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Mayor Bloomberg Condemns New York City Transit Strike, MTA
Workers Hold Firm
A Debate on the New York City Transit Strike
New Documents Show FBI Spying on Domestic Activist Groups
First Step Towards Impeachment? Conyers Introduces Bills
to Censure Bush and Cheney
Mayor Bloomberg Condemns New York City Transit Strike,
MTA Workers Hold Firm
New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg condemns a strike
by 33,000 transit workers that has shut down the country's
largest public transportation system for the first time in
25 years. We play an excerpt of Bloomberg's press conference,
hear New York City commuters and transit workers explaining
their reasons for the strike and we speak with Democracy Now!
co-host Juan Gonzalez who has been closely covering the strike.
[includes rush
transcript]
On Tuesday, 33,000 New York City transit workers went on
strike shutting down the country's largest public transportation
system for the first time in 25 years. More than 7 million
commuters were left to find alternative ways to get around
the city. The Transport Worker's Union board voted to strike
after a 12-hour round of intense negotiations between Peter
S. Kalikow, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's chairman,
and Roger Toussaint, president of Local 100 of the TWU. The
two sides could not reach an agreement on a number of issues
including wages, pensions and disciplinary procedures.
The strike was announced yesterday morning at around 3 AM
by Toussaint. He said that the strike was "a fight over
dignity and respect on the job - a concept that is very alien
to the MTA." Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has been urging
the Union to give in to the MTA's demands, called the strike
selfish and illegal.
- Michael Bloomberg, New York City, press conference, December
20, 2005.
Late Tuesday, State Supreme Court Judge Theodore Jones leveled
a fine of $1 million a day on the union, charging that it
was in violation of the Taylor law. The Taylor Law is a state
statute that prohibits strikes by public employees.
Democracy Now Producer, Elizabeth Press spoke to some transit
workers yesterday to find out how they felt about the strike.
- Irving Lee, MTA Train Operator
- Victor John, MTA Train Conductor
- Jay Callahan, MTA Train Conductor
Democracy Now Producers, Elizabeth Press and Ana Nogueira
also asked some commuters how they felt about the strike.
We go now to longtime labor reporter and Democracy Now co-host
Juan Gonzalez. He's been closely covering the strike for the
past few days.
A Debate on the New York City Transit Strike
We host a debate on the New York City transit strike with
Stanley Aronowitz, Professor of Sociology at the Graduate
Center of the City University of New York and Nicole Gelnias,
contributing editor at the Manhattan Institute's City Journal.
[includes rush
transcript]
- Nicole Gelnias, contributing editor at the Manhattan
Institute's City Journal. Before that she was a business
journalist for Thomson Financial and was a columnist for
the New York Post where she wrote about municipal finance
and other economic issues.
New Documents Show FBI Spying on Domestic Activist
Groups
Newly released documents
show counterterrorism agents at the FBI have been monitoring
domestic organizations active in causes as diverse as peace,
the environment, animal cruelty and poverty relief. The documents
came as part of a series of Freedom of Information Act lawsuits
brought by the American Civil Liberties Union. We are joined
today by members of three groups under FBI surveillance: Greenpeace,
PETA and the Catholic Worker.
Newly released documents show counterterrorism agents at
the Federal Bureau of Investigation have been monitoring domestic
organizations active in causes as diverse as peace, the environment,
animal cruelty and poverty relief.
This is the third major recent revelation about domestic
spying in the last few days. Last week NBC News revealed the
Pentagon has been monitoring peaceful anti-war protesters
and the New York Times exposed how President Bush ordered
the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans without
court-approved warrants. The latest batch of files totals
more than 2,300 pages and centers on references in internal
files to a handful of groups including Greenpeace, Catholic
Worker, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and
PETA, the People For the Ethical Treatment of Animals. The
documents indicate the FBI monitored protests organized by
the groups and used confidential informants inside the organizations
to gain intelligence. One document indicates that FBI agents
in Indianapolis planned to conduct surveillance as part of
a "Vegan Community Project." Another document talks
of the Catholic Workers' "semi-communistic ideology."
A third indicates the bureau's interest in determining the
location of a protest over llama fur planned by People for
the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Many of the investigative
documents turned over by the bureau are heavily edited, making
it difficult or impossible to determine the full context of
the references and why the F.B.I. may have been discussing
events like a PETA protest.
- Jeff Kerr, General Counsel of PETA,
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.
- Read the FBI documents
First Step Towards Impeachment? Conyers Introduces
Bills to Censure Bush and Cheney
We speak with Congressman John Conyers (D - MI) introduced
measures to censure President Bush and Vice President Cheney
for misleading lawmakers on the decision to go to war in Iraq.
Conyers is also seeking the creation of a select committee
to investigate the Administration's possible crimes and make
recommendations regarding grounds for impeachment.
The "I" word has returned to Washington. Seven
years to the week after the House of Representatives impeached
President Clinton, discussion of the possible impeachment
of President Bush has reached a new high.
In recent days, Senator Barbara Boxer, Congressmen John Lewis
and John Conyers, Nixon's former White House Counsel John
Dean as well as numerous legal scholars have suggested Bush
has committed impeachable offenses by illegally ordering the
National Security Agency to eavesdrop inside the country without
a court warrant.
Even conservative legal scholars have admitted the severity
of Bush's actions. Norm Ornstein, a scholar at the American
Enterprise Institute, said "I think if we're going to
be intellectually honest here, this really is the kind of
thing that Alexander Hamilton was referring to when impeachment
was discussed."
Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer of California said she had
written to several constitutional scholars to ask whether
Bush had committed an impeachable offense by ordering the
warrant-less domestic spying.
Boxer's request came after former White House John Dean said
Bush had become "the first President to admit to an impeachable
offense."
Earlier this week Democratic Congressman John Conyers introduced
measures to censure President Bush and Vice President Cheney
- not for the domestic spying case but for misleading lawmakers
on the decision to go to war in Iraq.
Conyers is also seeking the creation of a select committee
to investigate the Administration's possible crimes and make
recommendations regarding grounds for impeachment.
To back up his case Conyers has just released a reported
titled "The Constitution in Crisis: The Downing Street
Minutes and Deception, Manipulation, Torture, Retribution
and Coverups in the Iraq War."
To support Conyers" efforts activists have also launched
a website this week titled censurebush.org.
- Rep. John Conyers (D - MI), second longest serving member
of the House of Representatives and the ranking Democrat
on the House Judiciary Committee. In the 1970s he played
a prominent role in the recent impeachment process of Richard
Nixon.
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 Mike Burke, Sharif Abdel Kouddous,
Ana Nogueira, Elizabeth Press, Jeremy Scahill and Parvez Sharma.
Mike Di Filippo is our engineer.
Thanks also to Uri Galed, Angela Alston, Orlando Richards,
Simba Russeau, Johnny Sender, Rich Kim, Joe Murgio, John Randolph,
Chris Zucker, Karen Ranucci, Denis Moynihan, Eric Rweyemamu,
Jenny Filipazzo and Isis Phillips.
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