A massive march against "stop and frisk" in NYC

people are rightfully pissed off and want to show it... good on them...

from rt...

On Sunday, a sea of protesters filled the streets of New York City to show their solidarity against the Big Apple's Stop and Frisk policy. Approximately 50,000 protesters gathered in a silent march to draw attention to the policy that they feel is targeting minorities. According to statistics, 685,724 were searched in 2011 and of those people, 53 percent were black and 34 percent were Latino. Critics argue that this procedure legalizes racial profiling and must be abolished.

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Reverend Billy and his gospel choir join OWS in targeting Romney fundraiser

reverend billy and the gospel choir of the church of stop shopping sings outside the waldorf astoria hotel in new york city where a fund-raiser was being held for mitt romney...

On March 14, 2012, over one hundred people from Occupy Wall Street and other groups rallied against corporate tax breaks, against corporate spending in politics, in support of the Dream Act, and AGAINST Mitt Romney (because he is on the wrong side on all those issues).

Mitt Romney was holding a $2,500-a-plate fundraiser at the Waldorf Astoria for his presidential campaign.

i'm a self-confessed fan of the reverend billy and his gospel choir...

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Parallel police manuals: one for how to protect the rich and the other detailing how to deal with the poor

allison kilkenny writes about the occupy protests at the ports and in front of goldman sachs yesterday...

It was strange to see a large police response for such relatively tame acts of civil disobedience, but that's become a theme of Occupy Wall Street. The 30:1 police-to-protester ratio is a familiar theme of these kinds of protests, but only, of course, if the protest target has something to do with the financial district in New York City or major companies' import-export practices. When activists in New York City chose East New York as the site of their protest, very few police officers turned out to monitor the event. Those who did show up allowed protesters to march down the middle of the street, disrupt traffic, and block the roadways outside of homes.

If Occupiers attempted similar behavior in the financial district, police would arrest them en masse. That's not mere speculation. That exact scenario occurs every time protesters stray into Manhattan streets, and I've personally witnesses an NYPD officer tear the press pass off a foreign cameraman's neck when he went into the street to film police activity.

It almost seems as though there are parallel police manuals: one for how to protect the rich and the other detailing how to deal with the poor.

just another clear example of what it means to be the 99%...

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Looks to me like Obama has taken a 180-degree turn on virtually everything we thought we were electing him for

bipartisanship = pandering...?

the story...

Khalid Shaikh Mohammed to Be Tried by Military Commission at Guantánamo, in Reversal

In a major reversal, the Obama administration has decided to
try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed for his role in the attacks of
Sept. 11 before a military commission at Guantánamo Bay,
Cuba, and not in a civilian courtroom.

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. is expected to announce
on Monday afternoon that Mr. Mohammed, the self-described
mastermind of the attacks, and four other accused
conspirators will face charges before a panel of military
officers, a law enforcement official said. The Justice
Department has scheduled a press conference for 2 p.m.
Eastern time.

Mr. Holder, who had wanted to prosecute Mr. Mohammed before a
regular civilian court in New York City, changed his mind
after Congress imposed a series of restrictions barring the
transfer of Guantánamo detainees into the United States,
making such a trial impossible for now, the official said.

the editorial...

Cowardice Blocks the 9/11 Trial

Last year, Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. described a federal court trial for the self-professed mastermind of Sept. 11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, as “the defining event of my time as attorney general.” On Monday, Mr. Holder’s dream for demonstrating the power of the American court system crumbled when he announced that the trial would take place not in New York City or anywhere in the United States but before a military commission at the Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, prison camp.

That retreat was a victory for Congressional pandering and an embarrassment for the Obama administration, which failed to stand up to it.

The wound inflicted on New York City from Mr. Mohammed’s plot nearly a decade ago will not heal for many lifetimes, yet the city, while still grieving, has thrived. How fitting it would have been to put the plot’s architect on trial a few blocks from the site of the World Trade Center, to force him to submit to the justice of a dozen chosen New Yorkers, to demonstrate to the world that we will not allow fear of terrorism to alter our rule of law.

i never thought i was casting a vote for an utter weenie...

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A terrorist is tried in NYC... Say what...?

marcy - emptywheel - wheeler...

[A]s Bob Schacht pointed out, not that anybody would know it, but there has been a terror trial going on all week in a real live Article III courtroom in the heart of Manhattan. Exactly like all the Republicans with vapors and trembling Democrats said could not be safely done.

from human rights first...

Despite repeated warnings that trying Guantanamo detainees in New York would result in chaos, mayhem, kidnappings, astronomical security costs, a police take-over of Lower Manhattan, snarled traffic, street closures, and “utter, unmitigated disaster,” New Yorkers interviewed by Human Rights First are going about their daily business within blocks of the federal terrorism trial of a former Guantanamo detainee.

In an exclusive video released today, the group reveals that many New Yorkers are not only failing to fear, they do not even realize that accused terrorist Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani’s trial is underway. Some, despite the urgent warnings from those trying to “Keep America Safe,” even expressed pride that the prosecution was happening in New York City.

“We have trials like that here all of the time,” one woman observed as Human Rights First correspondent Reagan Kuhn interviewed her near the federal courthouse in Foley Square.

Despite the best efforts of Liz Cheney, Deborah Burlingame, Rudy Guiliani, and Karl Rove to spread panic, many naïve New Yorkers seemed completely uninformed about the chaos that was supposed to reign. Some even observed that “everything seems pretty normal,” “I haven’t noticed anything,” and “I’m sure everybody knows what they are doing.”.

all of the cravenly manipulative exhortations demanding that we live in endless, paralyzing fear are clearly aimed at one thing and one thing only - allowing those in power to exert more control over our minds and our lives... marcy offers a nice closing paragraph...

They have been holding terrorism trials of the highest order for years in New York City. SDNY is where the Blind Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman was tried for the first World Trade Center Attack. There is not a better secured and more appropriate place in america to try the 9/11 terrorism suspects. That is what we do in America, and what we do as Americans. Giving in to the fear and bed wetting of the Cheneys, Rudy Guiliani, Lindsey Graham, Lieberman and others of their ilk is giving up on our principles and giving in to the terrorists themselves. Besides, NYC is always a target of terrorists and would be even if Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the other four 9/11 suspects were tried in Gitmo.

Put the trials where the crimes happened and deal with it.

don't give in to the fearmongers...

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Keith says all I care to say about the ground zero mosque debate

keith olbermann...

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Here we go...

absolutely as predicted...

NYC officials push for dramatic expansion of electronic surveillance

New York officials say they could stop attacks like the attempted Times Square car bomb by expanding a controversial surveillance system so sensitive that it will pick up even suspicious behavior.

New York is already a heavily policed city, with 35,000 officers and a counterterrorism bureau -- the first of its kind in the country -- partnering the FBI.

But Saturday's failed terrorist bomb in the Times Square tourist hot spot has provided the authorities with a new argument for expanding a sometimes controversial security blanket of cameras, sensors and analytical software.

not all bets are sure things, but this one ain't one of 'em... i would have given the last hair on my already-balding pate that this headline would be following in lockstep with the times square incident as sure as night follows day...

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Merry Christmas...!

one of the larger-than-life christmas decorations at new york city's rockefeller center...



yes, we did the "hey, let's join all the other tourists and see new york city at christmastime" thing...

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Juan Cole: more demonstrators were arrested in New York protesting Bush than in Tehran

kinda puts things in perspective, doesn't it...?

juan cole...

The number of demonstrators arrested in Tehran on Saturday is estimated at 550 or so, which is less than those arrested by the NYPD for protesting Bush policies in 2004.

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Three cheers for Paraguay's new president

Fernando Lugo

yes, there's definitely something to applaud here...

Paraguay President Fernando Lugo, while attending both the UN General Assembly meetings and the Clinton Global Initiative, shared with friends over dinner some of the other meetings he had been having in New York.

After enumerating the various heads of state he'd met with, the room went silent and then laughed a bit when he confided that he was approached about meeting with GOP Vice Presidential candidate and Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.

President Lugo said he turned the meeting down.

but, lemme tell ya, it was THIS that got me choked up...

The 57-year-old left-leaning former Catholic bishop known locally as "bishop of the poor," was elected to office in April. His swearing in marked the first time in Paraguay's history since the country gained independence that an opposition party turned over power peacefully to a candidate elected from the other party.

Lugo has also refused his presidential salary, saying it "belongs to more humble people." He joined the priesthood in 1977 and was ordained a bishop in 1994 before resigning in 2006 to run for office.

O.M.G...! a man of the PEOPLE...!?!? a PUBLIC SERVANT...!?!? what's this world coming to...!?!?

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Door-to-door in 48 hours

well, not quite... from the time i woke up at the project compound in kabul at 5 a.m. on friday, finished packing, and headed to the airport, until i walked in the door here at my son's in northern nevada this afternoon, bags in hand, comes to about 47 hours... but, add in time to do enough unpacking to uncover the top of the bed so i can crash later, shoveling four months of mail into two stacks (read later and toss), eating dinner, and displaying some of my treasures for the family, i am now at the 50-hour mark, the first time i feel like i've actually stopped moving since friday morning... here's hoping i don't wake up at some ungodly hour due to the 11 1/2 hour time difference... thank goodness i managed to sleep a fair bit of the 14-hour flight from dubai to new york...

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A NYC business success built on the backs of low-wage illegal immigrants

fresh direct is an online, high-end, grocery company in nyc...

from the nyt...

The company has grown in five years from a dot-com dream to a $200 million business, and its Web site features “celebrity shopping lists” from quintessentially New York figures like Spike Lee, Edward I. Koch and Cynthia Nixon, a star of “Sex and the City.”

But now an eruption of low-tech troubles is drawing a spotlight to what lies behind the computer screen. Last week, the company abruptly lost more than 100 of the roughly 900 employees at its huge plant in Long Island City, Queens, including many of its most experienced workers, when they learned that federal officials planned to check their immigration status.

It is battling not one, but two unions that want to represent the workers, with the election to be held this weekend. City labor leaders and several elected officials rallied at City Hall on Friday to accuse the company and immigration authorities of trying to block the union drive.

And when Fresh Direct held a job fair this week, though hundreds of applicants lined up in the cold, many lost interest as soon as they learned about the low starting pay and low-temperature workplace: $7.85 an hour to pick and pack groceries at night, in 38-degree chill, often for more than eight hours at a stretch. “They said, ‘Dress as warm as you can,’” reported one disenchanted applicant, Joy Brewster, 22, as she emerged from a group job interview with a toss of her head. “I don’t think so. I’d be stiff as a board.”

Another applicant, Eibar Amaya, 47, an immigrant from Colombia who is now a United States citizen, gave his verdict in succinct, if imperfect English: “Pay too little, no good.”

a $200M business, catering to celebrities, and, no doubt, charging celebrity prices, pays $7.85 an hour for a night job, standing in the cold, in nyc, one of the most expensive cities in the country... just another fine story of fabled american entrepreneurial spirit...



told ya they weren't cheap...

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Assuming that al Qaeda and its "sympathizers" are constantly plotting against us

therefore, we are ALL under suspicion at ALL times...


A heavily armed Hercules team makes a show of
force outside a midtown Manhattan office building

it's absolutely amazing just how fast we're moving to out-and-out fascism... (but it's all for our SAFETY, dontcha know...)

No one sees them coming. There are no flashing lights, no sirens. The black Suburban simply glides out of Fifth Avenue traffic and pulls into a no-parking zone in front of the Empire State Building. Moments later, four men spill out in combat helmets and heavy body armor: Two carry submachine guns; the others, snub-nosed shotguns.

Camera-toting tourists stop jabbering and stare at this intimidating new presence, their faces a mixture of curiosity and fear. Even jaded New Yorkers, many of whom work inside the midtown Manhattan landmark, look impressed.

A stone's throw down the sidewalk, Abad Nieves watches the scene unfold. Nieves is a detective with the Intelligence Division of the New York Police Department (NYPD). Casually clad in slacks and a black leather jacket, he monitors the response of people loitering in the area. Is anyone making notes or videotaping? Does anyone seem especially startled by the out-of-the-blue appearance of a heavily armed NYPD squad?

On this day, Nieves doesn't see anything overly suspicious, but he is pleased that the deployment created a strong impression. Known as a Hercules team, it makes multiple appearances around the city each day. The locations are chosen either in response to specific intelligence or simply to provide a show of force at high-profile sites.

"The response we usually get is, 'Holy s---!'" Nieves says. "That's the reaction we want. We are in the business of scaring people--we just want to scare the right people."

[...]

"Clearly, New York is way in front on this," says Brian Michael Jenkins, a terrorism expert with the Rand Corp. "As the threat gets more diffused, we are going to have less of the kind of intelligence that can be picked up by the feds. We are dealing now with threats that are deliberately operating under the radar. Therefore, we have to aim the radar lower, to the local level."

Although there have been no attacks in New York since 9/11, police officials work under the assumption that Al Qaeda and its sympathizers are constantly plotting against the city.

ah, yes... it's all so terribly LOGICAL... bring it on, and we'll BEG for more...

a commenter to the article...

#27 Its called PROACTIVE police work! I don't understand how some people think, when something bad happens and the police show up they get blamed for not being able to prevent it. When the police become proactive and prevent crimes from happening they receive even more negative criticism (we will never really know how many crimes police officers prevent by them simply being more visible to the general public). In case people forgot New York was ATTACKED on 09/11/01, you think the NYPD wants to relive that again! The police are referred to as our nation's first line of defense for a reason, thats because their job is to protect us from any threat. IF they don't neutralize that threat then history will repeat itself and I'm not talking about the police turning into Nazi Germany. Sometimes you have to think outside the box, great job NYPD and keep up the good work!

yep, yep, yep... keep it comin'...!

(thanks to kevin at cryptogon...)

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Schumer's constituents are pissed

and rightly so...



(thanks to RagingGurrl at Daily Kos...)

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Beyond outrage: a manifesto

took the words right out of my mouth...

nightprowlkitty at daily kos...

We saw an election stolen, the will of the people denied. And in the aftermath we saw every progressive and humane aspect of government subverted. And we were outraged.

We saw the great City of New York attacked and even as people all around the world united in sympathy and gave help, criminals who had stolen power planned to go to war with the wrong enemy. And we were outraged.

We saw the social apparatus of our nation subverted and prostituted to engender mistrust and hatred towards anyone who would speak the truth. And we were outraged.

We saw a bloody war, an illegal war of aggression, spiral out of control, with "collateral damage" so high that it astounds the senses, hurts unbearably, as at the same time we saw our wounded soldiers untreated and abused by the very ones with power that sent them to this war. And we were outraged.

We saw the great City of New Orleans and the lovely Gulf Coast drowned and allowed to remain damaged, people treated like animals, again the hate unleashed by the criminals in power through a deranged media absorbed by its own profits and fears of retaliation by those very criminals. Whatever good reporters there may have been were quickly subsumed by corporate edits of complicity and kowtowing. And we were outraged.

We saw our rights being sold down the river, our own Democratic representatives so far removed from reality as to not even make a gesture towards real opposition to these criminals who have stolen power in America and destroyed our unity as a nation. And we were outraged.

We saw our justice system perverted beyond recognition, honest men and women punished for doing their jobs, laws against the weakest of us enforced with savagery and contempt for the simple basics of humanity, from poor folks with no health care to undocumented migrants being treated no differently than terrorists at Gitmo, to folks from public housing in New Orleans being forced into exile from their homes, their lives, exile and death, and oh, we were outraged.

And we saw a courageous man in Congress being forced to recant his words and apologize to appease the powers that still retain their dark hold over this country, even though the only powers left are those of destruction and fear and greed.

And I am no longer outraged. No. Nor am I shamed. My eyes are wide open now and I am not outraged nor ashamed.

I am resolved. My gaze is now level rather than rolling in terror and anger. I know this misAdministration for what they are and I know what they will do. I know our Democratic leadership for what they are as well, and they have made it clear what they will do.

This war must end. And this crew of criminals in the Executive Branch need to be removed from office. I know this. And I know that our present leadership, in both parties, have not made a commitment to doing either of these things.

I don't blame anyone here for how they are now reacting to this reality. For those who feel they must leave the party, I have no words of censure. For those who will stay and fight for the party, I have no complaint. For those who must continue to yell, I have no need for refutation.

I am united with anyone who is against this misAdministration. I am united with all my brothers and sisters across this nation who see what is going on, and I will support all who oppose these criminals and their enablers. I will support in any way I can all my neighbors who help each other, from the terror attacks in New York City to the floods on the Gulf Coast to the terrible firestorms in California.

I have no more outrage, feel no more shame. What was done to Rep. Stark has shown me there is no longer any reason to respect those who have been charged with leading our nation. They are simply human beings who have been unable, for whatever reason, to do the right thing. They are not even worth my outrage.

I will focus my attention from now on to those who are able to do the right thing, from whatever walk of life they travel, powerful or with no power at all. I am resolved. I am not outraged and I am not ashamed.

superb... now, let's take that resolution and put it to work, shall we...?

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A veritable ORGY of spying and the target is YOU!

coming soon to a neighborhood near you...

the uk, long the most-surveilled country in the world, sinks to new lows...

Officials from the top of Government to lowly council officers will be given unprecedented powers to access details of every phone call in Britain under laws coming into force tomorrow.

The new rules compel phone companies to retain information, however private, about all landline and mobile calls, and make them available to some 795 public bodies and quangos.

The move, enacted by the personal decree of Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, will give police and security services a right they have long demanded: to delve at will into the phone records of British citizens and businesses.

But the same powers will also be handed to the tax authorities, 475 local councils, and a host of other organisations, including the Food Standards Agency, the Department of Health, the Immigration Service, the Gaming Board and the Charity Commission. The initiative, formulated in the wake of the Madrid and London terrorist attacks of 2004 and 2005, was put forward as a vital tool in the fight against terrorism. However, civil liberties campaigners say the new powers amount to a 'free for all' for the State snooping on its citizens.

And they angrily questioned why the records were being made available to so many organisations. Similar provisions are being brought in across Europe, but under much tighter regulation. In Britain, say critics, private and sensitive information will inevitably fall into the wrong hands.

Records will detail precisely what calls are made, their time and duration, and the name and address of the registered user of the phone.

but they're in good company... take a look at new york city...

[New York City] security forces have eagerly embraced an Escape From New York-aesthetic -- an urge to turn Manhattan into a walled-in fortress island under high-tech government surveillance, guarded by heavily armed security forces, with helicopters perpetually overhead. Beginning in Harlem in 2006, near the site of two new luxury condos, the NYPD set up a moveable "two-story booth tower, called Sky Watch," that gave an "officer sitting inside a better vantage point from which to monitor the area." The Panopticon-like structure -- originally used by hunters to shoot quarry from overhead and now also utilized by the Department of Homeland Security along the Mexican border -- was outfitted with black-tinted windows, a spotlight, sensors, and four to five cameras. Now, five Sky Watch towers are in service, rotating in and out of various neighborhoods.

[...]


In 2006, according to a Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) spokesman, the MTA already had a "3,000-camera-strong surveillance system," while the NYPD was operating "an additional 3,000 cameras" around the city. That same year, Bill Brown, a member of the Surveillance Camera Players -- a group that leads surveillance-camera tours and maps their use around the city, estimated, according to a Newsweek article, that the total number of surveillance cameras in New York exceeded 15,000 -- "a figure city officials say they have no way to verify because they lack a system of registry." Recently, Brown told me that 15,000 was an estimate for the number of cameras in Manhattan, alone. For the city as a whole, he suspects the count has now reached about 40,000.

This July, NYPD officials announced plans to up the ante. By the end of 2007, according to the New York Times, they pledged to install "more than 100 cameras" to monitor "cars moving through Lower Manhattan, the beginning phase of a London-style surveillance system that would be the first in the United States." This "Ring of Steel" scheme, which has already received $10 million in funding from the Department of Homeland Security (in addition to $15 million in city funds), aims to exponentially decrease privacy because, if "fully financed, it will include. ... 3,000 public and private security cameras below Canal Street, as well as a center staffed by the police and private security officers" to monitor all those electronic eyes.

keep smiling, never look up, and, by all means, KEEP MOVING...!

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New York City to adopt London's big brother surveillance tactics

every day brings another story about the erosion of privacy and the ever-increasing ways in which we're being watched as we go about our daily lives...

By the end of this year, police officials say, more than 100 cameras will have begun monitoring cars moving through Lower Manhattan, the beginning phase of a London-style surveillance system that would be the first in the United States.

The Lower Manhattan Security Initiative, as the plan is called, will resemble London’s so-called Ring of Steel, an extensive web of cameras and roadblocks designed to detect, track and deter terrorists. British officials said images captured by the cameras helped track suspects after the London subway bombings in 2005 and the car bomb plots last month.

i posted at the end of may on privacy international's huge and comprehensive study of the state of surveillance around the world (PDF)... this is taken from their report on the uk (PDF)...

There has been a proliferation of CCTV cameras in hundreds of towns and cities in Britain. It is now estimated that there are over four million cameras in Britain, one for every 14 residents, a 300 percent increase in just three years.5573 The camera networks can be operated by police, local authorities or private companies, and are partly funded by Home Office grants. Their original purpose was crime prevention and detection, though in recent years the cameras have become important tools for city center management and the control of "anti-social behavior." Many of the systems have been enhanced with technology for facial recognition but the jurisdictions that have installed the systems have admitted that the technology has yet to result in an arrest. In London, a system for "congestion charging" uses a sophisticated number plate recognition system to charge motorists who drive into central London during business hours. It was later revealed that the system was organized in cooperation with the intelligence services that use it with facial recognition systems to monitor the drivers of the cars. The government announced in January 2005 that it was expanding its pilot program of automatic number plate recognition nationwide.5575 Traffic cameras have also spread across the country.

and, as usual, nobody's connecting the dots... note that new york city is also planning a "congestion charging" system for manhattan which, no doubt, will involve technology similar to that being used in london...

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s plan to reduce traffic by charging people who drive into the busiest parts of Manhattan received significant support on Thursday as Gov. Eliot Spitzer endorsed the idea and the Bush administration indicated that New York stood to gain hundreds of millions of dollars if the plan were enacted.

If the measure is approved by the Legislature, New York will become the first city in the United States to impose a broad system of congestion pricing, which was introduced in London in 2003 and has been credited with reducing traffic there.

now, why do you think new york would stand "to gain hundreds of millions of dollars" from the bush administration if the plan were enacted...? hmmmmmmmm...? do you suppose it might have anything to do with the fact that it would provide an excellent new surveillance platform...? nah... i'm just being cynical again...

[UPDATE]

and in the very same nyt edition that reported on the "Lower Manhattan Surveillance Security Initiative," comes this op-ed...

There are legitimate concerns about exactly how congestion pricing would work. A commission can be appointed later to hammer out the details. But first, the state needs to sign off on a general plan, so New York does not let as much as $500 million in federal money needlessly slip away.

yep, hurry up and get that money so we can be spied on sooner...

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Letting Mexico show us the way to fight poverty

this is from a story in today's nyt about nyc mayor bloomberg's trip to mexico to see first-hand how mexico is dealing with its huge number of people living in poverty... i could care less about bloomberg, but i did find the details of the mexican program fascinating... particularly since bushco's concerted attack on any form of implied or explicit social contrast and its championing of social darwinism and the bogus "on-your-own(ership)" society, the u.s. has turned a blind eye to poverty...

If the women and their children have kept all their medical appointments, and if their children have stayed in school, the money is theirs to use as they wish. The awards range from 360 to 3,710 pesos (about $36 to $370), enough to buy food or shoes or other necessities. The size of the award depends on how many children they have and what level of school the children are in.

The program is 10 years old, has a budget of more than $3 billion a year and covers almost a quarter of all Mexicans.

[...]

Outside evaluations have found that the program, called Oportunidades, has been successful in raising school attendance and nutrition levels. The percentage of Mexicans living in extreme poverty has fallen by 17 percentage points since 1996, when it reached 37 percent.

Those results have spurred some 30 countries to adopt some version of the program.

meanwhile, back in the richest country in the world...

• In an economy that produces $13 trillion annually, 37 million Americans still live below the official poverty line.

• In 2005, the richest one percent of Americans had the largest share of the nation's income -- 19 percent -- since 1929, while the poorest 20 percent of Americans had only 3.4 percent of the nation's income.

• In 2005, 16 million people -- 5.4 percent of all Americans -- had incomes below half the poverty line. The number of Americans living in such extreme poverty grew by over three million [PDF] between 2000 and 2005, and the share of poor people living in extreme poverty is now greater than at any point in the last 32 years.

• The federal minimum wage has remained static for nearly a decade. At $5.15 an hour, it is at its lowest level in real terms since 1956.

• There are more Americans living in poverty today than there are total people living in the state of California, the most populous state in the nation.

(u.s. poverty statistics courtesy of the center for american progress...)

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