. Public land should be used for the public benefit and remain in the public domain. If housing is needed, public land should be used to create public housing by non-profits with the city retaining ownership. Such public ownership provides a check on the ever increasing rents and housing prices driven by a housing bubble economy. This unstable investor-driven bubble can be stabilized by a relatively small amount of public housing combined with rent control. 

Third, the issue of homelessness should be divorced from the issue of low cost housing -- or from any attempts to create more student level housing which should be the job of the University. Market rate housing (the Kennedy micro boxes appear to be more costly than market rate) has no role to play in housing the homeless. 

Homelessness should not be considered a permanent state requiring city funded for-profit construction of permanent housing. For some, homelessness is a temporary state requiring public aid and shelter until people can recover from a financial disaster. For others who are permanently disabled, it should be a temporary state until some sort of permanent assisted living is made available through public social safety nets. And for those who are incapable of working due to mental disabilities or addictions, it should be a temporary state requiring shelter while they are encouraged to seek out help through other social services to help them recover. Temporary shelters should not require the city to invest in a profit making venture. Below I outline what I think should be done in the short term. The long term solutions should be resolved by trained professional social workers, architectural experts from non-profits, and by representatives of the homeless. 

If the city wants to help the homeless, the first thing to do is to stop the police raids that threaten their lives by taking away the few possessions that are keeping them alive. 

Second, the city should provide several safe locations where the homeless can camp with no fear of attacks until better shelters can be found. 

Third, the city should construct permanent facilities needed by the homeless – public bathrooms located throughout the city – bathrooms not only for the homeless but for the public at large. These should be maintained at a standard the pubic expects – like our parks. As part of the infrastructure needed to deal with the homeless and make their lives tolerable, the city should also construct public showers and laundry facilities that are tied to homeless service outreach. These might also include areas where food could be prepared. These services should be free. 

Fourth, the city should contract to non-profits to develop low cost solutions to provide better spaces with safe and secure shelters for the homeless. These shelters need not duplicate the public facilities (bathrooms, showers, laundry) already created and therefore can be had at much lower cost. 

Fifth, solving this problem will require multiple solutions because the homeless are not monolithic. For some homeless, a temporary camping area near a public bathroom may be adequate. For others with disabilities and no means of support, permanent facilities with a support structure may be required as part of the social safety net. For others tiny houses on wheels with no plumbing, or even minimalist stacked shipping containers with access stairs, could provide a better solution then camping under bridges or in doorways. 

In all these cases, the social workers and city representatives should be inclusive in talking to the homeless so that they buy into the solutions. There is no point in coming up with a top-down solutions and attempting to impose them on the homeless. An authoritarian, top-down response will likely result in the homeless resisting any such solutions. 

Lastly, we may have to accept that even after the multiple solutions discussed above are completed, this will not cover everyone. You can’t force everyone to act in a manner deemed suitable by society. What we can do is create paths to help them exit their homeless state or to provide them with some level of dignity if they are in a permanent state of poverty. These solutions should be designed to help those who are asking for help and willing to accept it on their terms. This starts by bringing the homeless into the discussion in efforts to find solutions. 

Finally, a word about the skyrocketing costs of Berkeley housing. This is a separate issue from providing shelter for the homeless. If the city wants to construct low cost housing to hold down rents for the public, it should not be subsidizing higher than market rate micro-housing. The only way to control long term housing costs is to develop true public housing that is owned by the city and provides a check on market-rate development. And as regards the economy of Berkeley, why would the city participate in a venture that ships our construction jobs to China? If the city is to solve the housing crisis for the lower and middle income citizens, it should also think about using this effort to create local jobs which will boost the local economy. Again, non-profits will provide the best solutions. 

Finally, I toured the tiny box apartment sitting across from Berkeley High School. If anything these tiny boxes appear to be more suitable as studio apartments for student housing. If these boxes are such a great value, why isn’t the UC Berkeley Administration forming a joint venture with Kennedy to construct such housing? I suspect it is because the university has access to architects and economists who can do the calculations and demonstrate it is a bad deal. The university probably knows that long term student housing is much less expensive when using standard construction methods and UC ownership rather than the rentier solution proposed by Kennedy. 

I’ve talked to six architects to ask their opinions – and they all suggested it was a boondoggle. For comparison, one can purchase a trailer with roughly the same dimensions and same level of interior accessories for about $25,000 – one tenth the cost. One could construct a parking garage and park the trailers in that garage for about one fifth the cost. The Kennedy plan is a boondoggle. This deal looks so lucrative for the developer, that the Council should investigate who is backing this plan and look for some sort of kickback or quid pro quo. The entire deal smells of corruption.


New: Harvard Prof outlines limits to presidential power

Carol Polsgrove
Wednesday February 01, 2017 - 01:15:00 PM

With posters on social media spreading the notion that a coup is in process, I suggest we take time to listen to what Harvard Law School professor Jack Goldsmith has to say about the limits to presidential power.

In an interview with The Cipher Brief, Goldsmith acknowledges the range of powers Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama have exercised ever since Congress authorized use of force after the 9/11 attack. In the nearly 15½ years since then, he says, presidents have used “extensive military force, expanded surveillance at home and abroad, detention without trial, and much more.”

Still, Goldsmith notes significant checks on presidential power. Civil society groups like the ACLU can file lawsuits and issue reports. The press “is more motivated than ever to hold Trump accountable.” He also counts on the judiciary and even Congress to restrain Trump “if he engages in excessive behavior.” 

Then there are bureaucrats inside the executive branch who “have expertise, interests and values, and infighting skills that enable them to check and narrow the options for even the most aggressive presidents.” (We are seeing such a push-back now in the dissent cable signed by around 1,000 State Department employees who object to Trump’s executive order barring citizens from seven countries with Muslim majorities) 

In short, Goldsmith predicts that Trump could threaten to do illegal things like creating a Muslim registry, but he won’t be able to carry them out. 

I wouldn’t take too much solace from this point, however,” he warns, “since a president can do many things that are lawful but awful.” 

Goldsmith knows whereof he speaks: he served in the George W. Bush administration as Assistant Attorney General and as Special Counsel to the General Counsel to the Department of Defense. He is author of The Terror Presidency: Law and Judgment Inside the Bush Administration


(Stay tuned to the BDP for updates on legal commentary on the Trump administration.) 

 

 

 

 

 


Press Release: Berkeley Settles Lawsuit Over Police Brutality at 2014 Black Lives Matter Protest

From the National Lawyers Guild web site
Tuesday January 31, 2017 - 01:52:00 PM

Protesters and journalists have reached a tentative settlement with the City of Berkeley in a National Lawyers Guild federal civil rights lawsuit over police brutality at a December 6, 2014, racial justice protest.

The plaintiffs alleged that they were clubbed and tear gassed for no reason and forcibly herded more than a mile down Telegraph Avenue, from the south campus area into Oakland. The settlement, which is expected to be approved at the February 14, 2017, Berkeley City Council meeting, includes policy changes intended to prevent a recurrence of the police misconduct, and $125,000 for seven plaintiffs. Two other plaintiffs settled earlier with the City of Hayward, whose police provided mutual aid at the protest, for an undisclosed amount. 

The 2014 protest was a march calling for justice for Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Rekia Boyd and other unarmed Black people who have been killed by police. The march was largely peaceful, said Rachel Lederman, one of the plaintiffs’ lawyers. But the Berkeley Police almost immediately began hitting people in an indiscriminate manner and causing needless confrontation. One of the main issues was an unwritten Berkeley Police policy that at demonstrations, officers were allowed to use their batons on anyone who entered their safety zone – an unmarked, undefined distance from a line of officers. 

Photojournalist Sam Wolson, on assignment for the San Francisco Chronicle at the protest, was clubbed on the head as he knelt to take a photo. Wolson said that, I’m glad the Berkeley Police have helped resolve this case. If journalists are restricted by force from holding all parties accountable, then the whole system breaks down. This is even more important today, as we look to the next four years.
Under the terms of the settlement, it will now be made clear to officers that they cannot use force simply because demonstrators get too close to them. Instead, the same legal standards will apply for use of force at a demonstration, as in any situation. To comply with the Fourth Amendment, force must be necessary and reasonable, explained civil rights attorney Jim Chanin, co-counsel for the plaintiffs. 

The settlement will also create greater accountability when force is used at demonstrations. For the first time, Berkeley Police Officers will have to write reports following a demonstration or crowd event describing their use of force, including the reason for the use of force, location, description of the individual upon whom the force was used, and the type of force. In addition, BPD made a commitment to seek full implementation of police body cameras. 

Plaintiff Moni T. Law said, The students, faculty, families, people in wheelchairs, and other peaceful demonstrators will be relieved that their pain on December 6, 2014, was not in vain. Berkeley’s police department has taken positive steps toward becoming a model for other police departments by making these changes. These are turbulent times on the national level, and people will express their disapproval in the streets, courts and government halls. Best practices protect the right to safely protest while protecting property and people from harm. We consider the settlement a victory for a better Berkeley, one that supports our diverse, engaged and outspoken community. We call on the City Council to uphold Berkeley’s values as the birthplace of the Free Speech Movement by not only approving this settlement but prohibiting the police from using ‘less than lethal’ weapons and chemical agents (including tear gas) at protests. 

“I am very pleased that we have made significant changes in the way Berkeley Police respond to political demonstrations,” added Chanin. “However, I regard these changes as only the beginning of a more complete overhaul in the manner that Berkeley Police handle political demonstrations. I believe that these and other changes will not only promote officer safety, but will allow demonstrators to express their views without worrying about unlawful police conduct. I am hopeful that we can return to the days when people in a crowd could be confident that when the Berkeley Police were there, their civil rights would be protected.” 

Lawsuit Complaint 

The National Lawyers Guild is a human rights bar association in existence since 1937. The Bay Area Chapter has hundreds of members – lawyers, legal workers, law students, and jailhouse lawyers – throughout Northern California. The Guild’s social justice work includes providing legal support and Legal Observers at progressive demonstrations all over the country. 

More information at www.nlgsf.org


San Francisco sues Trump over sanctuary order

Sara Gaiser (BCN)
Tuesday January 31, 2017 - 01:05:00 PM

San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera today filed a federal lawsuit against President Donald Trump challenging the constitutionality of an executive order threatening sanctuary cities with enforcement actions and a loss of federal funding.  

"The president's executive order is not only unconstitutional, it's un-American," Herrera said at a City Hall news conference with Mayor Ed Lee. "That's why we must stand up and oppose it." 

The executive order, signed last Wednesday, directs federal agencies to cut off federal grant funds to cities such as San Francisco with sanctuary city policies that limit the cooperation of local law enforcement and government agencies with federal immigration authorities. 

San Francisco receives around $1.2 billion in federal funds, about half of which is dispersed through the state and half directly from federal agencies. City officials say it remains unclear exactly what funds would be affected by the executive order, but the bulk of those funds go for programs such as health care, nutrition and housing. 

Lee said today that San Francisco has been working to prepare for its legal defense ever since Trump's election in November. The mayor has vowed to maintain the city's sanctuary city policies, which are intended to increase public safety by encouraging immigrant communities to cooperate with law enforcement, seek health care and enroll their children in schools. 

"We are ready to fight, to keep our city safe," Lee said. "The president's misguided executive order makes our residents less safe and as a city we will fight back." 

The city's lawsuit asserts that the city is in compliance with federal laws regarding the sharing of information on immigration status, but also challenges the constitutionality of those laws, which underlie the executive order, Herrera said. 

The order also directly violates constitutional protections on San Francisco's autonomy and sovereign powers as a local government, according to the lawsuit. 

Herrera said courts have repeatedly upheld the finding that the federal government cannot force local governments to act as agents of federal policy, most recently in a 2012 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that found states could not be forced to comply with elements of the Affordable Care Act. 

"The federal government can't hold a gun to the head of state and local governments," Herrera said. "That remains true no matter who is making the order." 

San Francisco adopted a sanctuary city policy 28 years ago after local officials recognized that domestic violence victims were unwilling to report their attackers to police because they feared deportation. More than 400 cities and counties across the country have similar policies on the books, including New York and Los Angeles. 

While opponents of sanctuary city policies have argued the policies threaten public safety, Herrera cited a University of San Diego study that found sanctuary jurisdictions tend to have, on average, 35.5 fewer crimes committed per 10,000 people compared to non-sanctuary jurisdictions. 

In San Francisco, the policy drew national notoriety after the July 1, 2015, fatal shooting of Kate Steinle, a 32-year-old Pleasanton native, by Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, a Mexican citizen with a history of drug convictions and deportations. 

Lopez-Sanchez had been released from San Francisco's jails a few days before the shooting. 

Steinle's family sued the city because the sheriff's department had released Lopez-Sanchez without notifying immigration authorities. However, a federal judge threw out the family's case against the city earlier this month, saying there was no law requiring the city to disclose his release date. The B oard of Supervisors voted in May to uphold and revise the city's policies to clarify that law enforcement would only notify immigration authorities of an inmate's release in limited circumstances involving serious felonies.


New: MacArthur BART Tower: BART Succumbs to Edifice Complex (Public Comment)

Robert Brokl/ Alfred Crofts
Tuesday January 31, 2017 - 11:01:00 AM

Councilperson Kalb finally got around to having a public meeting, Dec. 14 at Beebe Memorial Church, around the increasingly controversial 24-story Tower proposed for the MacArthur BART station parking lot. Expect if this ones goes through for renewed efforts to do the same at the Rockridge BART station. Councilperson Kalb just got re-elected against a little-known opponent, so it shouldn't come as much of a surprise he’s ducking the issue, even if BART and the developers have colluded to turn the 5-6 story project reviewed in the 2008 EIR into a 24-story behemoth. The tower, as proposed by the Boston Properties and McGrath Properties developers, would be the second tallest building in Oakland. It is on a fast track for approval, despite neighborhood opposition and scant attempt at community buy-in. Conveniently for project sponsors, and astroturf pro-housing cheerleaders, many residents are distracted by the recent national election, and tuned out for the moment from politics. 

The belated meeting was a disaster, despite the groaning board of free pizza and drinks. Planning staff, as represented by the assigned planner Catherine Payne of the renamed Bureau of Planning although Orwellian Ministry might be more accurate, was the epitome of chilly opacity—an unwillingness or inability to enlighten and inform. Her focus was simply how soon this project was going to appear before the commission—an emphasis completely upon the rushed process, and not at all on substance. 

 

“Affordable" housing

The audience and developers in attendance, along with elected officials and others, clearly focussed upon issues of affordability. We and others raised questions about the percentage of affordable units, and the unaffordability of the “affordable” units—80% of mean income, approximately $2000./month--hardly affordable for truly needy residents. 

 

That the questions weren’t answered indicated the affordability issue is a smokescreen for approval of a developer’s desire for maximum profit. The developer, planning staff, the BART representatives, and the Councilperson were unhelpful with clarifying specific questions about the exact square footage of “affordable” units, as opposed to a percentage of the total square footage, an unwillingness to commit to permanent, affordable, rental units, even if they were converted to for-sale units, and the location and desirability of the these units within the building. We understand the “affordable” units will have their own, presumably, lesser entrance. 

Councilperson Kalb, unfortunately, channeled his predecessor, Jane Brunner, steering the conversation toward “community benefits” to be wheedled from the developer, rather than entertaining any consideration of actually scaling back the height of the project, which is the source of much of the opposition. Whatever redesign of the project the developer appears likely to agree to would be a sop. Councilperson Kalb seems unfamiliar with the stretches of logic planning staff uses to justify projects, chief among them “precedent.” He flatly denied this project would be precedent for future projects, then quickly qualified that dubious claim to add “not as far as he was concerned, anyway.” 

He apparently hadn’t read the terse Aug. 10, 2016 staff report recommending some minor design changes: “The proposed tower would still set precedent and should reflect the design quality desired of a very visible precedent-setting landmark." 

Of course, another consequence of allowing a 24 story tower on this postage stamp size lot is that it distorts the value of existing nearby land prices: the Manhattanization syndrome—one tower begets another. 

 

Trumpian demagogery

The amount of demagoguery in comments by attendees was truly troubling, one participant even seriously suggesting the tower could house Syrian refugees. The rhetoric was even worse coming from elected public officials like BART Board member Robert Raburn, who implied the tower might have averted the Ghost Ship studio fire tragedy, as if somehow history and fate could be rewritten. It was unseemly and in shockingly bad taste. His suggestion that other, luckier artists might find housing at a MacArthur BART Tower, when the affordability of housing is exactly why artists crowd unsafe structures to begin with, is demagogic. 

 

We have seen other examples of public agencies, who exploit their special status and powers, to venture into land use/development arenas. BART’s mission and purpose is mass transit. One could raise the issue of BART’s disruptive beginnings, the rough birthing that tore up neighborhoods after acquiring parcels at rock-bottom prices or eminent domain. The justification for the overwhelming footprint BART imposed upon communities to provide mass transit does NOT justify BART’s evolution into a developer, nor does Board Member Raburn’s history as a bicycle advocate qualify him to determine land-use issues. 

Another example of a local body abusing its powers and wealth was the Oakland Unified School district demolishing the eminently reusable-for-housing, reinforced concrete, 9-story Montgomery Ward Building next to the Fruitvale BART station in 2000. After a costly legal battle, and over the opposition of many, the building was rapidly demolished—toxic lead paint blasted into the air and storm drains--to create two low-rise schools, the toxic soil covered over. Of course, the most fervent advocates of “smart growth,” the pro-development mantra now replaced by “affordability,” looked the other way on this flagrant violation of smart growth and housing at transit hubs. Kerry Hamill, now BART Manager for Government Relations, knows this story well—she supported the demolition while an Oakland School Board member. Ditto Mayor Libby Schaaf, at the time staff member for Councilperson Ignacio de la Fuente, the most ardent advocate for demolition. 

How shallow their “core” beliefs--Schaaf’s chief of staff, Tomiquia Moss, is quoted saying in the Nov. 22, 2016 "San Francisco Chronicle" article about the MacArthur BART Tower, “There are numerous practical and environmental reasons to cluster housing and retail near transit nodes….Dense housing and commercial development near transit is the trifecta for supporting growth in neighborhoods.” 

But the most flagrant misuse of power and bad planning is the mistake we’re still living with today—the destruction of the East Bay’s mass transit Key Route system in the 1950s. The creation of BART itself, of course, was an inadequate and costly "remedy” for that mistake. Unlike the Key Route system, which penetrated into many neighborhoods planned around its routes, BART was designed to take commuters—workers and shoppers—to and from San Francisco. The MacArthur BART tower developer has admitted the project is intended for commuters, not locals. 

The ongoing, unfortunate Jerry Brown legacy in Oakland:  

Ever since the arrival on the Oakland scene of the prototypical Development Democrat Jerry Brown, with his “10K” program to gentrify Oakland, the Bureau of Planning has become a rubber stamp for whatever the developer community thinks will turn a profit. Under previous mayors like Elihu Harris, the Planning Commission included members of the design and business community, but also community members. It is no accident that the Planning Commission is having trouble raising a quorum for this project because of the conflicts of interest of commissioners. Oakland Development Democrats might take note of the shellacking the Bates/Hancock Machine took in the last election in Berkeley, swept out of the Mayor’s office and several council seats. 

The El Cerrito BART Transit Village is a classic example of a combination of Houston-style non-planning with the aesthetic of Fresno. One generic condo project after another is replacing the fabric of Temescal—this tower is part and parcel of that transformation. 

The MacArthur BART Tower is yet another instance of project by project, jurisdiction by jurisdiction, planning that isn’t really “planning” at all, but developer, market-driven, projects. Oakland residents deserve better. 

For more information, and to contribute to the legal effort:www.facebook.com/StopMacArthurTower, StopMacarthurTower@gmail.com. www.gofundme.com/StopMacArthurTower 

 


The authors are founders of neighborhood groups in Oakland including North Oakland Voters Alliance (NOVA) and Standing Together for Accountable Neighborhood Development (STAND), Brokl also served on the boards of Oakland Heritage Alliance and Pro Arts. and is an Oakland-based artist. 

 


New: Toying with Police Accountability

Dave Welsh
Monday January 30, 2017 - 03:34:00 PM

It was the first time I’d ever attended a Police Review Commission meeting in Berkeley, a university town near San Francisco. Together with nine other community members, we went to express our opposition to three terrible policies of the city government and its Police Department:

1. Repeated police raids on homeless encampments, forcing people out of their tents into the cold, rainy winter, causing several recent deaths from exposure.
2. City participation in the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center and its domestic spying operation, coordinated nationally by the FBI. [This was used locally to spy on Black Lives Matter demonstrations.]
3. City participation in the Urban Areas Security Initiative, aimed at militarizing (and possibly eventually federalizing) local police forces under the baton of the Department of Homeland Security. 


Several homeless people testified to the brutality (and smugness) of BPD officers as they repeatedly broke up the neat and well-regulated tent encampments organized by First They Came for the Homeless, a direct-action and advocacy group – confiscating property belonging to homeless camp residents.

One notable feature of the meeting was the presence of Acting Police Chief Andrew Greenwood and three other grim-faced officers, at a special table. Any time the chief wanted to speak, he just started talking and the chair yielded to him, for as much time as the chief wanted. In contrast, we community members had two minutes each at the start of the meeting (under “public comment”) after which we were expected to shut up and listen.

As for the commission itself, a majority supported the police on each of the three important issues before it. I thought to myself: What if 50 or 100 community people came, took over the rigged meeting and let the people speak?

A flashback to the freedom struggle in South Africa

After the meeting I went for a beer with a friend, and described my first experience with Berkeley’s Police Review Commission. It reminded him of something from the history of the African National Congress, at a time when they were fighting to free South Africa from settler colonialism.

There was the famous reaction of ANC and South African Communist Party militant Govan Mbeki, after serving on the augustly-named Transkei Territorial Authorities General Council in the apartheid-era South Africa of 1941. The ANC described the council as “a government inspired creation which had elected members, such as Govan, and nominated chiefs, which had very limited administrative powers in the Transkei.”

Govan Mbeki himself likened the Transkei council to “a toy telephone – you can say what you like but your words have no effect because the wires are not connected to any exchange.” Similarly, the toothless Bantustan “parliaments” set up by the settler regime were referred to contemptuously by ANC activists as “toy telephones” – giving the appearance but not the reality of participation in governance.

Berkeley has a proliferation of “commissions,” designed to allow community input and advise the city council on various policy matters. Sometimes the commissions can play a useful role, and the people will righteously make use of them to push for needed changes. Still and all, if Govan Mbeki were around today, I bet he'd put our Police Review Commission squarely in the "toy telephone" category. 

Liberal Berkeley gets a tank

Recently, Berkeley emerged from an election with a new mayor and a new city council majority identified as progressive. A few days after they were installed in office, the new city council debated whether to purchase a bullet-proof armored personnel carrier for the BPD, a $205,000 vehicle of which Berkeley would have to put up $80,000, with Homeland Security funding the balance.

Some 20 people spoke against the purchase, including Veterans for Peace member Daniel Borgstrom, who exclaimed: “Call it what you want, it’s an urban assault vehicle. That’s a tank. And we don’t need a tank!” VFP member Gene Bernardi wondered why the city was collaborating in a DHS-sponsored police militarization program, especially in light of the recent national election. Other residents deplored the use of military equipment against Indigenous water protectors at Standing Rock, N.D., and wondered if the new tank might be used against Black Lives Matter protesters in Berkeley.

In the end, the new city council decided that the armored vehicle was something the BPD really needed. Only one member voted against it. 


Dave Welsh can be reached at sub@sonic.net


Can Trump bring sanctuary cities to heel? (News Analysis)

Carol Polsgrove
Monday January 30, 2017 - 01:26:00 PM

Donald Trump has provided us with a teachable moment: his executive order denying funds to sanctuary cities has spurred a public conversation on the scope of presidential power to force states and cities to do his will.

On Southern California public radio station KPCC, two law professors squared off with different views of Trump’s legal power to make his executive order stick. 

Seth Davis of UC-Irvine emphasized the obstacles in Trump’s way. John Eastman of Chapman University cautioned that the obstacles were not as significant as Davis and others have made out. 

Davis and Eastman appear to agree that the president cannot make funds that have already been granted conditional on cooperation with federal immigration enforcement. They appear to agree that cooperation could be made a condition of some future grants. They also agree that immigration enforcement has to be reasonably related to the purpose of the grant. 

Where they appear to disagree is on the potential range of grants that could be tied to cooperating with federal immigration authorities. Davis suggests that the range of funding to which the executive order would apply is narrow and that, further, the amount of funds lost is not likely to be significant enough to encourage sanctuary cities to change their policies. 

For the Davis-Eastman discussion, listen to KPCC’s Jan. 27 Air Talk

Davis earlier laid out his legal views on the protections available to sanctuary cities in the Washington Post: “Trump can’t force ‘sanctuary cities’ to enforce his deportation plans.” 

 

For another view on the same topic, see Ilya Somin’s analysis in the Washington Post

 

(Stay tuned to the BDP for updates on legal commentary on the Trump administration.) 

 

 


Updated: Fifth and final Trump detainee released at SFO

Daniel Montes (BCN)
Sunday January 29, 2017 - 04:16:00 PM

The fifth and final person who had been detained at San Francisco International Airport under President Donald Trump's Executive Order has been released, airport officials said this afternoon, citing U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials. 

Four others were also detained were released earlier this afternoon, according to airport officials. 

Dozens of non U.S. citizens were reportedly being held over the weekend at airports across the country after Trump issued an Executive Order Friday, banning citizens from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen from entering the country and blocking any refugees from entering for 120 days. Additionally, refugees from Syria are blocked indefinitely, according to the order. 

The detainees were being supported by thousands of protestors and dozens of lawyers willing to offer them legal advice, who have gathered at the airport since Saturday.  

"We appreciate all those who have so passionately expressed their concerns over the President's Executive Order relating to immigration. We share these concerns deeply, as our highest obligation is to the millions of people from around the world whom we serve. Although Customs and Border Protection services are strictly federal and operate outside the jurisdiction of the U.S. airports, including SFO, we have requested a full briefing from this agency to ensure our customers remain the top priority," SFO officials said in a statement this morning.  

"We are also making supplies available to travelers affected by this Executive Order, as well as to the members of the public who have bravely taken a stand against this action by speaking publicly in our facilities," according to the airport's statement.  

An emergency stay was granted Saturday evening by a federal judge in New York, blocking deportations after the American Civil Liberties Union took legal action on behalf of two individuals detained in New York under the order.  

This morning the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said it would continue to enforce all of the president's orders but that it would also comply with judicial orders.  

"President Trump's Executive Orders remain in place-prohibited travel will remain prohibited, and the U.S. government retains its right to revoke visas at any time if required for the national security or public safety. President Trump's Executive order affects a minor portion of international travelers and is a first step towards reestablishing control over America's border and national security," the department's statement read. 

"No foreign national in a foreign land, without ties to the United States, has any unfettered right to demand entry into the United States or to demand immigration benefits in the United States. The Department of Homeland Security will comply with judicial orders; faithfully enforce our immigration laws, and implement Presidents Trump's Executive Orders to ensure that those entering the United States do not pose a threat to our country or the American people," according to the department's statement. 

DanielMontes0326p01/29/17 

CONTACT: SFO spokesman Doug Yakel (650) 821-4000 or doug.yakel@flysfo.com U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Office of the Press Secretary (202) 282-8010 Zahra Baillo, CAIR zbilloo@cair.com U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman Frank Falcon (415) 744-1530, ext. 237 

 

Copyright © 2017 by Bay City News, Inc. -- Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. 

/www/bcn/general/01/newsclip.17.01.29.15.27.00.1.txt


Updated: Federal judge blocks immigration order as hundreds protest at airport

ScottMorris/DanielMontes/KeithBurbank (BCN)
Saturday January 28, 2017 - 10:58:00 PM
Protest at SFO
Protest at SFO

An emergency stay was granted by a federal judge in New York this evening blocking deportations from President Donald Trump's executive order banning entry into the U.S. from certain Muslim-majority countries after a day when protesters swarmed airports nationwide, including hundreds in San Francisco International Airport. 

The protesters gathered at 3 p.m. at SFO after news broke Friday that Trump's order had taken effect immediately, with refugees and people from affected nations being stopped and detained at airports. 

Police at first kept the protesters on the sidewalk, but as the crowd grew they spilled into the street blocking all traffic at the international arrivals terminal. They later swarmed into the terminal as immigration advocate attorneys tried to access people detained inside. The protesters chanted, "Let the families out, let the lawyers in."  

The American Civil Liberties Union announced today that it was taking legal action on behalf of two individuals detained in New York under the order. The ACLU said this evening that an emergency stay had been granted by a federal judge, blocking deportations from the order. The National Council for American Islamic Relations said it would be filing suit on behalf of 20 more individuals on Monday. 

Trump's order bans citizens from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen from entering the country and blocks any refugees from entering for 120 days. Refugees from Syria are blocked indefinitely. 

Lara Kiswani, an organizer with the Arab Resource and Organizing Center, said earlier today, "We have lawyers currently at SFO. What we're not clear about is who or what type of families are being held, whether they're from Syria or Iran or other countries, we don't know for certain."  

Attorney Susie Hwang said there were about a dozen attorneys who arrived at the airport's International Terminal in response to a call from the International Refugee Assistance Project asking attorneys to help immigrants being detained at airports across the country.  

"I'm concerned about the abuse of law and the disregard for the constitution," Hwang said of Trump's order. 

Hwang said several families have been at the airport waiting for several hours to hear word about whether their loved ones will be allowed to leave the airport or returned back to their countries.  

According to Hwang, one woman had been waiting for hours for her 30-year-old son, who arrived at the airport from Iran early this morning. The woman received asylum in the U.S. six years ago and is hoping her son will as well.  

"Based on his religion, he is being persecuted and is in grave danger if he does go back," Hwang said.  

This evening, Hwang said customs officials released one woman from Iran with a Green card after they held and questioned her. 

One person, a San Jose woman who asked not to be identified, stood on the side of the protest with a sign that said, "I tutor refugees." She said she had just started with the program in Los Altos last week and was working with a 60-year-old woman from Iran. 

"She's so eager to learn English," she said. "She's just so passionate about learning." 

"As a Christian, I think that what's happening is not acceptable, that's not what Christ was teaching us," the woman said. "And that's why I decided to teach refugees and that's why I'm here today." 

SFO spokesman Doug Yakel said he was aware of today's protest, but referred any questions about enforcement of the order to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.  

"Our goal is to allow for this free speech activity while also ensuring travelers are able to move through the Airport unimpeded," Yakel said. 

Frank Falcon, a local Customs and Border Protection spokesman, referred questions about local enforcement of the order to the agency's national office, declining to say whether the agency was even enforcing the order in Bay Area airports.  

Calls and emails to the national Customs and Border Protection public affairs office were not returned.


An Open Letter to the Berkeley City Council about the Kennedy boxes (Public Comment)

Dr. James McFadden
Monday January 30, 2017 - 03:48:00 PM

The Kennedy plan for renting 100 tiny box apartments to the city for the homeless, as suggested in a Berkeleyside article, appears to be a developer boondoggle -- a wasteful use of city funds. I am completely sympathetic with the homeless plight and strongly feel that it is our moral duty to provide shelter options for the homeless. However this crisis should not be used to pad the pocketbooks of investors and developers. This is disaster capitalism at its worst – exactly what Naomi Klein warned against in her book “Shock Doctrine.” Below I outline the reasons that the city of Berkeley should not to get sucked into this developer boondoggle. 

First, consider the relative cost of this development. The developer claims it will cost $25 million to build the 100 unit structure – that is $250k for an 8 x 20 foot cell. Kennedy is claiming that the construction costs are therefore $250k/160sqft = $1562/sqft. This is 10 times the typical construction costs of $150/sq ft for wood frame construction. Even if we doubled these typical construction costs to adjust for higher labor and material costs in the bay area, Kennedy is charging 5 times the going construction rate. 

What is really happening here is either the developer is fudging the numbers about the actual costs or he has constructed shell companies, with investors taking a cut at each phase of construction, in order to create the illusion that costs are >$1500/sqft. The actual return to his investors will likely be 5 times his claimed 5% return – more like a ~25% return on investment. 

This is an investor’s wet dream since the wealth extraction is from a city and therefore entails no risk. The developer can claim high capital costs and rapidly depreciate these claimed costs, effectively reducing his capital gains from rentier extraction – more tax-cheating wealth extraction from the public. In addition, since the developer will not be paying property taxes (since he is just leasing the boxes to the city), there is no long term return to the city on this for-profit capital development. 

In the Berkeleyside article, there was no discussion of management fees or utility costs. Who will pay these? 

Lastly, the city will pay this rent independent of whether the units are actually housing people. This project looks like premium rent extraction from the city – a bad deal for the citizens of Berkeley.  

Second, consider the requirement of the city providing public land, at no cost, for this “for-profit” venture. This is effectively a giveaway of the commons to private developers. 

This was the basic problem with the Bates Administration and why the Council was changed. For the last several years we saw giveaways to developers in the form of discounts and delays in implementing new fees on developers. This venture, Kennedy’s homeless boxes, sounds like the same type of backroom deal making. I hope that Council members are not in on this boondoggle.  

Since the developer will not be paying property taxes (since he is just leasing the boxes to the city), there is no long term return to the city on this for-profit capital development. For the developers, this is the perfect arrangement. The city provides cost-free access to public land – it is a total boondoggle for the developer – as are all land giveaways. 

Please don’t support this crony capitalism. Public land should be used for the public benefit and remain in the public domain. If housing is needed, public land should be used to create public housing by non-profits with the city retaining ownership. Such public ownership provides a check on the ever increasing rents and housing prices driven by a housing bubble economy. This unstable investor-driven bubble can be stabilized by a relatively small amount of public housing combined with rent control. 

Third, the issue of homelessness should be divorced from the issue of low cost housing -- or from any attempts to create more student level housing which should be the job of the University. Market rate housing (the Kennedy micro boxes appear to be more costly than market rate) has no role to play in housing the homeless. 

Homelessness should not be considered a permanent state requiring city funded for-profit construction of permanent housing. For some, homelessness is a temporary state requiring public aid and shelter until people can recover from a financial disaster. For others who are permanently disabled, it should be a temporary state until some sort of permanent assisted living is made available through public social safety nets. And for those who are incapable of working due to mental disabilities or addictions, it should be a temporary state requiring shelter while they are encouraged to seek out help through other social services to help them recover. Temporary shelters should not require the city to invest in a profit making venture. Below I outline what I think should be done in the short term. The long term solutions should be resolved by trained professional social workers, architectural experts from non-profits, and by representatives of the homeless. 

If the city wants to help the homeless, the first thing to do is to stop the police raids that threaten their lives by taking away the few possessions that are keeping them alive. 

Second, the city should provide several safe locations where the homeless can camp with no fear of attacks until better shelters can be found. 

Third, the city should construct permanent facilities needed by the homeless – public bathrooms located throughout the city – bathrooms not only for the homeless but for the public at large. These should be maintained at a standard the pubic expects – like our parks. As part of the infrastructure needed to deal with the homeless and make their lives tolerable, the city should also construct public showers and laundry facilities that are tied to homeless service outreach. These might also include areas where food could be prepared. These services should be free. 

Fourth, the city should contract to non-profits to develop low cost solutions to provide better spaces with safe and secure shelters for the homeless. These shelters need not duplicate the public facilities (bathrooms, showers, laundry) already created and therefore can be had at much lower cost. 

Fifth, solving this problem will require multiple solutions because the homeless are not monolithic. For some homeless, a temporary camping area near a public bathroom may be adequate. For others with disabilities and no means of support, permanent facilities with a support structure may be required as part of the social safety net. For others tiny houses on wheels with no plumbing, or even minimalist stacked shipping containers with access stairs, could provide a better solution then camping under bridges or in doorways. 

In all these cases, the social workers and city representatives should be inclusive in talking to the homeless so that they buy into the solutions. There is no point in coming up with a top-down solutions and attempting to impose them on the homeless. An authoritarian, top-down response will likely result in the homeless resisting any such solutions. 

Lastly, we may have to accept that even after the multiple solutions discussed above are completed, this will not cover everyone. You can’t force everyone to act in a manner deemed suitable by society. What we can do is create paths to help them exit their homeless state or to provide them with some level of dignity if they are in a permanent state of poverty. These solutions should be designed to help those who are asking for help and willing to accept it on their terms. This starts by bringing the homeless into the discussion in efforts to find solutions. 

Finally, a word about the skyrocketing costs of Berkeley housing. This is a separate issue from providing shelter for the homeless. If the city wants to construct low cost housing to hold down rents for the public, it should not be subsidizing higher than market rate micro-housing. The only way to control long term housing costs is to develop true public housing that is owned by the city and provides a check on market-rate development. And as regards the economy of Berkeley, why would the city participate in a venture that ships our construction jobs to China? If the city is to solve the housing crisis for the lower and middle income citizens, it should also think about using this effort to create local jobs which will boost the local economy. Again, non-profits will provide the best solutions. 

Finally, I toured the tiny box apartment sitting across from Berkeley High School. If anything these tiny boxes appear to be more suitable as studio apartments for student housing. If these boxes are such a great value, why isn’t the UC Berkeley Administration forming a joint venture with Kennedy to construct such housing? I suspect it is because the university has access to architects and economists who can do the calculations and demonstrate it is a bad deal. The university probably knows that long term student housing is much less expensive when using standard construction methods and UC ownership rather than the rentier solution proposed by Kennedy. 

I’ve talked to six architects to ask their opinions – and they all suggested it was a boondoggle. For comparison, one can purchase a trailer with roughly the same dimensions and same level of interior accessories for about $25,000 – one tenth the cost. One could construct a parking garage and park the trailers in that garage for about one fifth the cost. The Kennedy plan is a boondoggle. This deal looks so lucrative for the developer, that the Council should investigate who is backing this plan and look for some sort of kickback or quid pro quo. The entire deal smells of corruption.


New: Law Prof asks: Does Trump’s immigration order trip over the Equal Protection Principle?

Carol Polsgrove
Sunday January 29, 2017 - 06:02:00 PM

Among the law professors weighing in on Donald Trump’s executive order barring entry of immigrants from designated nations, City University of New York’s Ruthann Robson considers its relationship to the equal protection principle--one of several on which the ACLU has based its lawsuit to block the order. 

She writes in the Constitution Law Prof Blog that the Supreme Court has held that “distinctions between citizens solely because of their ancestry are, by their very nature, odious to a free people whose institutions are founded upon the doctrine of equality.” 

Because the immigrants caught up in Trump’s net are not citizens, are they to be denied equal protection? 

Not necessarily, Robson argues, citing the 2008 decision Boumediene v. Bush upholding the habeas corpus rights of noncitizens detained in Guantanamo Bay. 

“The noncitizens subject to the President's Executive Order (EO) often have substantial links to the United States,” she notes. 

Moreover, Robson points out Trump’s choice of who to exclude lacks the “compelling public interest” that might override considerations of equal protection. 

“If one accepts the ‘September 11’ rationale, the link to an event more than 15 years ago is tenuous. Additionally, even if there was such a link, there is no overlap in the nationality of those involved in the September 11 attacks and those targeted in the EO. 

“Not only is there a mismatch between the nationalities of September 11 attackers and the nationalities of those targeted in the EO, there is the odd coincidence that President Trump has no business connections in the nations targeted while having such business interests in the nations excluded. This might lead to an argument that stated national security interest is not the President's genuine interest... There could be an argument that the President's "real" interest in the EO is one of personal profit, an interest that coincides with the recently filed Emoluments Clause challenge.” 

Or, she says, the argument could be made “that the President's ‘real’ interest relates to Russia, an interest that would coincide with ongoing investigations into the Trump-Putin connections. Finally, there is an argument that the targeting of Muslims is based on animus and the bare desire to harm a politically unpopular group, an interest that the Court has repeatedly found to not even satisfy the lowest level of scrutiny requiring a mere legitimate interest, in cases such as Moreno v. USDA (1973).” 

For a list of subject areas covered by the Law Professors Blogs Network, see http://www.lawprofessorblogs.com/

(Stay tuned to the BDP for updates on legal commentary on the Trump administration.)


Make no mistake -- this is a Muslim ban

Senator Kamala Harris, Democrat from California
Saturday January 28, 2017 - 04:09:00 PM

I am profoundly saddened and angered by the broad discrimination sanctioned last night by the Trump administration against refugees -- those fleeing violence and terrorism within their country -- and immigrants from Muslim-majority countries. 

There are two elements to this executive order: a ban on all refugees entering the country and a ban on all immigrants from seven, predominantly Muslim countries. Make no mistake — this is a Muslim ban, many of whom are women and children displaced by violence. 

This runs counter to our national security interests and will be used as a recruitment tool for terror groups, endangering the lives of Americans overseas. 

Furthermore, the Trump administration has proposed no practical or effective solution to make Americans safer from terrorism. Remember, between 2001 and 2015, more Americans were killed by homegrown terrorists than by foreign-born extremists. Rather than address that threat, the administration has cruelly closed our doors to immigrants and refugees who are already vetted for more than two years to ensure they pose no threat to our citizens. 

Since the Holocaust, it has been the policy of presidents of both parties to open our doors to those fleeing war and oppression. This moral leadership has enhanced our ability to shape world events while promoting global stability and protecting Americans abroad. 

Refugees don't make us less safe; they enrich our communities. I have seen refugees in California become business owners in Sacramento who grow our economy and students in Los Angeles developing cutting-edge research, all in the pursuit of contributing to a country that proudly opened its doors in their hour of need. 

During the Holocaust, we failed to let refugees like Anne Frank into our country. And today, we are making the same mistake under the illusion of security. 

Turning our backs on millions of refugees is a dark moment in American history; one that we must rise to meet because this is only the beginning of this fight. I fear that it will get worse before it gets better. 

But I believe that our commitment to action and to defending those who have been left out and displaced will be able to overcome the bigoted policies of this administration. 

To our brothers, sisters, and friends in immigrant and refugee communities at home and all across the world -- know that you are not alone. We are fighting for you. We will not give up on you. Don’t give up on us. 

Fight on, 

Kamala


Immigrants from Muslim countries reported to be held at SFO

ScottMorris/DanielMontes (BCN)
Saturday January 28, 2017 - 04:06:00 PM

Some immigrants have reportedly been held at San Francisco International Airport since this morning due to President Donald Trump's recent executive order, banning entry to the U.S. from certain Muslim-majority countries. 

On Friday, President Trump issued the order, banning citizens from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen from entering the country.  

"We have lawyers currently at SFO. What we're not clear about is who or what type of families are being held, whether they're from Syria or Iran or other countries, we don't know for certain," said Lara Kiswani, an organizer with the Arab Resource and Organizing Center.  

Attorney Susie Hwang said there are currently about a dozen attorneys who have arrived at the airport's International Terminal in response to a call from the International Refugee Assistance Project asking attorneys to help immigrants being detained at airports across the country. 

"I'm concerned about the abuse of law and the disregard for the constitution," Hwang said of Trump's order. 

Hwang said several families have been at the airport waiting for several hours to hear word about whether their loved ones will be allowed to leave the airport or returned back to their countries.  

According to Hwang, one woman had been waiting for seven hours for her 30-year-old son, who arrived at the airport from Iran early this morning. The woman received asylum in the U.S. six years ago and is hoping her son will as well.  

"Based on his religion, he is being persecuted and is in grave danger if he does go back," Hwang said. 

The American Civil Liberties Union announced today that it was taking legal action on behalf of two individuals detained in New York under the order. The national Council for American Islamic Relations said it would be filling suit on behalf of 20 more individuals on Monday. 

"We are prepared to fight back against these racist executive orders and will defend and protect all communities and normalize resistance to Trump everywhere," Kiswani said in a statement.  

A protest was scheduled for 3 p.m. today at the International Terminal to denounce the order. 

SFO spokesman Doug Yakel said he was aware of today's protest, but referred any questions about enforcement of the order to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.  

"Our goal is to allow for this free speech activity while also ensuring travelers are able to move through the Airport unimpeded," Yakel said. 

Frank Falcon, a local Customs and Border Protection spokesman, referred questions about local enforcement of the order to the agency's national office, declining to say whether the agency was even enforcing the order in Bay Area airports.  

Calls and emails to the national Customs and Border Protection public affairs office were not returned.


New: Laugh-in! (Public Comment)

Phil Allen
Saturday January 28, 2017 - 03:55:00 PM

The latest appearance of an incendiary preener--in this case, Mr. Yiannopoulos--on campus doesn't much bother me. The collection which attends these tour stops does. Let's see: screaming attackers..the young and the witless who agree sincerely..the solemn head shakers..those who think asking reasonable questions will get reasonable answers.

I have an answer: treat him as a stand-up comic, and laugh away. Just make sure he knows you're laughing at him, not with him.


Press Release: ACLU sues on behalf of Iraqis detained at JFK

Anthony Romero, ACLU
Saturday January 28, 2017 - 03:15:00 PM

This morning the ACLU and several other legal organizations filed a lawsuit on behalf of two Iraqi men who were en route to the United States when President Trump issued an executive order banning many Muslims from entering the country. 

The lead plaintiffs were detained by the U.S. government and threatened with deportation – even though they have valid visas to enter the United States. 

One plaintiff, Hameed Khalid Darweesh, worked for the U.S. military. His life was in danger in his home country due to that relationship. A former Obama administration official and platoon commander during the invasion of Iraq said on Twitter yesterday that Mr. Darweesh "spent years keeping U.S. soldiers alive in combat in Iraq." 

The family of the other plaintiff, Haider Sameer Abdulkhaleq Alshawi, was also threatened because of perceived ties to the United States. His wife and 7-year-old son are lawful permanent residents living in Houston, Texas and were eagerly awaiting his arrival. Mr. Alshawi’s son has not seen his father for three years. 

Tellingly, Trump’s executive order authorizes the U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security to admit refugees on a "case-by-case" basis, for people of a minority religion in their home countries. In effect, Trump has barred Muslims from entering the United States, while favoring the entry of Christians. 

Mr. Darweesh was just released from detention at John F. Kennedy International Airport this afternoon, but Mr. Alshawi and others remain in detention. The ACLU and its supporters will not stand for the Trump administration’s unconstitutional discrimination. Today, and every day, we will fight back. 

For more information on our lawsuit, please see https://www.aclu.org/cases/darweesh-v-trump.


Press Release: MEDIA ALERT: SFO @ 3pm TODAY: Emergency Protest Against Detention of Muslim Refugees

Mike Roth
Saturday January 28, 2017 - 11:41:00 AM

San Francisco — Outraged members of the San Francisco community will hold an emergency protest against the detention of Muslim refugees following an Executive Order signed by the President yesterday.  

The Washington Post reports: "Immigration advocates say at least one refugee family is detained at San Francisco International Airport.”  

 

WHO: Outraged community members  

WHAT: Protest detention of Muslim refugees, including family reported detained at SFO,
and executive order effectively banning Muslim refugees from U.S. entry  

WHEN: 3pm today  

 

WHERE: SFO, International Arrivals Area  

 

VISUALS: Protesters with signs:  

“#NotInOurName," “#NeverAgain," "END the #MuslimBan," "STOP the
#MuslimBan," "I STAND WITH MUSLIM TRAVELERS," "#NoBanNoWall.” 

 


SQUEAKY WHEEL: CEQA Comes to Fourth Street

Toni Mester
Friday January 27, 2017 - 06:05:00 PM
1900 Fourth Street
1900 Fourth Street

Comments on the 1900 Fourth Street DEIR are due February 9 to the City of Berkeley Planning and Development Department. The hefty size of the document reflects the large scale of the project that includes 155 residential units, 30,000 square feet of rental and restaurant space, and a 372 space parking garage.

Located on the current Spenger’s parking lot on the north side of lower University Avenue along the railroad tracks to Hearst, the project has raised the hackles of the Native American community and some business people from the existing shopping area. 

The DEIR presents three alternatives: a no project alternative, required by CEQA (California Environmental Quality Act), a reduced commercial use alternative, and a reduced building alternative, which the DEIR considers “the environmentally superior alternative.” 

The DEIR summary provides the gist of the whole in tables at the beginning of the report that list impacts and mitigations. 

The project description with building footprints, floor plans, elevations and cross sections is easy to peruse and understand, like it or not. The parking garage and some of the apartments are situated next to the railroad tracks; other dwelling units face the freeway on-ramps, including some windows that directly look out on traffic. Two mixed-use buildings, with retail and restaurants on the ground floor and dwellings above, are separated by a pedestrian paseo. 

The applicants are requesting zoning waivers under the state density bonus law, bringing the building heights to 60 feet at the roofline and 71 feet at the tallest parapet. The parcel is zoned C-W (commercial west) which has a height limit of 50 feet for mixed-use buildings. 

One project objective is to “enhance and further activate the Fourth Street shopping area with new residents” but Denny Abrams, a developer of the original Fourth Street shops, dislikes the “maxed-out” scale and intensity of the proposal and laments the loss of parking. 

The current Spenger’s fee lot provides about 350 spaces for the area, while the project’s six level garage has, 158 spaces for the new residents and 214 commercial. It’s the net loss of business parking that worries Abrams, who says that the Fourth Street customer base is regional and that people travel there by car. Reduction of available parking may damage businesses that employ hundreds of people and contribute about $2 million to the City annually in taxes. 

The Zoning Adjustments Board held two public hearings on the DEIR, December 8 and January 12. ZAB vice-chair Denise Pinkston, who had a testy exchange with Abrams during the second hearing, was nonetheless candid about the need for parking, stating that people do not shop or go to restaurants by bus. 

None of the controversy about parking and traffic approach the outrage expressed by the Native American community, especially the descendents of the Ohlone people who lived for centuries along Strawberry Creek, which once crossed the project site before it was culverted and redirected to its current outlet south of University Avenue. 

The Berkeley Shellmound, considered the oldest in the Bay Area, was both a refuse pile of mussel, oyster, and clam shells as well as a gathering place for social and ceremonial occasions. A Berkeley City landmark, also listed on the California Register of Historical Resources, the Shellmound location is described in the cultural resources section of the DEIR, its most compelling chapter. 

Nothing is left of the mound itself. During the late-19th century development of West Berkeley “horse teams were routinely used to take away large portions”
that were used for building roads including San Pablo and University Avenues because the material was “nearly impenetrable after soaking.” 

Several concerns about the Shellmound dominated the two public hearings. Most Native American speakers were angry that the remains of their ancestors might be disturbed, but by the second session, it became clear that some of the anger was directed toward Andy Galvan, the President of an extant Ohlone tribe, for approving one cultural mitigation, a donation of $75,000 to the Ohlone Indian Cemetery in Fremont that he manages. Some speakers accused him of a conflict of interest. 

The other cultural mitigation in the DEIR is a “permanent display” that describes the significance of the Shellmound, a paltry and disrespectful gesture. Corrina Gould from Indian People Organizing for Change wants the City to buy the land for a park, but there are no funds available for that purpose. The developers paid $17 million for the site. 

Ms. Pinkston suggested that the building on the corner of Fourth and Hearst be eliminated from the plans and that the area be set aside by permanent deed restriction as a Shellmound memorial and open-space to be designed by Native people in consultation with an educational non-profit. Whatever happens to resolve the Shellmound concerns, we can be sure that “Berkeley can do better” will be the rule, in the words of Councilmember Sophie Hahn. 

Although the cultural impacts have elicited the most public attention and passion, the traffic study is the Achilles heel of this DEIR. Reading traffic studies is a pastime for the masochists among us. Those tiny numbers and arrows may resemble dance step diagrams, but trying to make practical sense of them is no fun. 

But even a beginner can appreciate the weakness of the Fourth Street analysis, which studies only 7 intersections compared with the 57 featured in the DEIR of the West Berkeley Project. Another shortfall, mentioned by ZAB Chair Igor Tregub, is the lack of cumulative impacts from such projects as 600 Addison Street, a massive R&D project on the shores of Aquatic Park, shortly to launch its own EIR. 

The CEQA standards for assessing transportation impacts are changing from level of service (LOS) that measures seconds of delay at intersections to vehicle miles traveled (VMT) that would include more sophisticated and detailed models to infer the amount of motor emissions. However, the new metrics are still being developed by the State Office of Planning and Research and are not used in this study. 

Other sections of the DEIR include air quality and noise. Reading the entire document is a major undertaking, so a practical approach at this late date would be to focus on one subject area. CEQA requires the consultants to answer public comments, which means that questions are usually better than statements. Typically, the consultants will simply respond, “opinion noted” if the comment doesn’t demand an answer. 

I write DEIR comments because CEQA, when used correctly, is a great democratic law that allows for a public dialogue and exposure of environmental impacts that affect us all. 

Comments should be addressed to the project principal planner, Shannon Allen


 

Toni Mester is a resident of West Berkeley.


New: Law Profs Take on Trump

Carol Polsgrove
Saturday January 28, 2017 - 10:18:00 AM

Considering the impression Donald Trump gives that he has ascended to a throne, I’m glad to see law professors reminding him and us of the legal framework that holds this country together.

For the Washington Post, George Mason University’s Ilya Somin writes on “Why Trump’s executive order on sanctuary cities is unconstitutional.

“Unless interpreted very narrowly,” Somin says, this order could be used “to seriously undermine constitutional federalism by forcing dissenting cities and states to obey presidential dictates, even without authorization from Congress.” 

Somin’s analysis is detailed and fine-tuned, as legal analyses tend to be, but we need to take in this basic point: 

“If the president can make up new conditions on federal grants to the states and impose them without specific, advance congressional authorization, he would have a powerful tool for bullying states and localities into submission on a wide range of issues.” 

In a book review for Foreign Affairs, Indiana University’s Dawn Johnsen takes up claims to executive power under the George W. Bush and Obama administrations (she would have herself been a member of Obama’s administration if Republican Senators had not blocked her appointment to head the Office of Legal Counsel). 

Taking as her keynote case a Supreme Court decision on the lawfulness of President Harry Truman’s seizure of the steel mills during the Korean War, she notes that although Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson “allowed relatively broad presidential authority to act when Congress has not spoken to the contrary,” Jackson made the central point that presidents do not have “general emergency powers to act in ways that would otherwise be beyond the law.” 

With that Supreme Court decision in mind, she says that “if Trump overreaches, the courts should step up once again,” and Congress should push back, as should executive-branch employees. And so should the electorate—holding Trump accountable “should he fail to respect constitutional limits on his authority as president.” 

Before Trump’s election, Cornell University’s Michael C. Dorf offered thoughts on the larger topic, “Trump’s Law and Order Versus the Rule of Law.” 

Writing for Verdict, a legal commentary site run by Justia, Dorf notes that “Trump appears to be both the most litigious person and the most sued person ever to be nominated for the presidency by a major party—and by a very large margin.... Taken together, Trump’s quickness to bring or threaten suit and his disregard of his legal obligations paint a picture of someone who regards the law as a useful tool to coerce others but not a restraint on his own behavior.” 

Dorf warns: “should Trump become president, no one would be safe from his toxic mix of bullying through law and acting above the law. “ 

Now, Trump has become president, and comments by law professors like Dorf, Johnsen, and Somin are more important than ever. 

(Stay tuned to the BDP for updates on legal commentary on the Trump administration.) 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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New: Trump issues draconian executive order banning Muslims from seven countries from entering U.S.

Ralph E. Stone
Saturday January 28, 2017 - 10:27:00 AM

During the presidential campaign, Donald Trump issued a statement saying, if elected, he would issue “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our representatives can figure out what’s going on.” Now, Trump has followed through on his campaign promise by issuing an executive order suspending visa entry of persons from seven countries that have predominately Muslim populations. The banned countries are Syria, Iran, Iraq, Somalia, Libya, Sudan and Yemen. 

Titled "Protection Of The Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into The United States," the executive order would start to make good on Trump's promise to tighten borders and halt certain refugees from entering the U.S. The order bars all persons from certain terror-prone countries from entering the U.S. for 90 days and suspends the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program for 120 days until it is reinstated "only for nationals of countries for whom" members of Trump's Cabinet deem can be properly vetted. Does this mean persons from predominately Christian countries? 

The political wing of the National Iranian American Council, which advocates for civil rights and peace, came out forcefully against the order. "This action endangers the lives of Americans and will make us far less safe. It will divert resources away from fighting terrorism in order to crack down on our loved ones. It will feed xenophobia and turn Americans against one another. And it is a gift to groups like ISIS who will use this as a recruitment tool and who must be ecstatic to see America tearing itself apart from within."  

Putting aside the draconian nature of the ban, the question arises as to why these countries were chosen as none of the terrorist attacks occurring on U.S. soil since 9/11 were committed by citizens from any of these countries. If the ban is to keep radical Islamic terrorists out of the U.S., shouldn't the list include countries that actually produced such terrorists.  

There were seventeen incidents from 9/11 through the Pulse nightclub in Orlando in 2016 with 222 victims killed or injured by 21 perpetrators. The perpetrators were from the U.S. (11), Pakistan (3), Chechnya (2), Somalia (2), Iran (1), Kuwait (1), and Saudi Arabia (1).  

On 9/11, the nineteen terrorists who attacked America that day, fifteen were from Saudi Arabia, two were from the United Arab Emirates, and one was from Lebanon. This means that only two of the seven countries on Trump's list produced terrorists who have actually perpetrated attacks on U.S. soil.  

If Trump believes a ban is necessary to keep terrorists out of the U.S., why isn't Saudi Arabia, for example, on the list?


Notes from the hospital

Lois Crispi
Friday January 27, 2017 - 02:41:00 PM

The reporter from the land of the disabled has spent the last three weeks in a hospital. 

Hospitals, doctors, nurses, physicians’ assistants, certified nurses’ assistant, physical, occupational, speech therapists (and others not listed here), all of which you need, as part of your course requirement is to spend one week, with a totally debilitating, condition where you have no choice but to pee or poop in a bed pan while someone just happens to walk into your room. Forget you had dignity and modesty, they are left at the threshold of your door. While there I’ve come to realize that the situation of the hospitalized patient is quite similar to the disabled. 

Do you know what it’s like to be intubated, with a tube up your nose and down your throat? Do you know what it’s like to not to be able to hear, to wake up in a straight jacket because they are afraid the tube(s) or IV’s will be pulled out? Do you know what it feels like to not be able to talk, ask a simple question like: What happened to me? Try as you may, you are ignored. We should at least be able to know. If you're conscious you can stare at the ceiling, or watch the second hand of a clock.  

Do you know what it feels like to NOT be spoken to; some simple explanation of what happened? It is appalling the manner in which people are treated in hospitals. My sorrow and regret goes to the deaf and hard of hearing, the blind, short individuals or any condition that strips your ability to understand and participate. Do you know how it feels to wait two and a half hours for a bedpan, or sit on a commode that is wobbly and your feet do not reach the floor, your back hurts, and you’re cold. Even though you’ve called for the nurse three times, it’s forty-five minutes before anyone appears. “I’ll be right back,” should be printed on every diploma given to a caretaker. They work hard, are short staffed and are under paid. We are both (patient and caretaker) victims of the system. 

As your disabled supporter from the hospital, let me stop at this point. (the saga will continue).


Opinion

Editorials

Time for Berkeley to get to work

Becky O'Malley
Friday January 27, 2017 - 05:53:00 PM

It could be a trying next four years. Not to mention boring—will it really be all Dumpf all the time? If today’s new issue of the Berkeley Daily Planet is any indication, we run the risk of being swallowed up by the “president” Lump behemoth.

(Yes, I still can’t resist the somewhat childish practice of putting his title in scare quotes and refusing to type his ugly name, sorry.)

All but two of the submissions I’ve posted today, Friday, are about that guy and the woes he’s releasing upon the nation, and one of those two was a personal essay and the other a review.

I’m going to indulge myself in a few words about last Saturday’s march, and then perhaps we could think for a moment about what’s going on in Berkeley.  

As a currently unchurched person, marching in Oakland was as close to a religious experience as I’ve had in a long time. My church experience in my youth was full of music and color and a fair amount of joy, and that’s what last Saturday felt like to me.  

I’ve become accustomed in recent years to political events where I know many of the participants—same old same old—but this one was dramatically different. I saw maybe ten people I recognized, including an architect whose views on smart growth I’ve frequently criticized, plus tens of thousands of complete strangers. And a handsome bunch they were too: all races, all genders, all ages, but a lot of them young with kids, a nice change from my wrinkled grey peers. 

Even before we joined the march, I saw a sight that gave me real hope that things will eventually be all right. In the crosswalk in front of us was a very tall African-American father, carrying his daughter on his shoulders, and she was wearing a gorgeous pink dress. I still haven’t mastered my cell phone camera, or I’d have pictures for you, of that beautiful family and many more, and of all the wonderful witty handmade signs they carried.  

And it turned out that this scene was replicated all over the country. My daughter happened to be in New Orleans, and reported seeing a remarkable event: a policeman in full riot gear embracing a marcher there. She didn’t take a picture because she was afraid it would make them worry that they were being watched by the wrong sort. 

Another aspect of modern life that I haven’t mastered (and in fact scorned) is Facebook. But my sister told me that she’d encountered a much younger first cousin that I’d never met there, so I asked him to be my “friend” (I still can’t use friend as a verb.) Looking at his page, I discovered many pictures of his immediate family marching in their own eastern city, looking for all the world like our West Coast set. 

That was heartwarming, but in the last week I heard someone describe the American voters who made up Hillary Clinton’s majority as being from the coasts, a few successful cities and college towns. That would be my folks. The minority of the November voters, on the other hand, live in the wide open spaces where acreage counts more than souls. And though Clinton outpolled Rump by a cool three million votes, that still leaves quite a few who were fooled by him, none of them my relatives of course.  

When the boom falls on these misguided suckers, as it surely will in the long run, will they realize that they’ve been deceived and vote the scoundrels out? I wish I could say that I think so, but I can’t be sure. 

Meanwhile, life here on the left coast goes on as before. No, that’s not right, because Lump has thrust us all into the midst of issues we didn’t choose and don’t know how to deal with. Cities like Berkeley and Oakland have bravely assumed the burden of protecting the undocumented, a very worthwhile decision which might have unexpected consequences. 

Just one example: the discussion around homelessness and the housing shortage (not necessarily the same thing) has centered around whether we can build our way out of either or both, and if so where the money will come from. 

Here there’s a vigorous discussion about whether it’s better to require affordable units to be included in expensive new buildings or to collect a fee in lieu of requiring affordable units, which can then be used to build low-priced housing instead. What’s new is that the latter position is based on the idea that a modest amount of in-lieu money collected from developers could be leveraged by federal matching funds. But now it’s “could have been” instead.  

It’s increasingly apparent that there won’t be much federal housing money coming down to Berkeley or anywhere else, with or without penalties the Mump administration might impose on sanctuary cities. And to make matters worse, a lot of the public housing in the Bay Area, built 40 years ago or more, is now occupying prime urban land which is coveted by boom developers who are trying various stratagems to acquire it for speculative market rate projects. They typically make lavish promises to talk current residents out of their apartments, and often don’t deliver. 

This is an important but complicated topic about which we hope to report more in depth in the near future. There are many more federal polices which have local impact which will require close scrutiny after the regime changes.  

Today’s New York Times has a chilling article about Steve Bannon, Hump’s Big Brother, about a meeting where he denounced the media as his main man’s major opponent. Well, maybe chilling, but maybe not. It’s kind of nice to think that we’ve got them scared—and the media now includes all of us, not just those who do it for a living and not just in California. We’ve got a lot of talent on our side, a whole bunch of smart people who are capable of producing all sorts of persuasive information, from Letters to the Editor to YouTube videos and even major movies.  

Let’s just get on it, shall we? We’ve got our work cut out for us, that’s for sure. 

 


The Editor's Back Fence

Out of control

Becky O'Malley
Wednesday February 01, 2017 - 09:21:00 PM

Now they seem to have attacked the Buzzfeed reporter, and he's off the air. DISGUSTING. I hope he's not injured.


More news from downtown

Becky O'Malley
Wednesday February 01, 2017 - 09:16:00 PM

"Liberals get the bullet too.,Fuck art" graffittied on the windows of UC art museum, windows broken at Starbuck's on Oxford. Looting Starbucks--pathetic.(Buzzfeed)


More and uglier

Wednesday February 01, 2017 - 09:02:00 PM

Now they're breaking windows at the Wells Fargo on Shattuck, visible on Buzz feed.


Black-clad thugs break windows downtown

Becky O'Malley
Wednesday February 01, 2017 - 08:55:00 PM

Watching Buzzfeed news, I see that men whom the Buzzfeed reporter identifies as "ANTIFAS", self-described Anti-Fascists, have been breaking windows along Shattuck. I saw them at the Mechanics' Bank and the T-Mobile office. They're dressed all in black with their faces covered and are carrying big sticks. They're what I would call fascists myself. Another kristallnacht, perhaps?


Flash: Watch protests here

Wednesday February 01, 2017 - 08:11:00 PM

Worry about this now

Monday January 30, 2017 - 11:13:00 AM

If you'd like to read a well-organized analysis of all that been happening and why you should really, really worry, see Trial Balloon for a Coup, by Yonatan Zunger, on medium.com.


Public Comment

New: Letter to the Editor

Akio Tanaka
Thursday February 02, 2017 - 09:57:00 AM

If enough sensible people recognized the the hubris of corporate-military candidate Hillary Clinton and supported the real progressive Bernie Sanders, who could have easily beaten Donald Trump, we would be in a different place now.


Lies

Bruce Joffe
Friday January 27, 2017 - 03:02:00 PM

No argument is too petty for little Donald when it comes to assertions about size. While photographic evidence confirms the crowd that witnessed his inauguration was half the size that celebrated President Obama's inauguration, Trump chose to claim the opposite and make a fuss about "media bias." His official representative, Kellyanne Conway, went even further, saying Trump's claim is based on "alternative facts."  

This is not the first time the blowhard candidate and then president-elect made claims based on verifiable untruths. So let's call "alternative facts" what they are; they are lies.  

Now as President of the United States, his lying prevarications pose a direct threat to our free society which depends on engaged citizens informed by true facts. Government officials calling their lies "alternative facts" endangers the very foundation of our democracy. 

Patriotic appreciation to news reporters who check the facts and point out the lies. 


Alternative Facts

Jagjit Singh
Friday January 27, 2017 - 02:52:00 PM

Mr. Trump, the inauguration crowd was huge; you will become the greatest president and yes I do not care about your tax returns. This is an unhealthy obsession of the wicked mainstream media. Okay, enough alternative facts. No, Mr. Trump we do care about your tax returns – enough stonewalling. What are you hiding? You have commenced your presidency by having a temper tantrum railing against accurate reports over the small size at your inauguration. In a parliamentary system you would be forced to resign on a vote of no confidence. 

Your inauguration address was an abomination reeking of a fake assessment of the state of the Union. You alluded to “full-scale depression, rusted-out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation.” Really? Do you really hope to heal the wounds of our nation with false news? No, Mr. President, overall employment has risen dramatically, crime has declined and yes, the economy is booming.  

Your repeal of Obamacare was accompanied with much fanfare but sent a terrifying message to Americans, including many of your supporters who have benefited. According to the Congressional Budget Office repeal would deny coverage to 18 million in the first year alone rising to more than 30 million. During the past seven years Republicans have failed to craft an alternative but were content on scoring political points trashing the ACA.  

Mr. Trump, please spend less time tweeting and more time governing. This is not a TV show or a video game. 

 

84 Stuart Ct


Impact of our policies in 2017

Romila Khanna
Friday January 27, 2017 - 02:29:00 PM

In the year 2017, our policies are helping only the billionaires and millionaires. The public is forgotten. The poor, homeless and elderly are extremely worried about the changes that are taking place in Washington after President Donald Trump started signing Presidential orders. 

My neighbors are stressed out about their future. They are worried about their livelihood, health, physical and financial safety. They also feel that the billionaire President Donald Trump and his advisory team have been blessed with bountiful gifts in their life but they lack empathy. Our members of the Congress and their families are well protected. They have the best health coverage. They are enjoying all comforts and they draw a very large amount of money per month, as salary, from the general fund. 

They have forgotten that they represent all Americans. When they frame the policies and pass the bills, it helps them and their billionaire friends. 

It seems that the Republican President with a majority in both the Congress and the Senate, has as their most important priority, to destroy the public policies, which had been helping low income and poor people across the country. I am shocked to watch on TV, the faces of people who are unqualified to take over Education and other departments. They lack the knowledge to deal with our multilingual and multicultural society. 

I see the protest and unrest here in America and around the world. People are fearful about being able to maintain their health and safety. Even the students are worried about their future. It seems that that the present policies will benefit only the rich. The policy makers are not thinking about the low income and poor. 

The President’s tax policy will help only millionaires and billionaires. Their hidden tax return information will be buried forever. 

It seems unjust that the policies are framed for the benefit of the three branches of the Government. 

I urge the President and his team to think about the priorities to bring equality, justice, peace and safety for all, before there is more turmoil in America and the world. The world is impacted by our actions here. Let us revise our policies. The time is now!


February Pepper Spray Times

By Grace Underpressure
Tuesday January 31, 2017 - 06:35:00 PM

Editor's Note: The latest issue of the Pepper Spray Times is now available.

You can view it absolutely free of charge by clicking here . You can print it out to give to your friends.

Grace Underpressure has been producing it for many years now, even before the Berkeley Daily Planet started distributing it, most of the time without being paid, and now we'd like you to show your appreciation by using the button below to send her money.

This is a Very Good Deal. Go for it! 


Columns

DISPATCHES FROM THE EDGE:China: War On The Horizon?

Conn Hallinan
Friday January 27, 2017 - 02:32:00 PM

In his January 13 testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Secretary of State nominee Rex Tillerson made an extraordinary comment concerning China’s activities in the South China Sea. The U.S., he said, must “send a clear signal that, first, the island-building stops,” adding that Beijing’s “access to the those islands is not going to be allowed.”

President Trump’s Press Secretary, Sean Spicer, repeated the threat on January 24.

Sometimes it is hard to sift the real from the magical in the Trump administration, and bombast appears to be the default strategy of the day. But people should be clear about what would happen if the U.S. actually tries to blockade China from supplying its forces constructing airfields and radar facilities on the Spratley and Paracel islands.

It would be an act of war. 

While Beijing’s Foreign Ministry China initially reacted cautiously to the comment, Chinese newspapers have been far less diplomatic. The nationalist Global Times warned of a “large-scale war” if the U.S. followed through on its threat, and the China Daily cautioned that a blockade could lead to a “devastating confrontation between China and the US.” 

Independent observers agree. “It is very difficult to imagine the means by which the United States could prevent China from accessing these artificial islands without provoking some kind of confrontation,” says Rory Medcalf, head of Australia’s National Security College. And such a confrontation, says Carlyle Thayer of the University of New South Wales, “could quickly develop into an armed conflict.” 

Last summer, China’s commander of the People’s Liberation Army Navy, Wu Shengli, told U.S. Admiral John Richardson that “we will never stop our construction on the Nansha Islands halfway.” Nansha is China’s name for the Spratlys. Two weeks later, Chang Wanquan, China’s Defense Minister, said Beijing is preparing for a “people’s war at sea.” 

A certain amount of this is posturing by two powerful countries in competition for markets and influence, but Tillerson’s statement did not come out of the blue. In fact, the U.S. is in the middle of a major military buildup, the Obama administration’s “Asia Pivot” in the Pacific. American bases in Okinawa, Japan, and Guam have been beefed up, and for the first time since World War II, U.S. Marines have been deployed in Australia. Last March, the U.S. sent B-2 nuclear-capable strategic stealth bombers to join them. 

There is no question that China has been aggressive about claiming sovereignty over small islands and reefs in the South China Sea, even after the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague rejected Beijing’s claims. But if a military confrontation is to be avoided, it is important to try to understand what is behind China’s behavior. 

The current crisis has its roots in a tense standoff between Beijing and Taiwan in late 1996. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) was angered that Washington had granted a visa to Taiwan’s president, Lee Teng-hui, calling it a violation of the 1979 U.S. “one-China” policy that recognized the PRC and downgraded relations with Taiwan to “unofficial.” 

Beijing responded to the visa uproar by firing missiles near a small Taiwan-controlled island and moving some military forces up to the mainland coast facing the island. However, there was never any danger that China would actually attack Taiwan. Even if it wanted to, it didn’t have the means to do so. 

Instead of letting things cool off, however, the Clinton administration escalated the conflict and sent two aircraft carrier battle groups to the region, the USS Nimitz and USS Independence. The Nimitz and its escorts sailed through the Taiwan Straits between the island and the mainland, and there was nothing that China could do about it. 

The carriers deeply alarmed Beijing, because the regions just north of Taiwan in the East China Sea and the Yellow Sea were the jumping off points for 19th and 20th century invasions by western colonialists and the Japanese. 

The Straits crisis led to a radical remaking of China’s military, which had long relied on massive land forces. Instead, China adopted a strategy called “Area Denial” that would allow Beijing to control the waters surrounding its coast, in particular the East and South China seas. That not only required retooling of its armed forces—from land armies to naval and air power—it required a ring of bases that would keep potential enemies at arm’s length and also allow Chinese submarines to enter the Pacific and Indian oceans undetected. 

Reaching from Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula in the north to the Malay Peninsula in the south, this so-called “first island chain” is Beijing’s primary defense line. 

China is particularly vulnerable to a naval blockade. Some 80 percent of its energy supplies traverse the Indian Ocean and South China Sea, moving through narrow choke points like the Malacca Straits between Indonesia and Malaysia, the Bab al Mandab Straits controlling the Red Sea, and the Straits of Hormuz into the Persian Gulf. All of those passages are controlled by the U.S. or countries like India and Indonesia with close ties to Washington. 

In 2013, China claimed it had historic rights to the region and issued its now famous “nine-dash line” map that embraced the Paracels and Spratly island chains and 85 percent of the South China Sea. It was this nine-dash line that the Hague tribunal rejected, because it found no historical basis for China’s claim, and because there were overlapping assertions by Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, and the Philippines. 

There are, of course, economic considerations. The region is rich in oil, gas and fish, but the primary concern for China is security. The Chinese have not interfered with commercial ship traffic, although they have applied on-again, off-again restrictions on fishing and energy explorations. China initially prevented Filipino fishermen from exploiting some reefs, and then allowed it. It has been more aggressive with Vietnam in the Paracels. 

Rather than trying to assuage China’s paranoia, the U.S. made things worse by adopting a military strategy to checkmate “Area Denial.” Called “Air/Sea Battle” (renamed “Joint Concept for Access and Maneuver in the Global Commons”), Air/Sea Battle envisions attacking China’s navy, air force, radar facilities and command centers with air and naval power. Missiles would be used to take out targets deep into Chinese territory. 

The recent seizure of a U.S. underwater drone off the Philippines is part of an on-going chess game in the region. The drone was almost certainly mapping sea floor bottoms and collecting data that would allow the U.S. to track Chinese submarines, including those armed with nuclear missiles. While the heist was a provocative thing to do—it was seized right under the nose of an unarmed U.S. Navy ship—it is a reflection of how nervous the Chinese are about their vulnerability to Air/Sea Battle. 

China’s leaders “have good reason to worry about this emerging U.S. naval strategy [use of undersea drones] against China in East Asia,” Li Mingjiang, a China expert at S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, told the Financial Times. “If this strategy becomes reality, it could be quite detrimental to China’s national security.” 

Washington charges that the Chinese are playing the bully with small countries like Vietnam and the Philippines, and there is some truth to that charge. China has been throwing its weight around with several nations in Southeast Asia. But it also true that the Chinese have a lot of evidence that the Americans are gunning for them. 

The U.S. has some 400 military bases surrounding China and is deploying anti-ballistic missiles in South Korea and Japan, ostensibly to guard against North Korean nuclear weapons. But the interceptors could also down Chinese missiles, posing a threat to Beijing’s nuclear deterrence. 

While Air/Sea Battle does not envision using nuclear weapons, it could still lead to a nuclear war. It would be very difficult to figure out whether missiles were targeting command centers or China’s nukes. Under the stricture “use them, or lose them” the Chinese might fear their missiles were endangered and launch them. 

The last thing one wants to do with a nuclear-armed power is make it guess. 

The Trump administration has opened a broad front on China, questioning the “one China” policy, accusing Beijing of being in cahoots with Islamic terrorists, and threatening a trade war. The first would upend more than 30 years of diplomacy, the second is bizarre—if anything, China is overly aggressive in suppressing terrorism in its western Xinjiang Province—and the third makes no sense. 

China is the U.S.’s major trading partner and holds $1.24 trillion in U.S. Treasury Bonds. While Trump charges that the Chinese have hollowed out the American economy by undermining its industrial base with cheap labor and goods, China did not force Apple or General Motors to pull up stakes and decamp elsewhere. Capital goes where wages are low and unions are weak. 

A trade war would hurt China, but it would also hurt the U.S. and the global economy as well. 

When President Trump says he wants to make America great again, what he really means is that he wants to go back to that post-World War II period when the U.S. dominated much of the globe with a combination of economic strength and military power. But that era is gone, and dreams of a unipolar world run by Washington are a hallucination. 

According to the CIA, “by 2030 Asia will have surpassed North America and Europe combined in terms of global power based on GDP, population size, military spending and technological investments.” By 2025, two-thirds of the world will live in Asia, 7 percent in Europe and 5 percent in the U.S. Those are the demographics of eclipse. 

If Trump starts a trade war, he will find little support among America’s allies. China is the number one trading partner for Japan, Australia, South Korea, Vietnam and India, and the third largest for Indonesia and the Philippines. Over the past year, a number of countries like Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines have also distanced themselves from Washington and moved closer to China. When President Obama tried to get U.S. allies not to sign on to China’s new Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, they ignored him

But the decline of U.S. influence has a dangerous side. Washington may not be able to dictate the world’s economy, but it has immense military power. Chinese military expert Yang Chengjun says “China does not stir up troubles, but we are not afraid of them when they come.” They should be. For all its modernization, China is no match for the U.S. However, defeating China is far beyond Washington’s capacity. The only wars the U.S. has “won” since 1945 are Grenada and Panama. 

Nonetheless, such a clash would be catastrophic. It would torpedo global trade, inflict trillions of dollars damage on each side, and the odds are distressingly high that the war could go nuclear. 

U.S. allies in the region should demand that the Trump administration back off any consideration of a blockade. Australia has already told Washington it will not take part in any such action. The U.S. should also do more than rename Air/Sea Battle, it should junk the entire strategy. The East and South China seas are not national security issues for the U.S., but they are for China. 

And China should realize that, while it has the right to security, trotting out ancient dynastic maps to lay claim to vast areas bordering scores of countries does nothing but alienate its neighbors and give the U.S. an excuse to interfere in affairs thousands of miles from its own territory. 

 


Conn Hallinan can be read at dispatchesfromtheedgeblog.wordpress.com and middleempireseries.wordpress.com 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


THE PUBLIC EYE: Trump's First Week

Bob Burnett
Friday January 27, 2017 - 11:00:00 AM

To get an idea of what to expect from Donald Trump for the next four years, we only have to examine his first week in office.

January 20: Trump was sworn in and delivered a dark inaugural address; a shorter versions of his "Make America Great Again" stump speech that featured two themes. One was Trump populism: "We are not merely transferring power from one administration to another or from one party to another, but we are transferring power from Washington, D.C. and giving it back to you, the people." The other was Trump's assessment of the "carnage" outside Washington, DC: "Mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities; rusted out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation; an education system flush with cash, but which leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of all knowledge; and the crime and the gangs and the drugs that have stolen too many lives and robbed our country of so much unrealized potential."

Initially Trump claimed to have written this speech by himself but it was later revealed that it had been penned by his aides Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon.

Trump finished the day by removing all reference to global-climate-change from the White House website and signing a (symbolic) executive order "giving federal agencies broad powers to unwind regulations created under the Affordable Care Act." 

January 21: Millions of Americans took to the streets in the national women's march. Trump ignored this and instead went to the headquarters of the CIA where he delivered a rambling speech where, among other things, he lashed out at the mainstream media: "I have a running war with the media. They are among the most dishonest human beings on Earth." Trump accused the media of distorting the size of the inauguration crowds. 

A few hours later, Trump's Press Secretary, Sean Spicer held a bizarre press conference where he took no questions and, instead, huffed, "some members of the media were engaged in deliberately false reporting." Spicer, too, was worried about the crowd-size numbers. 

January 22 (Sunday): For most of the day, Trump was quiet but at 4:47 AM he tweeted: "Watched protests yesterday but was under the impression that we just had an election! Why didn't these people vote? Celebs hurt cause badly." 

Meanwhile, Trump Senior Adviser KellyAnne Conway made the talk-show rounds and revealed that Trump has broken another promise: he will not release his tax returns even after his IRS audit is completed. Conway went on the defend Sean Spicer, saying his estimates of inauguration crowd size were "alternative facts." 

January 23: Trump signed several symbolic executive orders and then visited Democratic and Republican congressional leaders. During his extemporaneous remarks he explained that he lost the presidential popular vote because 3 million to 5 million “illegals” voted for Hillary Clinton. 

Trump's Press Secretary gave a relatively normal White House press briefing. However, he continued to complain about the media: "The default narrative is always negative, and it's demoralizing." 

January 24: Trump continued to assert that "illegals" voted for Clinton and vowed "an investigation." Meanwhile, during his confirmation hearing, South Carolina Rep. Mick Mulvaney, nominated to head the Office of Management and Budget, indicated that Trump will abandon his promises to leave Social Security and Medicare alone. 

It was widely reported that the Trump Administration has issued directives to muzzle Employees at the Environmental Protection Agency, the Interior Department, the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). 

January 25: Trump signed an executive order authorizing construction of a wall along the southern border and repeated his assertion that the United States would be reimbursed by the Mexican government. (The next day, Mexico's President, Enrique Peña Nieto, said his country would not pay for the wall and cancelled a meeting with Trump.) 

Meanwhile, Steve Bannon, Trump’s strategist, described the media as “the opposition party," adding “The media should be embarrassed and humiliated and keep its mouth shut.” 

January 26: In an ABC News interview, Trump was asked about the 18 million people who are expected to lose health insurance if Obamacare is repealed. He replied: "Nobody ever deducts all the people that have already lost their health insurance that liked it... You had millions of people that now aren’t insured anymore.” 

Republicans gathered for a "policy retreat" in Philadelphia where they were met by hundreds of protestors, chanting “Hey, hey, ho, ho, Donald Trump has got to go” and “Love not hate, that’s what makes America great.” 

What have we learned? 1. Expect a lie every day. Trump began the week by falsely claiming he was the sole author of his inauguration speech and ended it with the ridiculous assertion that Obamacare had caused millions of Americans to lose coverage. The danger is that the public will accept pathological lying as "the new normal." 

2. Expect a relentless attack on the media. The Trump Administration has unprecedented hostility towards the mainstream media. The danger is that Americans won't get the independent reporting they need. 

3. It's all about optics. Trump's executive signing ceremonies may make him appear presidential but, in general, they have minimal impact. For example, Trump may order the wall to be built, but Congress has yet to authorize the funds. Trump wants to look good but he doesn't have a plan to do good. 

Bob Burnett is a Berkeley writer. He can be reached at bburnett@sonic.net or www.bobburnett.net 




DISPATCHES FROM THE EDGE:The EU & the Left

Conn Hallinan
Friday January 27, 2017 - 10:56:00 AM

When European Union President Jean-Claude Juncker addressed the European Parliament in Strasbourg this past September, he told them the organization was facing an “existential crisis” and “national governments so weakened by the forces of populism and paralyzed by the risk of defeat in the next election.”

Indeed it has been a bad year for the huge trading group: 

  • The “Breixit,” or the United Kingdom’s vote to withdraw.
  • Rome’s referendum to amend the country’s constitution was trounced, and several Italian banks are in deep trouble.
  • The austerity policies of the EU have kept most of its members’ economies either anemic or dead in the water. Even those showing growth, like Ireland and Spain, have yet to return to where they were before the 2008 economic melt down. Between 2007 and 2016, purchasing power fell 8 percent in Spain and 11 percent in Italy,
It is also true that number of national governments—in particular those in Germany and France—are looking nervously over their shoulders at parties to their right. 

But the crisis of the EU does not spring from “populism,” a term that many times obscures more than it reveals, lumping together neo-fascist parties, like France’s National Front and Germany’s Alternative for Germany, with left parties, like Spain’s Podemos. Populism, as Juncker uses it, has a vaguely atavistic odor to it: ignorant peasants with torches and pitchforks storming the citadels of civilization. 

But the barbarians at the EU’s gate did not just appear out of Europe’s dark forests like the Goths and Vandals of old. They were raised up by the profoundly flawed way that the Union was established in the first place, flaws that did not reveal themselves until an economic crisis took center stage. 

That the crisis is existential, there is little doubt. In fact, the odds are pretty good that the EU will not be here in its current form a decade from now—and possibly considerably sooner. But Juncker’s solutions include a modest spending program aimed at business, closer military ties among the 28—soon to be 27—members of the organization, and the creation of a “European Solidarity Corps” of young volunteers to help out in cases of disasters, like earthquakes. But there was nothing to address the horrendous unemployment rate among young Europeans. In short, rearranging the Titanic’s deck chairs while the ice looms up to starboard. 

But what is to be done is not obvious, nor is how one goes about reforming or dismantling an organization that currently produces a third of the world’s wealth. The complexity of the task has entangled Europe’s left in a sharp debate, the outcome of which will go a long way toward determining whether the EU—now a house divided between wealthy countries and debt-ridden ones—can survive. 

It is not that the European left is strong, but it is the only player with a possible strategy to break the cycle of debt and low growth. The politics of racism, hatred of immigrants, and reactionary nationalism espoused by the National Front, the Alternative For Germany, Greece’s Golden Dawn, Denmark’s People’s Party, and Austria’s Freedom Party, will not generate economic growth, any more than Donald Trump will bring back jobs for U.S. steelworkers and coal miners and “make America great again.” 

Indeed, if the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany Party gets its way, that country will be in deep trouble. German deaths currently outnumber births by 200,000 a year, a figure that is accelerating. According to the Berlin Institute for Population and Development, to have a sufficient working-age population that can support a stable pension system, the country will require an influx of 500,000 immigrants a year for the next 35 years. 

Many other European countries are in the same boat. 

There are several currents among the European left, ranging from those who call for a full withdrawal, or “Lexit,” to reforms that would democratize the organization. 

There is certainly a democracy deficit in the EU. The European Parliament has little power, with most key decisions made by the unelected “troika”—the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the European Central Bank, and the European Commission. The troika’s rigid debt policies mean members have lost the ability to manage their own economies or challenge the mantra that debt requires austerity, even though that formula has clearly been a failure. 

As economists Markus Brunnermeier, Harold James, and Jean-Pierre Landau point out in their book “The Euro and the Battle of Ideas,” growth is impossible when consumers, corporations, and governments all stop spending. The only outcome for that formula is misery and more debt. Even the IMF has begun to question austerity. 

But would a little more democracy really resolve this problem? 

Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz, a long-time critic of austerity, argues that while the EU does indeed need to be democratized, a major problem is the common currency. The euro is used by 19 of the EU’s 28 members that constitute the Eurozone. 

Stiglitz argues that the Euro locked everyone into the German economic model of modest wages coupled with a high power export economy. But one size does not fit all, and when the economic crisis hit in 2008, that became painfully obvious. Those EU members that used a common currency were unable to devalue their currency—a standard economic strategy to deal with debt. 

There is also no way to transfer wealth within the EU, unlike in the U.S. Powerful economies like California and New York have long paid the bills for states like Louisiana and Mississippi. As Stiglitz points out, “a lack of shared fiscal policy” in the EU made it “impossible to transfer wealth (via tax receipts) from richer states to poorer ones, ensuring growing inequality between the core and the periphery of Europe.” 

Stiglitz proposes a series of reforms, including economic stimulus, creating a “flexible” euro, and removing the rigid requirement that no country can carry a deficit of more than 3 percent of GDP. 

Former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, however, argues that the Union “is not suffering from a democratic deficit that can be fixed with a ‘little more democracy’ and a few reforms here and there.” The EU, he says, “was constructed intentionally as a democracy-free zone” to keep people out of decision-making process and to put business and finance in charge. 

Is the machine so flawed that it ought to be dismantled? That is the opinion of British Pakistani writer and journalist Tariq Ali and King’s College Reader in politics, Stathis Kouvelakis, both whom supported the Brexit and are urging a campaign to hold similar referenda in other EU member countries. 

But since that that position is already occupied by the xenophobic right, how does the left argue for Lexit without entangling itself with racist neo-Nazis? Varoufakis, a leading member of the left formation, DiEM25, asks whether “such a campaign is consistent with the Left’s fundamental principles” of internationalism? 

He also argues that a Lexit would destroy the EU’s common environmental policy and the free movement of members, both of which find strong support among young people. 

Is re-establishing borders and fences really what the left stands for, and wouldn’t re-nationalizing the fossil fuel industry simply turn environmental policies over to the multi-national energy giants? “Under the Lexit banner, in my estimation,” says Varoufakis, “the Left is heading for monumental defeats on both fronts.” 

DiEM25 proposes a third way to challenge the disastrous policies of the EU, while avoiding a return to borders and “every country for itself” environmental policies. What is needed, according to Varoufakis, is “a pan-European movement of civil and governmental disobedience” to create a “democratic opposition to the way European elites do business at the local, national and EU levels.” 

The idea is to avoid the kind of trap that Greece’s left party, Syriza, has found itself in: running against austerity only to find itself instituting the very policies it ran against. 

What DiEM25 is proposing is simply to refuse to institute EU austerity rules, a strategy that will only work if the resistance is EU-wide. When Greece tried to resist the troika, the European Central Bank threatened to destroy the country’s economy, and Syriza folded. But if resistance is widespread enough, that will not be so easy to do. In any case, he says, “the debt-deflationary spiral that drives masses of Europeans into hopelessness and places them under the spell of bigotry” is not acceptable. 

DiEM25 also calls for a universal basic income, a proposal that is supported by 64 percent of the EU’s members. 

Portugal’s left has had the most success with trying to roll back the austerity measures that caused widespread misery throughout the country. The center-left Socialist Party formed a coalition with the Left Bloc, and the Communist/Green Alliance put aside their differences, and restored public sector wages and state pensions to pre-crisis levels. The economy only grew 1.2 percent in 2016 (slightly less than the EU as a whole), but it was enough to drop unemployment from 12.6 percent to 10 percent. The deficit has also declined. 

Spain’s Podemos and Jeremy Corbyn of the British Labour Party have hailed the Portuguese left coalition as a model for an anti-austerity alliance across the continent. 

Debt is the 800-pound gorilla in the living room. Most of the debt for countries like Spain, Portugal and Ireland was not the result of spendthrift ways. All three countries had positive balances until the real estate bubble pumped up by private speculators and banks burst in 2008, and taxpayers picked up the pieces. The “bailouts” from the troika came with onerous austerity measures attached, and most of the money went straight to the banks that had set off the crisis in the first place. 

For small or underdeveloped countries, it will be impossible to pay off those debts. When Germany found itself in a similar position after World War II, other countries agreed to cut its debt in half, lower interest rates and spread out payments. The 1952 London Debt Conference led to an industrial boom that turned Germany into the biggest economy in Europe. There is no little irony in the fact that the current Berlin government is insisting on applying economic policies to debt-ridden countries that would have strangled that German post-war recovery had they not been modified. 

It is possible that the EU cannot be reformed, but it seems early in the process to conclude that. In any case, DiEM25’s proposal to practice union-wide civil disobedience has not really been tried, and it certainly has potential as an organizing tool. It is already being implemented in several “rebel” cities like Barcelona, Naples, Berlin, Bristol, Krakow, Warsaw and Porto, where local mayors and city councils are digging in their heels and fighting back. 

For that to be successful throughout the EU, however, the left will have to sideline some of the disputes that divide it and reach out to new constituencies. If it does not, the right has a dangerous narrative waiting in the wings. 

 


Conn Hallinan can be read at dispatchesfromtheedgeblog.wordpress.com and middleempireseries.wordpress.com 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


ECLECTIC RANT: Time for Trump to stop alleging voter fraud

Ralph E. Stone
Friday January 27, 2017 - 02:35:00 PM

More Americans voted for Hillary Clinton than any other losing presidential candidate in U.S. history. Clinton outpaced Donald Trump by almost 2.9 million votes, with 65,844,954 (48.2%) to his 62,979,879 (46.1%), according to revised and certified final election results from all 50 states and the District of Columbia.  

However, Trump continues to claim that millions of people voted illegally in the recently held presidential election, depriving him of a popular vote majority.  

Unfortunately, Republicans in Congress are not holding Trump accountable for his wild statements. As Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said, “When these falsehoods are told, our Republican colleagues have an obligation to reject them. Not to skirt around them. The bottom line is simple: you cannot run a government, you cannot help people, you cannot keep America safe if you do not actually admit to the facts.” 

Finally, U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), the senior senator from South Carolina, took Trump to task for his claim of voter fraud when he said,  

"To continue to suggest that the 2016 election was conducted in a fashion that millions of people voted illegally undermines faith in our democracy, it's not coming from a candidate for the office, it's coming from the man who holds the office. So I am begging the president, share with us the information you have about this or please stop saying it. As a matter of fact I'd like you to do more than stop saying it, I'd like you to come forward and say having looked at it I am confident the election was fair and accurate and people voted legally. Cause if he doesn't do that this is going to undermine his ability to govern this country." 

Hopefully, more Republicans in Congress will stop their lockstep support of Trump's outrageous statements. There is not such thing as "alternative truths or facts;" they are instead lies.


ON MENTAL ILLNESS: 'President' Trump is Not Mentally Ill

Jack Bragen
Friday January 27, 2017 - 11:10:00 AM

I observed on television Donald Trump dancing at one of the inaugural balls, and I watched him as a clip was shown of him signing an executive order pertaining to rolling back Obamacare. While these are horrifying things to witness, I did not see any signs of stress from our new President. He seems quite confident and in control. 

He does have problems, such as lack of impulse control, amorality, narcissism, and so on. However, Trump is showing no sign of an actual psychiatric disorder.  

Former Senator Patrick J. Kennedy (not to be confused with Patrick Kennedy the real estate developer) expressed it very well in the Washington Post, saying that calling Trump 'crazy' is demeaning to mentally ill people, most of whom are good people suffering from a disorder. "…So if you’ve got a criticism about Trump’s temperament, fine. But let’s eliminate the name-calling and grade-school bullying." 

Early in the Presidential campaign, Dr. Drew, television psychiatrist, in an interview with Don Lemon expressed a view that Trump is not mentally ill.  

This is bad news in some respects. It means that the government is not able to remove Trump from office on the grounds of him being medically unfit to serve.  

Trump has a very different view and a very different agenda for America compared to more than half of American citizens, including me. I do not like Donald Trump, and I feel he is really going to make a mess of things, something he has already begun to do. However, mentally ill, apparently, Trump is not. This is something where I was probably mistaken.  

However, President Trump, with his harsh attitude and destructive intent, is causing widespread fear and depression, which could result, I am guessing, in droves of people filling up the psych wards.  

What we must now do, for those who are vulnerable, is to make sure counseling is available, and take other steps to take care of ourselves. Mentally ill people should not feel obliged to participate in opposing Trump's policies--unless doing so is well within our capacities and is not a threat to our continued mental and physical well-being. If watching the news is disturbing, turn off the television or the internet, and do something else.  

I am hoping that cutting entitlements for Social Security beneficiaries is far enough down on his list of bad things to do, such that he won't get to that particular task before his impeachment.  

We don't really know what he will do in advance, and so it is hard to make plans in anticipation of his actions. We should just try not to worry about it for now, and go on with daily living, and with the tasks and activities that we were doing before Trump getting into office. 


ADDENDUM: I said earlier that mentally ill people should turn off the news if it is disturbing, yet at the time I wrote that I had not yet tuned into the news about the Women's March on Washington. I think people who are disturbed should watch the news because this is history in the making, and we are seeing a movement that is more powerful than the U.S. Government, one that will not be stopped until there is justice. I believe this movement that we are witnessing will make things better for all people, including people with disabilities. And the utter size of this is enough to make me inspired as a human being. No, we should not shut off the news, and we should participate in whatever manner we can. This could mean writing to one's local Representative, writing letters to the editor of your local newspaper, or knocking on doors, making phone calls, and talking to people. This is big. And anything that gets in its way, including Donald Trump, will be flattened as though by a steamroller.


Arts & Events

AROUND AND ABOUT:'I'm Always Drunk in San Francisco' & 'Darwin in Malibu'--Two with Bob Ernst ...

Ken Bullock
Friday January 27, 2017 - 11:07:00 AM

—Geoffrey Pond, artistic director and co-founder of Berkeley's Subterranean Shakespeare Theatre Presents, has taken that alternative song to that tune written in Brooklyn in 1952 and made famous by Tony Bennett's 1962 single—but here we're talking about Tommy Wolf's 'I'm Always Drunk in San Francisco,' popularized by Carmen McRae in 1968 and later by Nancy Wilson, but first recorded by Cannonball Adderley in 1965 with the still-great Ernie Andrews singing it—and made it the title of his first solo show, one of the few things Geoff hasn't tried onstage or behind the scenes in his long local career ... 

Directed by Robert Ernst of the fabled Berkeley troupe the Blake Street Hawkeyes, 'I'm Always Drunk ... ' is based on the writings of Mark Twain (his impressions of 1860s SF and his first public lecture at the Academy of Music on Pine Street), Jack London's description of the '06 Earthquake & Fire, Jack Kerouac at the 1955 Six Gallery reading (Ginsberg's "Howl" first read aloud, in part) and the public birth of the Beats, plus vinettes from the work of Gary Kamiya. It's Geoff's tribute to the town in which he's contributed to the theater and music scenes for decades, a place he feels, like so many others, is losing its old, signature, sometimes anarchic charm he's seeking to invoke. 

Fridays & Saturdays at 8, Sundays at 7 through February 19 at the Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, between Powell & Mason in downtown San Francisco. Tickets at the door on a sliding scale: $25-$20 or in advance: www.subshakes.com Info at 276-3871. 

—Indra's Net's staging of Crispin Whittal's fantasy of 'Darwin in Malibu' has closed at the City Club, another local production featuring Bob Ernst, on stage in this one as Darwin's sometimes irascible cohort in the polemical battle for 19th century minds over Natural Selection, joining Darwin (affable George Killingsworth) at his anachronistic place of retirement in latterday Malibu, attended by beachgirl and banana smoothie specialist Sarah (Leandra Ramm), the three then encountered by Bishop Wilberforce of Oxford (a genially eclesiastic Stuart Hall), who wants to reopen the controversy, but—more importantly—save his antagonists' souls. 

The troupe's co-founder and artistic director Bruce Coughlin directed this game cast—and it's always a pleasure to see those longtime musical collaborators onstage with their partner Hal Hughes, who was playing and singing at moments throughout, not to mention the contributions to Bay Area theater they (and Stu Hall) have made, all together in this curious play from England, sometimes more puzzling than enigmatic, with the Victorian gentlemen speaking in our own, profane vernacular without comment—and where Huxley's nephew Aldous, long a denizen of Hollywood and hero to bohemian culture on the Coast and elsewhere for 'Brave New World' and 'The Doors of Perception' (the title from William Blake, later the inspiration for the more famous name of an LA rock group due to its subject matter, psychedelia), is never even mentioned on the balmy oceanfront set. 

But there's a reason the unlikely foursome are together and no-one else appears—something they share, Leandra Ramm's Sarah explaining it ere the end, at a moment when perhaps another play could start, just as the Victorians have begun to undo their tight collars in the SoCal sun, a spot where that often-ambiguous term "Evolution" has been so often qualified, since its coinage, by another word, sometimes arrayed against it: "Spiritual."