Democracy Now! Daily Digest - A Daily Independent Global News
Hour with Amy Goodman & Juan González for Thursday, 9 January 2014
democracynow.org
STORIES:
Will New Jersey's Traffic Scandal Jam Gov. Christie's
Presidential Hopes for 2016?
A political controversy surrounding New Jersey Gov. Chris
Christie has grown into a scandal after it emerged a top aide deliberately
ordered traffic delays to exact political revenge. Newly released documents
show Christie’s Deputy Chief of Staff Bridget Anne Kelly personally ordered the
closure of lanes leading to the George Washington Bridge, which connects New
Jersey to New York City, to punish the mayor of Fort Lee for declining to
endorse Christie’s bid for re-election. In an email to another Christie
appointee and high school friend, David Wildstein, Kelly wrote: "Time for
some traffic problems in Fort Lee." The closures caused massive traffic
jams with just one lane operational over a four-day period. In a statement,
Christie denied involvement, saying he was "outraged and deeply
saddened" by his deputy’s actions. Amy Goodman and Juan González discuss
how the scandal could threaten Christie’s expected candidacy for the Republican
presidential nomination in 2016.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: We begin today with news from New Jersey that
could have national implications for one of the Republican Party’s rising
stars. On Wednesday, The Bergen Record published documents proving top
officials to Governor Chris Christie instigated the closure of several access
lanes on the George Washington Bridge in September near the town of Fort Lee in
order to punish that town’s mayor for not endorsing Christie’s re-election. The
lane closures turned the town into a virtual parking lot for four days and
delayed emergency workers trying to respond to calls, including one involving
an unconscious 91-year-old woman who later died.
In one email, Christie’s deputy chief of staff, Bridget Anne
Kelly, wrote, quote, "Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee."
The emails were written to David Wildstein, a high school friend of the
governor who worked at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which
runs the bridge. He responded, quote, "Got it." Prior to his
resignation in December, Wildstein was the Port Authority’s director of interstate
capital projects.
AMY GOODMAN: Later text messages mocked concerns that school
buses filled with students were stuck in gridlock on the first day of school.
One unidentified person wrote to Wildstein, "I feel badly about the kids.
I guess." Wildstein wrote, quote, "They are the children of Buono
voters," referring to Mr. Christie’s opponent for governor, Barbara Buono.
Some of the texts about the plan were sent while Kelly was in line to pay
respects at a wake. In other text messages, one of Christie’s associates—and
emails—refers to the mayor of Fort Lee, Mark Sokolich, as, quote, "this
little Serbian." In fact, he is of Croatian descent.
The scandal could hurt Christie’s chances of running for
president in 2016. Until now, Christie’s administration insisted the lane
closures were part of a traffic study initiated by the Port Authority. Christie
responded to the new revelations in a statement on Wednesday, saying, quote,
"What I’ve seen today for the first time is unacceptable. I am outraged
and deeply saddened that not only was I misled by a member of my staff, but
this completely inappropriate and unsanctioned conduct was made without my
knowledge." Governor Christie also canceled his only scheduled appearance
on Wednesday. For months, he has downplayed the significance of what happened.
This is a clip of Governor Christie responding to questions about the lane
closures back in December.
GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE: I worked the cones, actually. Unbeknownst
to everybody, I was actually the guy out there. I was in overalls and a hat, so
I wasn’t—but I actually was the guy working the cones out there. You really are
not serious with that question.
REPORTER: But what happened? Have you spoken to—
GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE: What happened—
REPORTER: —David Wildstein about what happened?
GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE: No, I haven’t.
REPORTER: [inaudible]
GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE: Listen, just because John Wisniewski is
obsessed with this, and Loretta Weinberg, it just shows you they really have
nothing to do. I don’t get involved in traffic studies. I don’t get involved in
lane closures. I didn’t work the cones—just so we’re clear on that, that was
sarcastic.
REPORTER: The idea that this was about no endorsement from the
mayor, and it’s just made up out of thin air?
GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE: Yeah, listen, I have absolutely no idea.
AMY GOODMAN: Back in November, the New Jersey State Assembly
held its first hearing into the lane closures. This is Port Authority Deputy
Executive Director Bill Baroni being questioned by New Jersey Assemblywoman
Linda Stender.
ASSEMBLYWOMAN LINDA STENDER: I’m sorry, Mr. Baroni, I heard you
the first three times that you talked about the issue of whether or not there
should be lanes, but that’s not what this hearing is about. This hearing is
about the lack of communication and the poor conduct of the Port Authority.
BILL BARONI: But you can’t—that’s actually not [inaudible]
ASSEMBLYWOMAN LINDA STENDER: And you are here trying to cover
that up.
BILL BARONI: There’s no—hold on, Assemblywoman. That’s—that’s
nonsense.
ASSEMBLYWOMAN LINDA STENDER: What I would like to know is
whether or not you have an email trail. You’re trying to tell us that this
major—a study that had a major disruption on your major bridge has no paper
trail, that there is not a single email—
BILL BARONI: Assemblywoman?
ASSEMBLYWOMAN LINDA STENDER: —that explains how this was done?
I—
BILL BARONI: Assemblywoman, I have sat here—
ASSEMBLYWOMAN LINDA STENDER: That defies all logic, and nobody
in this room believes that.
AMY GOODMAN: Deputy Executive Director Bill Baroni, who was
being questioned by New Jersey Assemblywoman Linda Stender, has since resigned.
And on Wednesday, New Jersey Assemblyman John Wisniewski, a Democrat, who has
led the hearings on the lane closures, responded to Governor Christie’s denial
that he was aware of the plan to stop traffic.
ASSEMBLYMAN JOHN WISNIEWSKI: I have not seen any emails that
have the governor’s name on it, but clearly there’s an email that has the
governor’s deputy chief of staff on it. This is an administration that keeps a
very tight control over what happens and what comes out of the front office.
And so, we’d like to get explanations as to who else in the governor’s office
knew about this and what their role was.
AMY GOODMAN: That was New Jersey Assemblyman John Wisniewski,
who was holding a hearing today. He has subpoenaed Wildstein to be there, and
Wildstein is trying to—has sued to try to prevent his appearance today.
Juan, this is quite a scandal that’s brewing, all starting with
the traffic jam on the George Washington Bridge.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Yes, and I think it’s going to continue for quite
some time, because obviously there are more hearings coming. I think the
governor has now announced he’s going to have a press conference this—today.
And the reality is that Christie is in a position where, on the one hand, if he
didn’t know that his own top staff were involved in this, that’s a problem, and
if he did know, it will become an even bigger—even bigger scandal, just as he’s
preparing now, really, to thrust himself into the national picture as a
presidential candidate.
AMY GOODMAN: I mean, scandal rocks a lot of politics in New
Jersey, but all these emails and texts show that this goes right into the
governor’s office. And in all of these texts that we were just reading, and
emails, there are names that had been actually redacted, and it’s unclear who
redacted these names.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Right. Well, in the FOIA request, obviously, that
The Bergen Record had, it was a decision of someone in the administration. And
I guess they could have appealed that, as well, the redaction of the names, but
they felt that it was important to get the information out at this time. And,
of course, the George Washington Bridge is a huge—
AMY GOODMAN: It’s the most trafficked bridge in the world, it’s
believed.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And millions of people use it, especially
commuters, on a daily basis. And folks know that there are traffic jams on the
George Washington Bridge most of the time anyway, but to have—to tie up in a
major town in New Jersey this way and to create all these problems, now—the
mayor now has demanded a reimbursement from the state and an apology, but he’s
demanded reimbursement for the public safety people that had to work so much
overtime during those four days. So this is going to continue as an issue, not
only in New Jersey politics, but in national politics now, for several days, I
think, if not weeks.
AMY GOODMAN: Now, let’s remember that what was said at the time
is there was some kind of traffic study going on. But no emergency personnel,
no police, no one was told about this in Fort Lee. And when it was
complete—when people kept continually questioning, it turned out there was no
such traffic jam. And then you have this—that there was no such study. Then you
have this situation where people who were sick, people who were ill, like the
91-year-old woman who later died, emergency workers were seriously delayed in
getting to them.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: The other problem is that Christie, who is known
as a hands-on manager, as someone who pays attention to details, and also as
someone who is not reticent to go after his political enemies, this is why I
think that there’s so much of a sense that it’s almost beyond belief that the
governor would not have some knowledge, if it was at the level of his inner
staff. So, we’ll see what happens, but I think it’s definitely a continuing story
now.
-------
In New York City's Transformed Political Era, Progressives Take
Major Posts Under Mayor de Blasio
One week after the inauguration of new mayor Bill de Blasio,
Melissa Mark-Viverito has been elected speaker of the New York City Council.
Democracy Now! co-host and New York Daily News columnist Juan González says
Mark-Viverito’s election cements a new political era in New York City where
progressives have now filled several major posts, from the mayor on down.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: Meanwhile, across the bridge, when you can get over
it, in New York, you were at New York City Council. And why this is important
for a global audience is, looking at what this new era, if in fact it is, is
being ushered in in New York under Bill de Blasio, the new mayor. What happened
at the City Council?
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, what I—as I said yesterday at the New York
City Council, the last piece of the puzzle in the transformation of New York
City politics occurred when the City Council, the members of—the 51 members of
the City Council voted unanimously to choose Melissa Mark-Viverito, an East
Harlem and South Bronx councilwoman, as their next speaker, the second most
powerful post in New York City government after the mayor. And Melissa
Mark-Viverito, the co-chair of the Progressive Caucus of the council, becomes
the first Latina and person of color to hold a citywide—a Latina to hold a
major citywide post as speaker, and that she becomes the fourth and last major
figure in the New York City government, after Mayor de Blasio, Letitia James
and—the public advocate, and the comptroller, Scott Stringer.
Now all of the major posts in New York City government are held
by progressive liberals, Democrats. And it’s really unprecedented in the modern
history of the city that there’s been such a populist, now, government. And
Melissa was up against five or six different candidates, and the last standing
one was Daniel Garodnick, another Democratic moderate liberal, but much more
favored by the business and real estate communities, who feel that they have
now no representative in city government that they can depend on to respond to
their needs.
So, we’re going to see what’s going to happen now. And the first
thing that Melissa Mark-Viverito spoke about when she accepted the vote was—or
the position, was that she was going to press immediately for an increased
minimum wage for low-wage workers, airport workers and others in the city. So I
think now, with the mayor behind it and Melissa Mark-Viverito, it’s only going
to be a matter of weeks before New York City becomes the first major or huge
city in the country to sharply increase the minimum wage.
AMY GOODMAN: And Melissa Mark-Viverito, the newly elected head
of the City Council, is a former producer at WBAI, the Pacifica station, the
non-commercial community radio station here in New York that Democracy Now!
broadcasts on.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Yes, and she was subjected over the last few
weeks to numerous newspaper articles, many of them attacks on her as—linking
her to Evo Morales, because she—the president of Bolivia—because she went there
as an observer during one of the presidential races; just yesterday in the New
York Post, lambasting her for calling for freedom for the Cuban Five, those
accused of espionage against the—
AMY GOODMAN: Got convicted and imprisoned.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: —or convicted of espionage against the United
States; and for many of the other positions she has taken in the past—all aimed
at basically turning the council members against her, but did not succeed.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, we’ll certainly continue to follow New York
politics as well as the scandal across the river in New Jersey, what will
happen to Governor Chris Christie, the—well, person who’s talked about as being
the Republican presidential front-runner for 2016.
This is Democracy Now! When we come back, it’s been 50 years
since Lyndon Johnson declared the War on Poverty. What’s happened since? And
then we’ll go to Iraq to talk about what’s happening in Fallujah and the
increasing violence throughout the country. This is Democracy Now! Back in a
minute.
-------
50 Years After LBJ's "War on Poverty," a Call for a
New Fight Against 21st Century Inequality
Fifty years ago this week, President Lyndon B. Johnson launched
his "war on poverty," which led to many of the federal and state
initiatives low-income Americans rely on today — Medicaid, Medicare, subsidized
housing, Head Start, legal services, nutrition assistance, raising the minimum
wage, and later, food stamps and Pell grants. Five decades later, many say
another war on poverty is needed. We are joined by Peter Edelman, author of
"So Rich, So Poor: Why It’s So Hard to End Poverty in America." A
faculty director at the Center on Poverty, Inequality and Public Policy at
Georgetown University, Edelman was a top adviser to Senator Robert F. Kennedy
and a member of President Bill Clinton’s administration until he resigned in
protest after Clinton signed the 1996 welfare reform law that threw millions of
people off the rolls.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: We turn now to look at poverty in the United
States. This week marks the 50th anniversary of when President Lyndon B.
Johnson declared a "war on poverty." His administration created many
of the federal and state initiatives low-income Americans rely on today. They
include Medicaid, Medicare, subsidized housing, Head Start, legal services,
nutrition assistance, raising the minimum wage, and, later, food stamps and
Pell grants. During his first State of the Union speech, that President Johnson
called on Congress to support his war on poverty. This is him.
PRESIDENT LYNDON JOHNSON: I would like to caution you and remind
you that to exercise these privileges takes much more than just legal right. It
requires a trained mind and a healthy body. It requires a decent home and the
chance to find a job and the opportunity to escape from the clutches of
poverty. Of course people cannot contribute to the nation if they are never
taught to read or write, if their bodies are stunted from hunger, if their
sickness goes untended, if their life is spent in hopeless poverty just drawing
the welfare check. So we want to open the gates to opportunity, but we’re also
going to give all our people, black and white, the help that they need to walk
through those gates.
The program I shall propose will emphasize this cooperative
approach to help that one-fifth of all American families with incomes too small
to even meet their basic needs. Our chief weapons and a more pinpointed attack
will be better schools and better health and better homes and better training
and better job opportunities, to help more Americans, especially young Americans,
escape from squalor and misery and unemployment.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: That was President Lyndon B. Johnson speaking 50
years ago this week. Many are marking the anniversary by asking what the war on
poverty has accomplished.
AMY GOODMAN: Today an increasing number of Americans say they
experience direct economic hardship, according to a new study by the Center for
American Progress. It found 61 percent of Americans say their family’s income
falls below the cost of living. As many as a third of Americans reported
serious problems falling behind in rent, mortgage or utilities payments, or
being unable to buy enough food, afford necessary medical care, or keep up with
minimum credit card payments.
For more, we’re joined by Peter Edelman, faculty director at the
Center on Poverty, Inequality, and Public Policy at Georgetown University. He
was top adviser to Senator Robert F. Kennedy and also a member of President
Bill Clinton’s administration until he resigned in protest over the 1996
Welfare Reform Act. His latest book is So Rich, So Poor: Why It’s So Hard to
End Poverty in America.
Peter Edelman, it’s great to have you back on Democracy Now!
Let’s go back 50 years ago this week to the announcement of the war on poverty
by President Johnson. Talk about just what that war on poverty was. In fact, it
was specific.
PETER EDELMAN: It was very specific. And first, thank you
for—I’m delighted to be with you this morning.
So, there were really two layers to what President Johnson did.
One was the war on poverty. The other was the larger Great Society. And so,
when we think about that period of time, we need to understand that the big
things were Medicare and Medicaid and the historic civil rights laws and the
first-ever federal aid to elementary and secondary education. The war on
poverty was very specific. And it was good things. It was Head Start. It was
legal services for low-income people, community health centers—all things that
we still have, all things that have made a difference. But in and of
themselves, that narrower group of things was not going to end poverty. It has
made a contribution to help in a variety of ways, and it continues, but it was
a narrower idea. We do need to understand that.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Peter Edelman, what is it that made it
possible for Johnson to cobble together such an enormous range of legislative
acts to pursue this war on poverty?
PETER EDELMAN: It was in the context of the optimism and the
positive feeling about America that we had after World War II and the
tremendous economic boom that we’d had, although there had been a recession at
the end of the Eisenhower period. So, we really were in an optimistic position
where we thought we could do anything—you know, later on, go to the moon, all
of that.
Secondly, and very important, the civil rights movement made a
major difference in terms of exposing injustice, racial injustice, but it
immediately became clearer, as we achieved legal equality, and as President
Johnson said, that that didn’t mean that somebody would be able to afford to
buy a meal at a lunch counter. And so, there was a kind of an upheaval of—from
the bottom, through the civil rights movement, as well as Johnson himself, who
gets—has to get—for all the things that we think negatively in terms of the war
in Vietnam, Johnson is our great president after Abraham Lincoln on civil
rights, and he really cared about poverty, from his own upbringing.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, let’s go back—as you’re mentioning the
impact of the civil rights movement on the war on poverty, let’s go back to one
of President Johnson’s—the 1964 State of the Union address, where he declared
that war. He drew upon his personal experiences as a teacher working among
impoverished Mexican students in South Texas.
PETER EDELMAN: Mm-hmm.
PRESIDENT LYNDON JOHNSON: You never forget what poverty and
hatred can do, when you see its scars on the hopeful face of a young child. I
never thought, then, in 1928, that I would be standing here in 1965. It never
even occurred to me in my fondest dreams that I might have the chance to help
the sons and daughters of those students and to help people like them all over
this country. But now I do have that chance. And I’ll let you in on a secret: I
mean to use it.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Peter Edelman, your response to a president
making such a forceful statement about how he’s going to use his power to
achieve the social aims of his administration?
PETER EDELMAN: To me, of course, it is something that we would
like to hear from our leaders in that degree of deep feeling. It’s a very
different time politically. It is also true that as of the election that gave
us the 89th Congress beginning in 1965, we had enormous majorities of Democrats
in the House and the Senate, and also a much more bipartisan approach to so
many issues. The civil rights laws wouldn’t have been passed without Republican
support. Food stamps, then, and really until very recently, was bipartisan in
its support. Richard Nixon was the first president to send a message to
Congress asking for a national food stamp program. Bob Dole defended the food
stamp program in the early ’80s. George W. Bush, very recently, was a strong
supporter of the food stamp program. So, we had a different politics than we do
right at the moment, anyway.
President Obama has done a lot about poverty, and I think we
should be very clear about that. The Medicaid expansion in the Affordable Care
Act is of historic dimension. What was in the Affordable—in the Recovery Act
was terrific for low-income people in our country. So, we have leadership. But
Lyndon Johnson, those words do ring very strong for us.
AMY GOODMAN: On Wednesday, Republican Senator Marco Rubio of
Florida outlined sweeping changes to the federal government’s anti-poverty
programs.
SEN. MARCO RUBIO: Our current president and his liberal allies,
what they propose to address is—their proposal is, let’s spend more on these
failed programs, and let’s increase the minimum wage to $10.10. This—really?
This is their solution to what the president has called the defining issue of
our time? Raising the minimum wage may poll well, but having a job that pays
$10 an hour is not the American dream. And our current government programs, at
best, offer only a partial solution. They help people deal with poverty, but
they do not help people emerge from poverty.
Therefore, what I am proposing today is the most fundamental
change to how the federal government fights poverty and encourages upward
mobility since President Johnson first conceived the war on poverty 50 years
ago today. I am proposing that we turn over Washington’s anti-poverty programs
and the trillions that are spent on them to the states. Our anti-poverty
program should be replaced with a revenue-neutral flex fund. We would
streamline most of our existing federal anti-poverty funding into a single
agency. Then, each year, these flex funds would be transferred to the states so
they can design and fund creative initiatives that address the factors behind
inequality of opportunity. This worked in the 1990s with welfare reform.
AMY GOODMAN: Republican Senator Marco Rubio of Florida speaking
yesterday. Peter Edelman, your response?
PETER EDELMAN: I am glad that Senator Rubio and some of the
other Republicans have discovered poverty this week. These ideas are not going
to get us anywhere. And there are a lot of workers out there who are struggling
very hard, who would find it very constructive if Congress would act, if the Republicans
would support President Obama’s proposal to get the minimum wage up to $10 an
hour. I’m the first to say, long before Senator Rubio, that we need to have
wages that are higher than that. We need to have returns from work that help
people get out of poverty.
He is not proposing one thing. These are—turning it over to the
states is a shopworn idea. It goes back decades. What it does is it leaves it
to states like Mississippi and Texas and others that could care less. And
[inaudible] of national standards like food stamps—are people hungrier in New
York than they are in Mississippi? I don’t think so. And to say, "Well,
the state will decide how hungry you are and how much we’ll pay," makes no
sense.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, I’d like to ask you about the record, too,
of some Democrats in the last few decades in pursuing, continuing to fight for
the ideals of Johnson’s war on poverty. You, in 1996, resigned in protest after
President Clinton signed the Welfare Reform Act. Could you talk about some of the
retreat that has occurred on this war, even among Democrats?
PETER EDELMAN: One of the unfortunate things that we’ve done
over the last 40 years, along with doing smart things like expanding the earned
income tax credit and enacting the Child Health Insurance Act under President
Clinton and the Affordable Care Act now, was to just slash a huge hole in our
safety net, which was ending the AFDC, the old welfare program, which was not a
satisfactory program and needed to be reformed in a progressive way, and
instead, essentially, to throw people off the rolls, so that we now have less
than four million people who are receiving cash assistance—and that’s about
women and children in our country—so that we end up with six million people in
our country whose only income is from food stamps. Six million people. That’s 2
percent of the American people. That’s an income of $6,000. In other words,
about 30 percent of the poverty line. That was a bad thing that we did. In
Wyoming now, for example, because it’s completely up to the states and there’s
no legal right, there are only 600 people, 4 percent of poor children in
Wyoming. And that’s actually typical of about half of our states. So, we made a
huge mistake there, and that was self-inflicted in terms of our safety net and
our anti-poverty strategies.
AMY GOODMAN: Peter, I want to go back to that moment in 1996.
President Obama—President Clinton signs off on welfare reform. You were a top
person in the Health and Human Services Administration. And soon after, you quit.
We spoke to you right after that. This is what you said.
PETER EDELMAN: I am deeply opposed to the current welfare law
and very troubled by what happened last year in the Congress. It ends a very
fundamental entitlement of assistance to children in need. The way the law used
to work—and this has completely ended—is that if a family with children
satisfied the eligibility requirements—and those were national, federal
requirements—they could get aid. What’s happened now is it’s entirely up to the
state, each state, to decide whether it will help people at all, whether it
will give them cash or help them with a voucher, whether it will have its
system run by a public agency or by a corporation or some private agency.
AMY GOODMAN: So, that was back in 1996, when you quit. And that
wasn’t under a Republican president; it was under a Democratic president,
President Clinton. Can you talk about, following up on Juan’s question, the
Democrats’ role? I mean, you have, what, Senator Bernie Sanders, not even a Democrat,
though he caucuses with the Democrats, he sort of this lone voice who
constantly is beating the drum for preserving Social Security. And some of his
biggest opponents actually are other Democrats. They just don’t speak about it
very clearly to let you know what they’re doing.
PETER EDELMAN: We all need to do better. And Bernie Sanders is
wonderful. He’s not alone. Look at Jan Schakowsky, for example, a member of
Congress from Chicago, and the terrific bill that she has to put Americans to
work, a kind of New Deal jobs program, which we still need, because the people
of our country are still in a recession. So, nobody, none of—neither of our
political parties is absolutely wonderful.
But if you look at the things that have been done—and as I said
before, many of them have been done on a bipartisan basis—we’ve done a lot. We
have good public policies. If we didn’t have the public policies that we have
in place now, from Social Security to earned income tax credit, to child tax
credit, food stamps, on and on, we would have twice as many people in poverty
as we do right now. So we’ve done the right thing.
And what’s been happening is that we’ve been swimming upstream
in an economy that’s changed just radically since 1968, when President Johnson
left office, so that we’re now a low-wage nation. That’s the heart of what’s
happened here. And so that even with the really important policies that have
been led largely by Democrats, but far more bipartisan than we have right now,
even with all of that, we still have 46 million people in poverty, which is
terrible. And that is so significantly because of our economy, because of the
structural changes due to globalization and technology.
And we really need to wake up and say, "OK, what do we do
to get good jobs? What do we do to get better wages? And, of course, along with
that, how do we educate our children for the jobs of the 21st century?"
And then, with that, we do need a safety net that reaches all the people. We
have 20 million people now who are in deep poverty, whose incomes are below
half the poverty line, below $9,500 for a family of three. These are things
that, across the board, both parties need to pay attention to in constructive
ways. That quote from me that you just played about what happened to welfare
and what they’ve done at the state level ought to tell us what would happen if
Senator Rubio had his way and turned everything else over to the states.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I’m wondering if you care to comment on the hope
for change. Obviously, the Occupy Wall Street movement changed the political
discussion about economic inequality in our country, and now you’re seeing, at
local levels, much—many more progressive leaders elected. We were commenting
earlier about this transformation of New York City politics now with New York
City poised to sharply increase its minimum wage now as a result of the new
mayor, de Blasio, the new speaker and new elected officials citywide. Do you
see hope at the grassroots level for some new examination and new initiatives
that will overcome some of the gridlock that we’re faced with in Congress?
PETER EDELMAN: I do. And I’m so pleased to see the kinds of
things that Mayor de Blasio is proposing—the talk about raising the minimum
wage in New York City, his proposals about early childhood, which I think are
just terrific and so important. And if you look at the activity around the
country on minimum wage now—those airport workers in the little town of SeaTac
and Seattle, the raising of the minimum wage statewide in California, and a lot
of the other things that Jerry Brown is doing along with the Legislature
there—so, I think that’s very, very important.
However, all of that can’t get us to where we have to go. I
think those things will help support better national policies and a better
national politics, but there are plenty of states, unfortunately, that don’t
have the same kind of commitment that a New York or a California or other
places in the country have. So, we need to have a better and stronger set of
national policies, and in a balanced way, and not just public policy. We need
to have people at the local level who are going to work in a civic way to
improve our schools and to build the child care systems and to help young
people get into the labor market.
AMY GOODMAN: We want to thank you, Peter Edelman, for joining
us, faculty director at the Center on Poverty, Inequality, and Public Policy at
Georgetown University, top adviser to Senator Robert F. Kennedy, also member of
President Clinton’s administration until he resigned in protest after Clinton signed
the 1996 welfare reform legislation. His latest book, So Rich, So Poor: Why
It’s So Hard to End Poverty in America.
This is Democracy Now! When we come back, we go to Iraq to talk
about the violence there and what’s happening in Fallujah. Stay with us.
-------
As U.S. Rushes Weapons to Iraq, New Assault on Fallujah
Threatens Explosion of Sectarian Conflict
Iraqi forces have surrounded Fallujah in preparation for a
potential assault to retake the city from Sunni militants who have also seized
parts of Ramadi. Thousands of Fallujah residents have fled to avoid being
trapped in the crossfire. This comes as the United States is ramping up its
delivery of Hellfire missiles and surveillance drones as part of a
"holistic" strategy to oust the militant group known as the Islamic
State of Iraq and the Levant. We speak to two guests: Feurat Alani, a
French-Iraqi journalist who was based in Baghdad from 2003 to 2008 and has made
several documentaries, including "Roadtrip Iraq" and "Fallujah:
A Lost Generation?"; and Peter Van Buren, a 24-year State Department
veteran who served in Iraq and later wrote a book critical of U.S. policy
there, titled "We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts
and Minds of the Iraqi People." Van Buren faced dismissal after
criticizing U.S. reconstruction efforts in Iraq.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: We turn now to the increasingly violent situation
in Iraq. At least 13 people have been killed and another 30 wounded in a suicide
attack on a police station in Baghdad. The bombing comes as the Iraqi
government is preparing for an offensive to retake the city of Fallujah from
Sunni militants. Fighters from the al-Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq and
the Levant seized parts of Fallujah as well as Ramadi last week. The Iraqi Red
Crescent says over 13,000 families have fled Fallujah to escape the violence in
the past few days. The United Nations is warning that Anbar province faces a
critical humanitarian situation, with 250 people killed already this month.
This is Fallujah resident Khaled Mohssen.
KHALED MOHSSEN: [translated] We are families fleeing from
Fallujah, which is undergoing military operations due to the presence of
militants that are unwelcome in the city. There was random shelling against
houses in the city, so we were scared for our families and left the city.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Meanwhile, the United States is ramping up its
delivery of military equipment to help Iraq battle militants who have overrun
parts of Anbar province, including the city of Fallujah. This is White House
Press Secretary Jay Carney.
PRESS SECRETARY JAY CARNEY: We’re accelerating our foreign
military sales, deliveries, and are looking to provide an additional shipment
of Hellfire missiles as early as this spring. These missiles are one small
element of that holistic—excuse me—strategy, but they been proven effective at
denying ISIL the safe haven zones that it has sought to establish in western
Iraq.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: That was White House Press Secretary Jay Carney.
Well, for more, we’re joined now via Democracy Now! video stream
by Feurat Alani. He’s a French-Iraqi journalist who was based in Baghdad during
the war from 2003 to 2008. He has returned twice a year since then and made
several documentaries, including Roadtrip Iraq and Fallujah: A Lost Generation?
He recently wrote a piece for Le Monde calling Syria’s conflict—called
"Syria’s Conflict Spreads to Iraq: Violence and Power Struggles."
AMY GOODMAN: And in Washington, we’re joined by Peter Van Buren,
24-year veteran of the U.S. State Department, who served in Iraq, later wrote a
book critical of U.S. policy called We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle
for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People. And he was later forced out of
the State Department.
We want to welcome you both to Democracy Now! Feurat Alani, I
want to start with you. You begin one of your latest pieces, "Violence and
Power Struggles," by writing, "How do you stop a suicide bomber?"
And that’s exactly what happened in Baghdad today, yet another suicide bombing.
Can you talk about the situation there, and particularly in Fallujah?
FEURAT ALANI: Yes. Thank you for inviting me. You know, I just
talked today to many friends in Fallujah, and the situation today was not like
yesterday. It’s moving. The market in the center of Fallujah has reopened. And,
you know, people in Fallujah are used to be ostracized, like since 2004, so
it’s usual for them to live under the violence. So they’re trying to live. And
some—a lot of families fled to other part of Iraq, in Baghdad and other
provinces. But the situation is very tense, and people of Fallujah doesn’t know
what is going on and what’s happening.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you describe Fallujah for us right now? And
exactly what is the dynamic that’s happening when news reports around the world
say al-Qaeda-linked forces have taken over?
FEURAT ALANI: Yes, I would like to be precise and clear about
it. When you talk to Fallujah people, they reject the idea that al-Qaeda is
taking control of Fallujah. They almost saying that it’s false. People who are
controlling Fallujah are member of tribes and normal inhabitants. We have to
remind that one year ago demonstrations started in the Dignity Square, showing
anger against the policy of the government, of the Iraqi government. And so,
when the prime minister, Maliki, started to arrest Sunni politicians, anger
increased in Fallujah. And what we are facing today is not a battlefield
between al-Qaeda and the army. It’s a battle—it’s a political battlefield. It’s
anger expressed many years ago by Fallujahn people who are tired and angry, and
they just want to be recognized as Iraqis.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Peter Van Buren, you’re a State Department
veteran. I’d like to bring you into the discussion and talk about—you know,
President Obama has repeatedly said, since United States troops pulled out,
that he ended the war in Iraq; however, we know that what has exactly happened
is that it’s just gone off the front pages of our newspapers, but the war has
continued. What happened after U.S. troops left to create the situation that
exists now?
PETER VAN BUREN: What happened was very similar to what the
gentleman before me was talking about. It’s back to the future. The core issues
that led to instability in Iraq, that started in 2003, were never resolved by
the United States over nine years of occupation—primarily, the need to create a
unity government. The United States stood aside as the Kurds de facto created a
new nation. The United States stood aside as the Sunni-Shia rift—and of course
we’re using those terms very broadly—developed. Almost within days of the U.S.
troop withdrawal, Prime Minister Maliki sought to have his Sunni vice president
arrested. The vice president fled and is believed to be in Turkey. Maliki has
continued his persecutions and prosecutions against the Sunnis, and now has
resorted to open warfare in Fallujah in attempt to tame them, to marginalize
them and to maintain his Shia control of power.
AMY GOODMAN: What about the U.S. sending military aid to the
Iraqi government?
PETER VAN BUREN: During nine years of war and occupation, the
U.S. expended a tremendous number of Hellfire missiles and other weaponry. None
of that was effective against either side—Sunni, Shia, or perhaps third-party
foreign fighters. This is not a war that can be won like a game of chess.
There’s not lines on the ground where one force is on one side trying to
capture territory on the other side. This remains a war to settle political,
ethnic, social and other types of differences. It’s an insurgency. And any
attempts to blast your way out of this problem will end, for the Maliki
government, exactly as they ended for the American government: ineffectual and
nothing more than a stage for the next round of violence.
AMY GOODMAN: Feurat Alani, what has to happen, do you believe?
And what about that same issue of U.S. re-arming the Iraqi regime?
FEURAT ALANI: I think this is a very bad news. You know, I made
a documentary about Fallujah three years ago about the consequences on the
health in the city of Fallujah by the use of U.S. weapons like white
phosphorus, depleted uranium and Hellfire missile. We call it—this technology
is called thermobaric weapon. It’s very bad. And now, today—even today in
Fallujah, the hospitals faces birth defects, deformed babies and cancer rising
in the city. And even scientists say that it’s worse than Hiroshima, because of
the U.S. weapons that were used in the battle of Fallujah in 2004. So, as—I totally
agree with what was said by the gentleman before me. This is not a solution.
This is—this has to be solved by a political view, and we have—I mean, the
Iraqi government has to stop the marginalization of Sunnis in Anbar.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Feurat Alani, what are—there have been news
reports that Iran and the United States are now, inconceivably, talking about
finding ways to ally with the Maliki government to prevent the continued rise
of the opposition forces in the Sunni areas of Iraq. What’s your response to
that?
FEURAT ALANI: Well, the tribes are divided in Iraq. A part of
them are collaborating with the Iraqi army. And one famous leader of those
tribe is Ahmed Abu Risha. He’s one of the—he’s the brother of one tribe leader
who created the Sahwat the Awakening militia, made up of members of Sunni
tribes who allied themselves with the U.S. to fight al-Qaeda in Iraq. And this
was a strategy to expel the people of al-Qaeda. But today, as I said before,
many people of Fallujah said they’ve never seen any member of al-Qaeda in
Fallujah. So, I think this is part of the government’s policy to divide the
Sunnis in number. And this is a main problem today, because we face member of
tribes who are struggling against the Iraqi army and other tribes who are struggling
against al-Qaeda. So it makes the situation very confused, and it’s very
difficult now to know what will happen in the future.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you both for being with us, and we
are going to continue our conversation with Feurat Alani in a post-show that we
will post online to talk about the documentary he did specifically in Fallujah
and the effects of what the U.S. did there have on what is happening there
today. Feurat Alani is a French-Iraqi journalist who is based in Baghdad. We’re
speaking to him in Dubai. He was based there from 2003 to 2008, has returned
twice a year since then and made several documentaries. And thank you so much
to our guest in Washington, D.C., Peter Van Buren, 24-year veteran of the U.S.
State Department, who served in Iraq and wrote the book We Meant Well: How I
Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People.
-------
HEADLINES:
13 Killed in Baghdad Suicide Bombing; Iraqi Forces Prep Fallujah
Assault
At least 13 people have been killed and another 30 wounded in a
suicide attack on a police station in Baghdad. The bombing comes as the Iraqi
government is preparing for an offensive to retake the city of Fallujah from
Sunni militants. Fighters from the al-Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq and
the Levant seized parts of Fallujah as well as Ramadi last week. The Iraqi Red
Crescent says more than 13,000 families have fled Fallujah to escape the
violence in the past few days. The United Nations is warning Anbar faces a
"critical humanitarian situation," with 250 people killed already
this month. Iraq is facing its worst violence in six years, with more than
7,000 dead in 2013.
-------
Syrian Rebels Seize Aleppo Base From Rival Faction
In Syria, anti-government rebels have forced an al-Qaeda-linked
group to withdraw from its base in the northern city of Aleppo. Clashes among
rebels have left hundreds of people dead in recent days, marking the deadliest
infighting between the groups since the Syrian conflict began. The Islamic
State of Iraq and the Levant was initially allied with other anti-government
groups, but tensions among rebel factions erupted last week. The rebels who
seized control of ISIL’s Aleppo base Wednesday found more than 40 bodies
inside, sparking concerns the group is executing prisoners as they retreat.
-------
Opposition Forces Attack Syrian Chemical Site
The Syrian government says rebels have attacked a pair of
storage sites for the regime’s chemical weapons stockpile. The news comes days
after the first shipment of weapons was loaded onto a ship to begin the disarmament
process agreed to last year. At the United Nations, Sigrid Kaag, the top
official overseeing the removal of Syria’s chemical weapons, says she expects
the Assad regime to meet a June deadline for the stockpile’s complete
destruction.
Sigrid Kaag: "I didn’t say we’re on schedule. But I think
what we talked about is a collective expectation by the Security Council, of
course, full support of the joint mission, that looking at the end of June
deadline that there is no reason to assume that delays should occur. All things
being equal, we also have to remember Syria is a country at war. Security
situation can shift from day to day. But everything is ready, investment is
made, and the authorities have shown that first movements have started to
happen."
-------
Central African Republic President Reportedly Set to Resign as
Crisis Grows
The president of the Central African Republic is reportedly
preparing to step down after weeks of violence that have left over one thousand
dead. Michel Djotodia could make the announcement today at a regional summit in
Chad. Tens of thousands have been displaced since violence between Christian
and Muslim militants exploded last month. At a camp housing more than 100,000 internally
displaced people, the local coordinator for Doctors Without Borders warned of a
humanitarian crisis.
Lindis Hurum: "It was very urgent to start because it’s
very contagious, and this population is living in very dire hygienic
conditions. The density of the camp is also impressive, and in these kind of
camps there is a very high risk of epidemic."
-------
White House Launches Probe as Video Emerges of Yemen Drone
Attack
The Obama administration has launched an internal investigation
of a drone strike that reportedly killed 12 people in Yemen last month. The
victims were on their way to a wedding when they were apparently mistaken for
an al-Qaeda convoy. NBC News reports the strike was carried out by the Joint
Special Operations Command, or JSOC. The White House probe comes after the
human rights group Reprieve released new video showing the victims’ burned
corpses lined up on the ground for burial. In a statement, Reprieve said:
"In bombing a wedding, the U.S. government has demonstrated that they
either don’t know or don’t care who they were targeting. As a result, 12
innocent lives have been lost and many more destroyed … We can only hope [the]
internal investigation is robust and that it results in needed policy change
and reparation for those affected."
-------
Utah Won’t Recognize Same-Sex Marriages
Utah has told hundreds of LGBT couples their marriages will not
be recognized after the Supreme Court reinstated a ban earlier this week.
Nearly 1,000 LGBT couples got married after a federal judge struck down the
state’s ban on same-sex marriage late last month. But the Supreme Court halted
the marriages on Monday pending Utah’s appeal of the judge’s ruling. Utah Gov.
Bob Herbert has told state agencies not to recognize any same-sex marriages
that took place in the two weeks when they were allowed. The case could end up
before the Supreme Court.
-------
21 Killed as Polar Vortex Eases Across U.S.
The death toll from record-shattering cold across the United
States has risen to at least 21. Several of the victims are homeless people who
froze to death. Frigid temperatures are beginning to ease after the blast of
Arctic air enveloped swaths of the Midwest, Northeast and even the Deep South.
-------
Christie Aide Ordered Traffic Closure for Political Retaliation
A political controversy surrounding New Jersey Gov. Chris
Christie has grown into a scandal after it emerged a top aide deliberately
ordered traffic delays to exact political revenge. Newly released documents
show Christie’s Deputy Chief of Staff Bridget Anne Kelly personally ordered the
closure of lanes leading to the George Washington Bridge, which connects New
Jersey to New York City, to punish the mayor of Fort Lee for declining to
endorse Christie’s bid for re-election. In an email to another Christie
appointee and high school friend, David Wildstein, Kelly wrote: "Time for
some traffic problems in Fort Lee." The closures caused massive traffic
jams with just one lane operational over a four-day period. The scandal could
threaten Christie’s expected candidacy for the Republican presidential
nomination in 2016. In a statement, Christie denied involvement, saying he was
"outraged and deeply saddened" by his deputy’s actions.
-------
Gates: Biden "Wrong on Nearly Every Issue"
The White House is facing questions over a new memoir from
former Defense Secretary Robert Gates that criticizes President Obama and Vice
President Joe Biden. Gates writes Obama never believed in his own policy of
escalating the Afghanistan War with a surge of 30,000 troops. Gates also calls
Biden, "wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security
issue over the past four decades." On Wednesday, White House Press
Secretary Jay Carney defended Biden.
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney: "The president and
the rest of us here simply just disagree with that assessment. As a senator and
as a vice president, Joe Biden has been one of the leading statesmen of his
time, and he has been an excellent counselor and adviser to the president for
the past five years. He’s played a key role in every major national security
and foreign policy debate and policy discussion in this administration, in this
White House."
As it faced questions over Biden, the White House allowed news
crews to take pictures of his weekly lunch with President Obama for the first
time. In his book, Gates also reports that both Hillary Clinton and Obama
admitted that their opposition to a U.S. troop surge in Iraq in 2006 was
"political."
-------
100 Charged in NYC Disability Scam
More than 100 people in New York, including 80 retired police
officers and firefighters, have been charged in a suspected disability scam
dating back over two decades. Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance says the
accused made false disability claims, bilking taxpayers out of some $400
million.
Cyrus Vance: "Since at least 1988, these men are charged
with coaching hundreds and hundreds of individuals on how to convince the
Social Security administration that those individuals are unable to work at any
job because they suffer a psychiatric condition, and therefore are entitled to
monthly disability payments. Now, it’s a particularly cynical part of the
charge scheme that approximately half of the defendants falsely claimed that
their psychiatric disabilities were caused by their association with the
terrorist attacks of September 11."
-------
6 Killed in Separate U.S. Helicopter Crashes
At least two people have died in a U.S. Navy plane crash off the
coast of Virginia. The Navy says the helicopter was on a training mission when
it crashed into the Atlantic Ocean. Two of the three survivors are in stable
condition while another is missing. The crash comes one day after four U.S.
servicemembers died in a helicopter crash in England. Norfolk police chief Bob
Scully told local residents to stay away from the crash site until the wreckage
is removed.
Bob Scully: "The ammunition that is scattered around the
crash site came from the crashed aircraft. We do know exactly how much
ammunition was on the aircraft, and we also know the nature of that ammunition.
So, as I said before, the community do not need to be concerned about the fact
that ammunition is scattered about that site, but that is with the caveat that
they respect the cordons and don’t go near the site until we have recovered
each and every piece of ammunition."
-------
Giffords Skydives 3 Years After Near-Death in Tucson Shooting
Wednesday marked the third anniversary of the Tuscon, Arizona,
mass shooting that killed six people and wounded 13 others. The injured
included former Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who suffered major head
wounds and nearly lost her life. Giffords and her husband Mark Kelly have since
founded a group to take on the U.S. weapons lobby and to campaign for gun
control. On Wednesday, Giffords marked the anniversary by going skydiving.
Giffords has previously skydived, but this was her first jump since the
shooting. In an opinion piece, Giffords likened her difficult physical
rehabilitation to the uphill battle for gun control, writing: "I’ve seen
grit overcome paralysis. My resolution today is that Congress achieve the
same."
-------
The FBI, the NSA and a Long-Held Secret Revealed by Amy Goodman
This week, more news emerged about the theft of classified
government documents, leaked to the press, that revealed a massive, top-secret
surveillance program. No, not news of Edward Snowden and the National Security
Agency, but of a group of anti-Vietnam war activists who perpetrated one of the
most audacious thefts of government secrets in U.S. history, and who
successfully evaded capture, remaining anonymous for more than 40 years. Among
them: two professors, a day-care provider and a taxi driver.
Passionately opposed to the U.S. war in Vietnam, this group of
seven men and one woman was certain that the FBI, under the direction of J.
Edgar Hoover, was spying on citizens and actively suppressing dissent. In order
to prove their case, they broke into an FBI field office in the Philadelphia
suburb of Media, Pa., on March 8, 1971, and stole all the files inside. What
they found, and mailed to the press, exposed COINTELPRO, the FBI’s
counterintelligence program, a global, clandestine, unconstitutional practice
of surveillance, infiltration and disruption of groups engaged in protest,
dissent and social change. Their courageous act of nonviolent burglary shook
the FBI, the CIA and other agencies to the core. They triggered congressional
investigations, increased oversight and the passage of the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act. These activist burglars, most of whom have come forward this
week, revealing their names for the first time, have not only a remarkable
story to tell about the past, but a critical and informed perspective on
Snowden, the NSA and government spying today.
“The citizens’ right to dissent is the last line of defense for
freedom,” John Raines told me. He was a professor of religion at Temple
University when he, his wife, Bonnie, and the others who intended to break into
the FBI office formed what they called the “Citizens’ Commission to Investigate
the FBI.” Since John and Bonnie Raines had three children under the age of 10
at the time of the burglary, I asked how they decided to engage in an act that
could have sent them both to prison for years. John replied, “We routinely ask,
as a society, mothers and fathers to take on as part of their work highly
dangerous activities. We ask that of all policemen. We ask that of everybody
that works for the fire department. We ask that of mothers and fathers who are
sent overseas to defend our freedoms in the Army and Navy. We routinely ask of
people to take on jobs that risk their families.” He went on, “As citizens, we
stepped forward and did what we had to do because nobody in Washington would.”
Under the leadership of a physics professor from Haverford
College, Bill Davidon, the group met and meticulously planned their action.
John and Bonnie Raines hosted most of the meetings in their attic. Bonnie posed
as a college student writing a paper on career opportunities for women in the
FBI, and got an inside look at the Media field office. Keith Forsyth, the
cabdriver, took a correspondence course in locksmithing and made his own
lock-pick tools to avoid notice of authorities. They chose the night of March
8, 1971, because international attention was gripped by the world heavyweight
boxing match between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier. The bout, said Forsyth,
“would add to the distraction, not only of the police, but of just people in
general.”
They broke into the office, stole all the files inside and took
them to a farmhouse an hour outside of Philadelphia. They pored over the
liberated documents, shocked at what they read. One memo detailed an FBI
conference on the New Left, predicting that more FBI interrogations of
activists would “enhance the paranoia endemic in these circles and will further
serve to get the point across there is an FBI agent behind every mailbox.” That
line struck a chord with one of the reporters who received the leaked documents,
Betty Medsger of The Washington Post. President Richard Nixon’s attorney
general, John Mitchell, tried to get the Post to suppress Medsger’s stories.
“Two editors, from the beginning, realized it was a very important story and
pushed it—Ben Bradlee and Ben Bagdikian,” she told me. The paper published, and
history was made. At the time, Medsger did not know the identities of the
activists. This week, she published a book, “The Burglary: The Discovery of J.
Edgar Hoover’s Secret FBI,” in which she names most of the burglars, with their
assent. A documentary film has also been produced, soon to be released, titled
“1971.”
In response to the book’s revelations this week, naming the
burglars, FBI spokesman Michael Kortan said, “A number of events during that
era, including the burglary, contributed to changes in how the FBI identified
and addressed domestic security threats, leading to reform of the FBI’s
intelligence policies and practices, including the creation of investigative
guidelines by the Department of Justice.”
If we were to apply Michael Kortan’s standards to Edward
Snowden’s revelations about the NSA, President Barack Obama would drop the
charges against him and welcome him back to the U.S., with thanks. Let’s hope
Snowden doesn’t have to wait 43 years.
Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.
Amy Goodman is the host of “Democracy Now!,” a daily
international TV/radio news hour airing on more than 1,000 stations in North
America. She is the co-author of “The Silenced Majority,” a New York Times
best-seller.
© 2014 Amy Goodman
Distributed by King Features Syndicate
-------
Mail Us: Democracy Now!
207 W. 25th St., Floor 11
New York, NY 10001
E-mail Us: Use the form to the left
Call Us: +1 (212) 431-9090
Fax Us: +1 (212) 431-8858
-------
No comments:
Post a Comment