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SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: When the American Bankers Association scheduled their annual meeting in Chicago for this week, they probably weren’t expecting the reception they’ve received. Instead of a quiet convention in a downtown hotel, the ABA has been greeted by a parallel gathering of thousands of people in what organizers call the “Showdown in Chicago.” Spearheaded by the group National People’s Action, organizers have tried to bring together a cross-section of Americans affected by the financial meltdown, including homeowners, renters, farmers, workers and retirees. The Showdown kicked off Sunday when protesters entered the lobby of the hotel where the ABA delegates are gathering.

PROTESTER: We are not here to cause trouble. We are here because we are in trouble.

PROTESTER: That’s right!

CROWD: Bust up big banks! Bust up big banks! Bust up big banks! Bust up big banks! Bust up big banks! Bust up big banks!

PROTESTER: The American Bankers Association has helped loosen the rules that protect us, allowing the unfettered greed that has brought us to the brink of a recession. And to those bankers who are members and support the ABA’s war against the working and middle class, shame on you! Shame on you! Shame on you!

CROWD: Shame on you! Shame on you! Shame on you! Shame on you! [inaudible] We’ll be back! We’ll be back! We’ll be back! We’ll be back! We’ll be back! We’ll be back!…

SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: For more on the Showdown in Chicago, we’re joined by George Goehl. He’s executive director of National People’s Action, the lead organizer of the Showdown in Chicago.

George Goehl, welcome to Democracy Now! Can you first explain why the protest and why the ABA in Chicago?

GEORGE GOEHL: Yeah, I mean, if you really think about it, this is an incredible situation. I mean, who would have figured that the same banks that created the foreclosure crisis, sent the economy into a tailspin, needed billions in bailout dollars, would then lead the charge to kill any real financial reform that would protect consumers and make sure something like this didn’t happen again? So the ABA is the top lobby for the banks, and they decided to have their convention in Chicago, and we felt we had to be there to greet them.

SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: And what are some of the main things that you’re calling for?

GEORGE GOEHL: Well, one, we think their ideas have failed. Their focus on deregulation paved the road that we walk today. So it’s time that they stop spending tens of millions of dollars up on Capitol Hill each month trying to defeat financial reform and sit out on the sidelines, particularly around consumer protection, around policies, around “too big to fail,” and around community reinvestment. There’s a Consumer Protection Agency that’s been proposed by President Obama that would actually protect people from predatory consumer products, but the bankers are trying to kill that program.

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From Democracy Now--Judge Rejects Blackwater Attempt to Dismiss Cases Filed by Iraqi Victims:

A federal judge has rejected a series of arguments by lawyers for the private military contractor Blackwater who were seeking to dismiss five war crimes cases brought by Iraqi victims against the company and its owner, Erik Prince. We speak to award-winning investigative journalist and Democracy Now! correspondent, Jeremy Scahill, author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to talk about Sudan in a minute, but right now we turn to a major decision here in the United States. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan Gonzalez. Juan?

JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, a federal judge has rejected a series of arguments by lawyers for the private military contractor Blackwater who were seeking to dismiss five war crimes cases brought by Iraqi victims against the company and its owner, Erik Prince. At the same time, the judge ruled that lawyers for the Iraqi plaintiffs need to amend and re-file their cases to provide more specific details on the alleged crimes before a decision can be made on whether the lawsuits will proceed.

Susan Burke, the lead attorney for the Iraqi victims, told The Nation magazine she was “very pleased with the ruling.” While Blackwater’s spokesperson, Stacy DeLuke said, quote, “We are confident that [the plaintiffs] will not be able to meet the high standard specified in [the judge’s] opinion.”

AMY GOODMAN: For more, we’re joined by Democracy Now! video stream by award-winning investigative journalist and Democracy Now! correspondent, Jeremy Scahill, author of the international bestseller Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army. His article on the ruling is available online at TheNation.com.

Jeremy, welcome to Democracy Now! It’s being played by the mainstream media as a huge defeat for those who are taking on Blackwater, but you have a very different take. Explain.

JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, I mean, when I got up yesterday morning and saw all these headlines from the Associated Press and other media outlets saying that a federal judge had tossed out all of the lawsuits against Blackwater, I was actually quite stunned. I mean, that would have been a devastating development for the Iraqi victims of the company.

But then I actually got the fifty-six-page ruling from Judge T.S. Ellis, who, by the way, is a Reagan appointee, and I read it. And actually, what you see in this document is that it’s a very well-thought-out legal argument by Judge Ellis, where he’s essentially saying to Blackwater, “Your argument that you can’t be sued as a private company under the Alien Tort Statute is false. Your argument that private individuals or companies cannot commit war crimes is false.”

AMY GOODMAN: Whoops. Looks like we just lost Jeremy. Jeremy is speaking to us by video stream. We’re going to try to get him back on, and we’ll try to get him on the phone. But right now—we’ll do that for the end of the show—we will turn to our next guest. That, consider just a tease for the rest of that subject.

[...]

AMY GOODMAN: We go back right now to Jeremy Scahill to try to complete that conversation on the issue of a federal judge rejecting a series of arguments by lawyers for the private military contractor Blackwater, who were seeking to dismiss five war crimes cases brought by Iraqi victims against the company and its owner, Erik Prince.

Jeremy, we’ve got you back on the Democracy Now! video stream. Very quickly, explain the significance of the case.

JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, I mean, basically, these are five cases brought by Iraqi civilians that were allegedly wounded by Blackwater and the families of Iraqis that were killed by Blackwater. These are very high-stakes cases. Blackwater is fighting passionately to have them thrown out. They’ve made arguments that they, as a company, can’t be sued, that it would violate the rights of the President of United States to make battlefield decisions, and if Blackwater was prosecuted, that would infringe upon the President’s rights. They’ve said that they, as a company, can’t be sued for war crimes, because war crimes can only be committed by state actors or nations. And what we saw here is that this conservative Judge Ellis said to Blackwater, “No, none of that is valid.”

What he did do, though, is he referenced a Supreme Court decision in May, Ashcroft v. Iqbal, which really reversed decades of case law and made it very, very difficult, more difficult, for plaintiffs to have their cases moved to the trial phase. In other words, the bar was set much higher to proceed to trial. So what the judge said to Susan Burke and the Center for Constitutional Rights, the lawyers representing these Iraqis, “You need to re-file your cases with more evidence, and then we’ll take it from there.”

So, while it’s being portrayed by the corporate media as a judge tossing out these cases, that quite clearly is not the case. This was actually a pretty significant defeat for Blackwater and a victory not only for the Iraqis in this case, but also for those lawyers from the Center for Constitutional Rights that have spent decades trying to apply US laws to crimes committed abroad.

Blackwater remains in very, very hot water, not only because of this case, but also the US Justice Department is going to begin its prosecution of five Blackwater operatives for manslaughter charges relating to the Nisoor Square massacre in September of ’07. This is very high-stakes stuff, and the corporate media got it basically absolutely wrong.

AMY GOODMAN: Jeremy Scahill, we’ll leave it there. I want to thank you for being with us, award-winning journalist.

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From Democracy Now:

Democrats say the McCarran-Ferguson Act of 1945 has granted the insurance industry a captive market with no curbs on price fixing and other anti-competitive practices. Last week the Justice Department’s top antitrust regulator, Christine Varney, voiced support for a repeal. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi are also backing a repeal, and New York Senator Charles Schumer has called for including it as part of the healthcare reform bill. The House Judiciary Committee plans to vote on the issue on Wednesday.

This would be a welcome step in the right direction if it passes.

Transcript below the fold.

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Wendell Potter takes Chuck Grassley to task on Democracy Now when asked about his reaction to his rejection of the public option amendment offered by Chuck Schumer.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to go back to yesterday’s debate in the Senate Finance Committee. Democratic Senator Charles Schumer, who introduced one of the public option amendments, questioned Republican Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa over his rejection of government-run health insurance option.

SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER: I’d just like to know what you think of Medicare, a government-run program that’s far more government-run than what Senator Rockefeller has proposed? Do you think Medicare is a good program? Because most of the amendments on the other side have been aimed at preserving Medicare, a government-run program.

SEN. CHUCK GRASSLEY: I think that Medicare is part of the social fabric of America, after forty years, just like Social Security is. And I don’t say that because it’s perfect. There’s a lot of things that need to be changed, and a lot of the things in this legislation are changing a lot of things that’s wrong with Medicare. And to say that I support it is not to say that it’s the best system that it can be.

SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER: But it is a government-run plan, isn’t that right?

SEN. CHUCK GRASSLEY: It is a government-run plan.

SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER: Thank you.

SEN. CHUCK GRASSLEY: And not—and the reason I say it’s part of the social fabric of America is there are private health insurance plans and retirement plans that are connected with Medicare and Social Security, and it’s not easy to undo a Medicare plan without also hurting a lot of private initiatives that are coupled with it. But that does not make it perfect. And I’ll bet, based upon fifty years of experience, if we had to do it over again, we’d do it other ways, even if it were a government-run plan.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Chuck Grassley. Wendell Potter, your response?

WENDELL POTTER: Well, clearly, this senator has the insurance industry’s best interests at heart, not the American public and not his constituents. The Medicare program is, as he said, part of the social fabric of this country and has been for many years. And it is a government-run plan that has meant a great deal of difference to a lot of people in this country, including certainly his constituents.

He has said that he didn’t think a public plan would be fair, compete fairly with insurance companies who—the private insurance industry. I’d like to ask him what is fair about the way that the insurance industries operate today, the companies that dump sick people when they need insurance most. What is fair about the way the insurance industry operates, Senator Grassley?

AMY GOODMAN: Forty-five million new customers, that’s what the private insurance companies can now look forward to, if a bill like what came out of the Senate Finance Committee moves forward with the mandate. Explain how they will make out and how important, how significant, how profitable this is for the for-profit companies.

WENDELL POTTER: Yeah, this is the first time that the insurance industry has really seen great opportunity in healthcare reform, with an individual mandate, which would require all of us to buy insurance if we are not eligible for a public, government-run program, which, fortunately, many people are. We would have to buy it in the private market from insurance companies, many of whom—many of which are for-profit companies. We would not have the option of buying or getting insurance through a government-run program like the public option would create.

So, not only would our premium dollars go into this—into the private insurance industry, but a lot of tax dollars would. Most people who don’t have insurance can’t afford it, and they wouldn’t be able to afford it after healthcare reform is passed without the government subsidizing their premiums. So billions and billions of taxpayers’ dollars will flow right into the treasuries of these big for-profit insurance companies. So we will be essentially paying a tax that will help support these insurance companies. It will be an enormous bailout of the health insurance industry.

From Democracy Now--Fmr. UN Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter Warns Against “Politically Motivated Hype” on Iran Nuke Program:

Former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter joins us to discuss what he calls “politically motivated hype” over Iran’s nuclear program. The Obama administration has warned of sanctions unless Iran allows inspections of a newly disclosed nuclear site. Iran insists the site has been used for peaceful purposes. The row comes just after Iran’s test-firing of medium- and long-range missiles and before Iranian officials are due to hold talks with the US and five other nations in Geneva.

Full transcript at Democracy Now's site.

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From Democracy Now. This looks like a good step in the right direction.

The Federal Communications Commission has announced a new set of proposals to prevent internet service providers from curbing or blocking online services. On Monday, FCC Chair Julius Genachowski unveiled a plan that would make permanent existing safeguards that ensure open access to websites and other online content. The new rules would also extend to barring companies from limiting certain kinds of data, such as free internet phone services and file-sharing applications. The safeguards would also apply to wireless phone carriers for the first time. Supporters call the proposals a major step forward in the campaign for net neutrality.

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From Democracy Now:

A group of Iraqi labor leaders are here in the United States trying to bring international attention to the lack of a basic labor law in Iraq guaranteeing the right to unionize without repression. Although the United States has scrapped several Saddam Hussein-era laws since the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq, a 1987 law banning unions in all public-sector workplaces remains in place. Last week the AFL-CIO adopted a resolution defending Iraqi labor rights. We speak to Iraqi labor leaders Rasim Awadi and Falah Alwan.

Once again, Amy Goodman is covering the stories the mainstream media won't touch. Most of their coverage of Iraq has fallen completely off the map. I'm glad to see the AFL-CIO getting involved in trying to do something to make these people's lives better after we went over there and blew up their country.

AMY GOODMAN: We turn now to Iraq, where Vice President Biden recently pressed Iraqi leaders to enact further regulatory and financial protections to make Iraq more attractive to foreign investors. Speaking to Iraqi officials in Baghdad’s Green Zone last week, Biden called for the Iraqi Parliament to adopt laws to offer more incentives on oil concessions. He also noted the Iraq Business and Investment Conference in Washington next month could encourage private US investment in the country.

Well, as the Vice President was in Iraq promoting privatization last week, a group of Iraqi labor leaders were here in the United States attending the AFL-CIO convention, trying to bring international attention to the lack of basic labor law in Iraq guaranteeing the right to unionize without repression.

Although the United States has scrapped several Saddam Hussein-era laws since the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq, a 1987 law banning unions in all public-sector workplaces remains in place.

The AFL-CIO adopted a resolution defending Iraqi labor rights last week, and US Labor Against the War is urging Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to press the Iraqi government to protect labor rights.

You can watch the rest of the interview and read the transcript at Democracy Now's web site.

This should not be going on in a country with this much wealth. It's just shameful. From Democracy Now--As Baucus Unveils Health Plan Absent of Public Option, New Study Finds 45,000 Uninsured Die Every Year.

A long-awaited healthcare bill from Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus includes no public option and would require almost all Americans to buy insurance or pay a penalty. This comes as a new study finds that nearly 45,000 Americans die every year due to lack of health insurance. We speak with the study’s co-author, Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, a professor of medicine at Harvard University, primary care physician, and co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Nearly 45,000 Americans die every year—that’s 122 deaths a day—due to lack of health insurance. That’s the startling finding of a new study that appears in the current issue of the American Journal of Public Health.

The figure is about two-and-a-half times higher than an estimate from the Institute of Medicine in 2002. The Harvard-based researchers found that uninsured, working-age Americans have a 40 percent higher risk of death than their privately insured counterparts, up from a 25 percent excess death rate found in 1993. Deaths associated with lack of health insurance now exceed those caused by many common killers such as kidney disease.

News of the study comes as the drive for healthcare reform is entering a new phase on Capitol Hill. On Wednesday, Montana Senator Max Baucus, the chair of the Senate Finance Committee, released his long-awaited healthcare reform proposal. The Finance Committee is the last of five congressional panels to produce legislation.

AMY GOODMAN: Despite months of talks to find a bipartisan compromise, Baucus’s plan had no Republican co-sponsors. The $856 billion proposal would require almost all Americans to buy insurance or pay a penalty and drops a mandate that all employers offer health coverage. The bill does not include a government-backed public option to compete with private insurers, instead proposes funds to set up nonprofit cooperatives.

For more on the proposal, we’re joined by Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, professor of medicine at Harvard University, primary care physician in Cambridge, also co-director of the Harvard Medical School General Internal Medicine Fellowship program. She’s co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program and co-authored the American Journal of Public Health study called “Health Insurance and Mortality in US Adults,” joining us from Watertown, Massachusetts.

Professor Woolhandler, Dr. Woolhandler, thanks so much for being with us. Assess Baucus’s plan.

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From Democracy Now--ACORN Head Bertha Lewis Vows Action on Employee Misconduct, But Warns Group Targeted by “Modern-Day McCarthyism”. The Lou Dobbs, Glenn Becks and other right wing screechers of the world should be so proud. We need a few more Amy Goodmans and a few less of them to cut through the propoganda attacking one of the only groups out there advocating for poor people and minorities that don't have much of a voice in our society.

AMY GOODMAN: The anti-poverty group ACORN is coming under a firestorm of criticism after the group’s workers were caught on camera appearing to offer advice to a pimp and prostitute. The video was a major strike for conservatives, who for years have accused ACORN of voter registration fraud during presidential elections. Republicans are calling for a complete cutoff of all federal funding to the group, which helps poor people fight foreclosures, fix tax problems, and register to vote. We speak with ACORN chief executive Bertha Lewis.

[....]

AMY GOODMAN: Yet the video came out, and you had some of your biggest supporters in Congress actually voting against ACORN, saying you shouldn’t get funding, because they were appalled by what they saw. How do you put—

BERTHA LEWIS: Right.

AMY GOODMAN: —these two together?

BERTHA LEWIS: Well, first of all, we are suffering from a modern-day type of McCarthyism. You know, have you now or have you ever been associated with ACORN? This has been repeated in the right-wing Republican echo chamber, that somehow or another we are to be discredited.

We are the largest membership-based community organization of low- and moderate-income people of color, black and brown folks, in this country. We have been around for forty years. We’ve saved thousands of homes. We’ve helped raise the wages of tens of thousands and now hundreds of thousands of people. And also, we have been able to make sure that millions of disenfranchised black and brown folks in this country actually vote and they are actually counted.

So, for us, we know that there is a race element to trying to stop us. I mean, look at what’s happened with Van Jones and Eric Holder and Judge Sotomayor. We know that we have been used as a surrogate to attack President Obama. The teabaggers have had signs with ACORN at teabag parties, and we never even were around or there.

And it’s not going to stop. We understand that. And our work is not going to stop. So, the relative ten percent of our entire funding that would come through the government, sure, we are going to fight back against this, because we know that this is an unfair attack. And it’s been going on from the Republican side and the right-wing side. However, our core work will never stop.

And we know that—being the largest organization of black and brown folks, people of color, in this country, we know that we are a target. But we meet that challenge. And if you were to hear the racist, sexist, just horrible vitriol that are visited on our offices and on the phone, in emails, threats left at our door, hate mail letters sent, you know, it is very clear that people on the right, and Republicans in particular, are very upset that ACORN is effective and that it’s been around for forty years and that we are a powerful organization.

Full transcript at Democracy Now.

From Democracy Now: UN Inquiry Finds Israel “Punished and Terrorized” Palestinian Civilians, Committed War Crimes During Gaza Assault

A United Nations fact-finding mission has found Israel “punished and terrorized” civilians in its three-week assault on Gaza earlier this year and cited strong evidence that Israeli forces committed “grave breaches” of the Geneva Conventions. More than 1,400 Palestinians—about a third of them women and children—were killed in the assault. We get analysis from author and Israel-Palestine scholar Norman Finkelstein.

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From Democracy Now, this reporting should make anyone think twice before they pick up that next bottle of imported water. “Spin the Bottle”–Expose Raises Alarming Questions About Fiji Water’s Ties to Military Junta, Environmental Record and Impact on Fijians:

Fiji Water is America’s leading imported water and the bottled water of choice among the rich and famous. President Obama was photographed drinking Fiji on election night, and Mary J. Blige demands ten bottles before concerts. But a new expose in Mother Jones magazine raises alarming questions about Fiji Water’s ties to Fiji’s military dictatorship, the company’s environmental record and its impact on the residents of Fiji. We speak with reporter Anna Lenzer about “Spin the Bottle.”

Transcript below the fold.

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From Democracy Now:

As the debate over healthcare reform intensifies on Capitol Hill, we spend the hour with a former top insurance executive who’s now exposing the industry’s dirty secrets. Wendell Potter once served as the head of corporate communications at CIGNA, one of the nation’s largest health insurance companies. We speak to Potter about his own transformation from industry mouthpiece to whistleblower, the healthcare industry’s extensive PR and lobbying machine, the campaign to discredit Michael Moore’s film Sicko, and the insurance industry’s most pressing task: the fight against a public option, let alone a single-payer system.

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From Democracy Now, their headlines for June 26th. What do you know. Something went on in the world today other than the passing of Michael Jackson.

•Iranian Opposition Candidate Vows Continued Protests

•Ahmadinejad Accuses Obama of Meddling

•Witnesses: Hundreds Defy Ban to Honor Slain Protester

•13 Killed in Iraq Bombing

•Senate Health Negotiators Target Medicare, Medicaid, Uninsured

•Obama Urges Passage of Climate Bill

•Hamas Welcomes Obama’s “New Language,” Calls for Pressure on Israel

•Pakistani PM Calls for End to US Drone Attacks

•Nigeria Offers Amnesty to Niger Delta Militants

•Honduras in Crisis over Referendum Vote

•Senate Confirms FCC Nominee

•Supreme Court: Strip Search of Arizona Teen Illegal

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Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzales on Democracy Now talked to independent filmmaker and journalist Kouross Esmaeli about the attacks coming from Republicans and John McCain against the President for not speaking out more forcefully on Iran.

JUAN GONZALEZ: I’d like to ask you about the statement—President Obama is now under fire from the right for not speaking out more forcefully on behalf of the Iranian protesters. He responded to this charge in an interview on CBS News Friday.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: The last thing that I want to do is to have the United States be a foil for those forces inside Iran who would love nothing better than to make this an argument about the United States. That’s what they do. That’s what we’re already seeing. We shouldn’t be playing into that. There should be no distractions from the fact that the Iranian people are seeking to let their voices be heard. What we can do is bear witness and say to the world that the incredible demonstrations that we’ve seen is a testimony to, I think, what Dr. King called the “arc of the moral universe.” It’s long, but it bends towards justice.

JUAN GONZALEZ: That was President Obama on Sunday. Kouross Esmaeli, Iranian American journalist and filmmaker, your response to the criticism of President Obama from the right, in terms of his inaction on the issue of the election in Iran?

KOUROSS ESMAELI: What is interesting about the criticisms that are coming from the right is that it’s been coming primarily from Senator John McCain. The Iranians know Senator John McCain as the man who sang “Bomb, bomb Iran” during the elections of last year. The man holds no credibility as far as supporting Iranians or seeming like he’s got the best interests of the Iranians at heart. And that, for Iranians and for this issue, that discredits him altogether and discredits this whole attack on President Obama.

President Obama’s stand, I think, has been the most sensible, and it’s amazing that the President of the United States is taking such a sensible stand. And that—everyone I’ve talked to in Iran has said the same thing, that we do not need any symbol of Western, especially American, interference in Iran’s internal politics. And the fact that America does not have diplomatic relations with Iran really ties its hand, as far as how far he can go in really supporting Iran. So the only thing they can do is to just scream as loud as they can, which will be immediately used by the Iranian authorities.

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Democracy Now's headlines for June 18, 2009.

• Supporters of Mousavi Hold Mourning Rally in Tehran
  
• Iran Accuses US of Meddling in its Internal Affairs
  
• US State Dept Asks Twitter to Delay Shutdown Due to Iran Protests
  
• Obama Extends Some Benefits to Same-Sex Partners of Federal Workers
  
• Holder Refuses to Say Bush’s Warrantless Wiretapping Program Was Illegal
  
• NSA Database Collects Millions of Intercepted Emails
  
• Obama Proposes New Regulations of Financial Industry
  
• EPA Declares Public Health Emergency in Libby, Montana
  
• U.S. Drone Strike Kills Nine in Pakistan
  
• Suicide Bombing Kills Somalia’s National Security Minister
  
• GOP Aide in Tennessee Distributes Racist Image of Obama
  
• GOP Operative in SC Compares First Lady To A Gorilla