FOCUS: Bailout Was Really $7.77 Trillion, Action, Arrestees Speak Out About LAPD Eviction Raid & Abuse,



http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/320-80/8648-focus-bailout-was-really-777-trillion

FOCUS: Bailout Was Really $7.77 Trillion

By Adam Martin, The Atlantic Wire

29 November 11

 Remember the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program with which the federal government came to the rescue of faltering banks in 2008? Well, according to a Bloomberg report, that was just a fraction of the financial help the Federal Reserve Bank wound up doling out to troubled lenders. The real total was reportedly closer to $8 trillion, after you add up benefits outside TARP, including emergency loans given at below-market rates:

The amount of money the central bank parceled out was surprising even to Gary H. Stern, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis from 1985 to 2009, who says he "wasn't aware of the magnitude." It dwarfed the Treasury Department's better-known $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP. Add up guarantees and lending limits, and the Fed had committed $7.77 trillion as of March 2009 to rescuing the financial system, more than half the value of everything produced in the U.S. that year.

Bloomberg came up with that number after reviewing "29,000 pages of Fed documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act and central bank records of more than 21,000 transactions." Bloomberg adds, "The Fed didn't tell anyone which banks were in trouble so deep they required a combined $1.2 trillion on Dec. 5, 2008, their single neediest day." That's nearly twice the amount made public in TARP.

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From: earthactionnetwork@earthlink.net [mailto:earthactionnetwork@earthlink.net]
Sent: Wednesday, November 30, 2011 9:10 PM
Subject: Action

It's an unimaginable violation of due process: The Senate just voted to allow the military to detain American citizens indefinitely -- without even charging them with a crime -- if they are said to be suspected of terrorism.

Will you urge President Obama to veto this legislation? He only has a few days to make up his mind. http://act.demandprogress.org/act/ndaa/?referring_akid=a3495717.443619.GqcYS1&source=auto-e

As Senator Dianne Feinstein put it, "Congress is essentially authorizing the indefinite imprisonment of American citizens, without charge."

Thankfully, President Obama has threatened to veto the bill, noting that:

Applying this military custody requirement to individuals inside the United States, as some Members of Congress have suggested is their intention, would raise serious and unsettled legal questions and would be inconsistent with the fundamental American principle that our military does not patrol our streets.

Obama only has a few days to make up his mind: Will you urge him to make good on his veto threat? Just click here.

We live in interesting times.

-Demand Progress

PS: Will you urge your friends to pressure him too?

 

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From: ANSWER LA
Sent: Thursday, December 01, 2011 12:07 AM

MEDIA ADVISORY
For immediate release Dec. 1, 2011
Contact: Ian Thompson, 213-251-1025 (Office) or 310-490-8595 (Cell)
PRESS CONFERENCE

 

Arrested Occupy LA Protesters Speak Out About LAPD Eviction Raid & Abuses, While Hundreds of Protesters Remain Unjustly Jailed,  Protesters, Community Groups, Civil Rights Attorneys will Demand Immediate Release of all Jailed Occupy LA Protesters and to Drop Criminal Charges Now!

WHAT: Press Conference and Speak Out
WHEN: This Thursday, Dec. 1, 11am
WHERE: Los Angeles City Hall, west steps on Spring Street
WHO: Protesters arrested during LAPD raid of Occupy LA, including Michael Prysner, Iraq war veteran and co-founder of March Forward!; Doug Kauffman, USC graduate student organizer; National Lawyers Guild attorneys; Ian Thompson, civil rights attorney and coordinator of the ANSWER Coalition and others.
WHY: The nationally coordinated police assault against the Occupy Movement took a dramatic turn on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning with the police assault and mass arrest of Occupy LA protesters camping for two months on City Hall lawn.

 

During and after the arrest of well over 200 protesters, City officials and the Los Angeles Police Department violated the rights of peaceful Occupy LA protesters. Police ripped up tents, brutally beat protesters with batons, leveled guns at protesters' heads, and shot rubber bullets. Nearly every protester arrested was charged with misdameanor failure to disperse. As of now, only around 10 protesters have been released.

Their arrest was just the beginning of the abuses and violations suffered at the hands of the LAPD. Although state law requires the release of those arrested on misdameanor charges, bail was set for each protester at the outrageously high amount of $5,000. In addition, attorneys were unlawfully prevented for hours from seeing their clients.

 

The reality of what happened stands in stark contrast to the widely-publicized, self-congratulatory statements by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Police Chief Charlie Beck.

Iraq war veteran and Occupy LA arrestee Michael Prysner said, "I'm was one of the very first Occupiers released from jail, where I spent nearly 24 hours simply for exercising my first amendment right to peacefully assemble. Over 200 of my fellow protesters still remain in jail.

 

Prysner continued: "I've never experienced such needlessly punitive treatment that I was subjected to after my arrest at Occupy LA. Kept in tight handcuffs for over seven hours while sitting on a cold cement floor, given an abnormally high bail amount for a minor charge, listening to a fellow occupier beaten behind me as I and others were forced to stand facing a wall, hearing about protesters being kept on a bus for seven hours without access to bathrooms, and being told that without bail, we would be in jail for days." 



Occupy LA arrestee Doug Kauffman said, "It is obvious that the City of Los Angeles, just like in other cities, is using these tactics specifically to intimidate, demoralize, and scare away the thousands of young people and working families who are trying to make their voices heard during this deep economic crisis. Those being held still are being subjected to nothing less that terror tactics. All should be released immediately and the charges dropped."
Organizers and Occupy protesters are available for interview.

 

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A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
http://www2.answercoalition.org/site/R?i=gPp_doEKMNOy3yIbEXph1g
AnswerLA@AnswerLA.org
213-251-1025

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