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8:00-8:01 Billboard:
“The Only Spanish [Bush] Speaks When it Comes to Jobs
is Hasta La Vista” - Democratic Candidates Slam GW in
First Ever Bilingual Presidential Debate
Ex-World Bank Chief Economist Joseph Stiglitz & Public
Citizen’s Lori Wallach Preview Next Week’s WTO
Meetings in Cancun
Up To 8 Million Americans Could Lose Overtime Pay Under
New GOP Plan
8:01-8:06 Headlines
8:06-8:07 One Minute Music Break
8:07-8:20 “The Only Spanish [Bush] Speaks When
it Comes to Jobs is Hasta La Vista” - Democratic Candidates
Slam GW in First Ever Bilingual Presidential Debate
INTRO: Eight candidates took part in the first official
debate of the Democratic presidential contenders yesterday.
We play an excerpt of the debate as candidates criticized
the White House policy on Iraq.
Eight candidates took part in the first official debate of
the Democratic presidential contenders yesterday evening.
The debate, which was held on University of New Mexico campus,
was the first bilingual presidential debate in U.S. history.
Questions were often asked in both Spanish and English. The
New York Times described the candidates as “stumbling
over one another to try to demonstrate their sensitivity to
Hispanic issues and culture.”
The debate covered a range of issues including the war on
Iraq, global trade, the economy, healthcare and immigration.
But it was the issue of Iraq that garnered the most attention
with more than one third of the 90-minute debate spent on
the war.
The debate was the first of six party-sanctioned debates
with the race for the nomination wide open.
The Washington Post reported that nearly two-third of voters
do not know the name of even one of the eight candidates who
took the stage. One candidate, Rev. Al Sharpton of New York,
had planned to attend but missed a plane connection because
of bad weather and never arrived.
- Excerpt from Democratic Debate September 4, 2003
- Former Vermont Governor Howard Dean
- Rep. Richard Gephardt of Missouri
- Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio
- Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut
- Sen. Bob Graham of Florida
- Former Illinois senator Carol Moseley Braun
- Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina
- Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts
8:20-8:21 One Minute Music Break
8:21-8:40 Ex-World Bank Chief Economist Joseph Stiglitz
& Public Citizen’s Lori Wallach Preview Next Week’s
WTO Meetings in Cancun
INTRO: The Nobel Prize winning Stiglitz criticizes U.S.
trade policy saying the world’s poorest including Sub-Sahara
Africa suffers more because of our trade agreements. Meanwhile
Lori Wallach discusses why she was placed on a watchlist of
activists developed by Mexican officials.
The Guardian of London is reporting that Mexican security
officials have developed a watch list containing the names
of 80 activists and academics who are believed to attend the
World Trade Organization protests later this month in Cancun.
To protest the creation of the list, a growing number of
activists are voluntarily submitting their own names to the
so-called watch list.
A letter to Mexican officials is circulating that reads in
part "we are concerned that you were only able to find
60 internationals and 20 Mexicans who are opposed to the World
Trade Organization Haven't you noticed that the tide of public
opinion is turning decidedly against the WTO? ...Please add
my name to your 'watch list' immediately!"
The letter continues: "If you are unwilling to add my
name to the list, then I must insist that you remove those
singled out for special attention. I can assure you that we
have similar views - we are all opposed to the WTO and a 'free'
trade agenda that impoverish the majority of us while enriching
a few corporations."
The meeting in Cancun begins Sept. 10 and continues until
the 14th.
Former World Bank Chief Economist and Nobel Prize winning
economist Joseph Stiglitz writes in a recent article, “At
their last meeting in Doha in November 2001, ministers recognized
the inequities of the previous round of trade negotiations,
the Uruguay round. This round was supposed to redress those
imbalances.”
He continues, “One would have thought that the developing
countries would look forward to the meeting as a chance to
achieve a fairer global trading system. Instead, many fear
that what has happened in the past will happen again: secret
negotiations, arm twisting, and the display of brute economic
power by the United States and Europe aimed at ensuring that
the interests of the rich are protected. While some progress
has been made in making the negotiations more open and transparent,
efforts to go further have met with resistance, and for good
reason: unbalanced processes help ensure unbalanced outcomes
in an unfair trade practice.”
- Excerpt from Democratic Debate September 4, 2003
- Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio
- Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts
- Joseph Stiglitz, the winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in
economics. He served as the Chief Economist and Senior Vice-President
of the World Bank from 1997-2000. His is the author of the
international bestseller Globalization and Its Discontents
and is now a Professor of Economics and Finance at Columbia
University in New York.
8:40-8:41 One Minute Music Break
8:41-8:58 Up To 8 Million Americans Could Lose Overtime
Pay Under New GOP Plan
INTRO: We host a debate on overtime regulations with AFL-CIO’s
Karen Nussbaum and Michael Eastman of the U.S. Chamber of
Commerce and we take a look at a plan to create a new association
for people not currently represented by unions.
The Department of Labor is proposing changes to existing
overtime rules.
The most significant changes would enable employers to reclassify
many workers, currently eligible for time-and-a-half overtime,
as managers, administrative or professional employees making
them exempt.
Critics say the new regulations will adversely affect millions
of mostly white-collar office and health-care workers. Proponents
of the rule say clarifying rules will alleviate confusion
on who qualifies for overtime pay, and reduce the growing
number of overtime lawsuits filed by workers.
However, political pressure is mounting against the proposed
change. A key Democrat said he believes he has lined up enough
votes to win Senate passage of his measure to block the changes.
The Senate may vote early next week on an amendment by Democratic
Sen. Tom Harkin to the Labor-Health and Human Services appropriations
bill.
A study by the Economic Policy Institute shows that as many
as 8 million workers could lose overtime pay.
The Labor Department disputes that study and says about 650,000
white-collar workers could lose overtime but that 1.3 million
low-income workers such as assistant store managers would
become eligible.
The new rules were proposed March 27 by the Bush administration.
This summer the Labor Department was flooded with a deluge
of 78,000 pieces of mail and e-mails sent during a 90-day
public comment period. The overwhelming majority of responses
appear to oppose the changes.
- Karen Nussbaum, assistant to the president of The American
Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations,
the nation’s biggest labor group, known as the AFL-CIO.
Link: www.aflcio.org
- Michael Eastman, director of Labor Policy at the US Chamber
of Commerce which says the proposed overtime rule changes
are long overdue.
Link: www.uschamber.com
8:58-8:59 Outro and Credits
For a copy of today’s program, call 1 (800) 881 2359.
Our website is www.democracynow.org.
Our email address is mail@democracynow.org.
Democracy Now! is produced by Kris Abrams, Mike Burke, Angie
Karran, Sharif Abdul Kouddous, Lenina Nadal, Ana Nogueira,
and Elizabeth Press. Mike Di Filippo is our music maestro
and engineer.
[Thanks also to Uri Galed, Angela Alston, Orlando Richards,
Simba Russeau, Rafael delaUz, Gabriel Weiss, Johnny Sender,
Rich Kim, Chris Zucker, Karen Ranucci, Denis Moynihan, Jenny
Filipazzo and Ionnis Mookas.]
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