ON June 11 Yesterday's tragic shooting at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, by an "88-year-old white supremacist," is the latest in a string of right-wing extremist attacks. The number of hate groups such as the "Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis, racist skinheads and Black separatists" operating in the United States is at an all-time high, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).

American progress, a Washington based think tank said, “gun purchases since President Obama's election surged. However, when the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) declassified a report "detailing potential increases in right-wing extremism" in April, right-wing commentators and Republican politicians decried the report as a politically motivated attack on all conservatives. They claimed that "the Obama administration is targeting conservatives and others simply because they disagree with administration policies and proposals." Ignoring that the report -- like a similar one describing the threat of left-wing extremists -- was commissioned by the Bush administration, conservatives called for the resignation of DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano. Media Matters Action Fund's Matt Finkelstein asks, "Will Republicans admit that their partisan 'outrage' was misplaced?"

The declassified DHS report warned, "Rightwing extremism in the United States can be broadly divided into those groups, movements, and adherents that are primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups), and those that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority or rejecting government authority entirely." The report further warned, "The economic downturn and the election of the first African American president present unique drivers for rightwing radicalization and recruitment." This description reflected recent extremist violence, including the July 2008 shooting spree in a Knoxville church "because of its liberal teachings," a thwarted attempt to assassinate Obama in October by two neo-Nazi skinheads, and "a racially motivated rape and murder spree in Brockton, MA" by a 22-year-old white supremacist the "day after Barack Obama was inaugurated." Since the report was issued last April, the trail of death has continued. "We have seen not only the murder of an abortion physician by a member of the radical right, but the murders of five law enforcement officers -- three police officers in Pittsburgh, two sheriff's deputies in Florida by radical right-wing extremists," SPLC's Mark Potok told CNN. "It's really been quite an extraordinary period." The Pittsburgh shooter "feared the Obama administration was poised to ban guns," and the Florida killer was "severely disturbed that Barack Obama had been elected President." In an incident earlier this month, a "lone wolf" American Muslim extremist "shot and killed Army Pvt. William Long" outside a Little Rock, AR, mall in anger over the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

Conservative politicians led the attack on the DHS report. Both House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) and Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) called it "offensive." Others went further: Gun advocate Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) claimed "the report has no intelligence value and only serves to blur our constitutional protections, such as the Second Amendment," and Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-MN) argued that "it looks like the extremists are those running the DHS." "What is the Department of Homeland Security calling us now?" Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) asked at an April 15 tea party protest. "Extremists? Well, give me a button." "Now if you disagree with that liberal path that President Obama's taken the country down," Fox News' Sean Hannity claimed, "you may soon catch the attention of the Department of Homeland Security." Texas Rep. John Carter (R-TX), after demanding Napolitano's firing on the House floor, told Politico, "Singling out political opponents for working against the ruling party is precisely the tactic of every tyrannical government from Red China to Venezuela." As Mother Jones's James Ridgeway observed, "Conservatives haven't been branded dangerous extremists by DHS or the Obama administration; they've branded themselves." 

The American progress further analyzed  and added , “ Following the Holocaust Museum shooting, two Fox News personalities, Shepard Smith and Catherine Herridge, suggested that critics of DHS's report on right-wing extremism should re-think their objections. "The right went absolutely bonkers" over the report, said Smith, adding that DHS was "warning us for a reason." Though some conservatives have concluded that the recent string of right-wing violence has "vindicated" the DHS report, many others disagree. Blogger and Fox News contributor Michelle Malkin, who led the charge against the DHS report, approvingly linked to a military blogger that called Smith and Herridge "pathetic." Malkin's Hot Air colleague, Ed Morrissey, defended the criticism of the report by claiming that it didn't "mention anti-semitism at all." But as Huffington Post's Sam Stein points out, the DHS report "warned specifically about an upswing of anti-Semitic behavior." "At this point it's little consolation," CBS News's Charles Cooper observes, "but Department of Homeland Security head Janet Napolitano turned out to be more prescient about domestic extremism than many of her critics."

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GM, petrol guzzler that almost ate America, goes bust

LAST fortnight , American  auto giant General Motors (GM) followed Chrysler and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, making it the fourth largest U.S. company to ever take such a step. As a result of the pre-packaged bankruptcy plan, the U.S. government will own a 60 percent stake in GM, with the United Auto Workers (UAW) receiving 17.5 percent, the Canadian government taking 12.5 percent, and GM's unsecured bondholders taking 10 percent. In order to finance its bankruptcy, "the fallen icon of American industry will rely on $30 billion of additional financial assistance from the Treasury Department and $9.5 billion from Canada," which is in addition to the $20 billion GM had previously received in low interest loans from the Bush administration. As the American Prospect's Harold Meyerson put it, government investment "was simply the one course available to avert an economic holocaust in the Midwest (not just in Michigan but in Ohio, Indiana, and other states as well) that would plunge the nation deeper into recession." Of course, this hasn't stopped conservatives from claiming that the bankruptcy plan puts the U.S. "on the road toward socialism."

In an interview with Fox News's Greta Van Susteren, Vice President Cheney admitted that the Bush administration deliberately decided to pass the buck on GM, giving the company a bridge loan and then leaving the problem for Obama. Other prominent Republicans, like Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele, responded to Obama's plan by saying that the company should simply "go into the market, they work out their situation in the market." But the Obama administration's packaged bankruptcy makes sense for both GM and the country's economic stability. Without the government financing its bankruptcy, GM "would have ended up in liquidation, shedding 60,000 hourly jobs instead of 20,000" and selling assets at firesale prices. And as the New Republic's Jonathan Cohn wrote, "the pain wouldn't have stopped there. It would have spread to GM's suppliers and, eventually, to all of the communities where these workers spend money." By delaying bankruptcy, the administration was able to announce that it would back GM's warranties, set plans to close dealerships, allow suppliers time to diversify, and work out a deal to ensure that autoworkers received some of the benefits and pensions that they earned. As economist Dean Baker explained, "back in December and January, when none of these pieces were in place, there was still enough up in the air that I think  it would have been reckless to have done a bankruptcy."

A favorite conservative reaction to the GM bankruptcy has been to claim that it unfairly benefits unions and violates the rights of GM's bondholders. A group of Republican House members said that "the proposal seems to favor the rights and claims of the UAW, a political ally of the current administration...over the rights and claims of the company's diverse group of bondholders." Some have even gone so far as to claim that the administration's plan is illegal. Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) said that "the White House [is] coming in and favoring the UAW, basically making the rights of the bondholders inferior, outside any kind of legal framework whatsoever. There has been a downright suspension of the law." But, as the Washington Post noted, "[T]here are a number of precedents for retiree health funds getting preferential treatment during bankruptcies, particularly in the steel industry in recent years." It's also likely that the GM bondholders would get no more in liquidation than they are getting under the current plan, which may be why a majority of bondholders (54 percent) support the plan. And as for the claims of illegality, Reuters's Felix Salmon pointed out that an unsecured bondholder "has no 'legal right' to get exactly the same outcome as any other creditor." "[I]f the bondholders have a better idea of what's fair, they're more than welcome to provide tens of billions of dollars in debtor-in-possession financing in order to make that happen. But of course they're not willing to put in so much as a nickel, which means that it's not up to them," Salmon wrote.

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) responded to the GM plan by saying "the only thing it makes clear is that the government is firmly in the business of running companies using taxpayer dollars." However, according to the New York Times, "A quick restructuring appears possible" precisely because of the agreements brokered by the administration with the union and GM's bondholders. As Obama said, "GM will be run by a private board of directors and management team with a track record in American manufacturing that reflects a commitment to innovation and quality. They -- and not the government -- will call the shots and make the decisions about how to turn this company around." Reuters noted that the administration has "created safeguards to prevent interference, including prohibiting government officials from sitting on the firm's board or working for firms in which the automaker invests." Steve Rattner, head of the Obama administration's auto task force, said that GM's shares will be sold off in a series of transactions over the next 12 to 18 months in order "to maximize the return" for taxpayers. "Obviously we could exit tomorrow if we wanted to by handing out shares at the corner of Pennsylvania and 17th or selling them for a dollar, but we have a huge amount of taxpayer money here," Rattner said. "But while we want to exit as soon as possible, we also want to exit as soon as practicable in terms of being good custodians of the taxpayers' money."  [Courtesy  American Progress]

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Every third male student in Punjab drug addict, HC told

ACCORDING to a Punjab Government survey, 66 per cent of the school-going students in the state consume gutkha or tobacco; every third male and every tenth female student has taken drugs on one pretext or the other and seven out of 10 college-going students abuse one or the other drug.

These disturbing details were submitted by Harjit Singh, Secretary, Department of Social Security and Women & Child Development, Chandigarh, in reply to a petition filed by some to drug rehabilitation centres before the Punjab and Haryana High Court.

The affidavit further read that “In the recent times, the amount of narcotic substances seized in the state has also been among the highest in the country”.

The secretary, on behalf of the Punjab Government, submitted that “the vibrancy of Punjab is virtually a myth.... many sell their blood to procure their daily doze of deadly drugs, even beg on the streets for money to continue their addiction... The entire Punjab is in the grip of drug hurricane which weakens the morale, physique and character of the youth. We are in the danger of losing the young generation. The vibrant Punjab that had ushered in the green revolution is today living in a dazed stupor as 67 per cent of its rural household has at least one drug addict.”

He added that use of alcohol and drugs is now a “part of the Punjabi culture”. “No celebration is complete until liquor is served in plenty. However, in the last two decades, the pattern of drug use in the state has undergone a change in favour of new narcotic and synthetic drugs. Now the addicts consume multiple as well as single drugs,” read the reply.

Punjab alone accounts for roughly over one-fifth of the total recoveries of heroin in the country. The state submitted that studies have been conducted which shed light on the problem in different population groups. The drug traffickers use the cities of Gurdaspur, Amritsar, Tarn Taran, Ferozepur, Kapurthala, Hoshiarpur, Ludhiana, Patiala as well as Chandigarh to smuggle the narcotic substances through Punjab.

What the studies show
• Opiates, their derivatives and synthetic opiate drugs are used by 70 per cent of the addicts, followed by a combination of opiate and other sedatives, including morphine.
• Extent of drug addiction in Punjab is 70 per cent. Household survey indicates that there is at least one drug addict in the 65 per cent of families in Majha and Doaba and 64 percent families of Malwa.
• Tarn Taran is the most affected rural district and Amritsar is the most affected urban district in Punjab.
• Per head consumption of alcohol is the maximum in Punjab and Tarn Taran district tops the list.
• In border areas, the extent of substance abuse is 70-75 per cent in the age group of 15-25 years and up to 40 per cent in the age group of 35-60 years.
• Over 16 per cent population is addicted to hard drugs.



The amount of narcotic and psychotropic substances recovered in Punjab has increased substantially over the last three years. While the quantity of heroin seized has gone up by nearly five times, the quantity of charas recovered has seen a 10 per cent rise. For smack, the corresponding statistics has almost doubled during the period.

The official data highlighting the increase in drug recoveries from 2006 to 2008 was submitted by the Punjab government in the Punjab and Haryana High Court earlier this month.

Compared to the 53-kg heroin recovered in 2006, the amount seized in 2008 rose to 269 kg. For the same period, the quantity of smack seized increased from 32 kg to 55 kg, while that for charas increased from 98 kg to 110 kg.

It was in a response to a petition filed by two drug rehabilitation centres that Harjit Singh, Secretary to the Government of Punjab, Department of Social Security and Women & Child Development, revealed the information.

One of the petitioners, Talwinder Pal Singh, who runs a drug rehabilitation centre in Punjab had moved the High Court challenging the orders of the Punjab to close down such government-run (drug rehabilitation) centres.

In its reply, the Punjab Government submitted, “Punjab remains vulnerable because of its proximity to the Golden Crescent (Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran). Drug traffickers have changed their overland route and narcotics are being transited through India, of which 40 per cent is transited through Punjab alone.”

The Punjab government further submitted that according to records furnished by the police department, narcotic and psychotropic substances like opium, poppy-husk, smack, ganja and charas are smuggled into the state from Rajasthan, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.

“Smack is mainly coming in from Pakistan and Nepal, but the regular supply for Punjab comes from Delhi, Meerut, Sardulgarh and J & K,” reads the reply filed by the Punjab government. The government also admitted that the amount of narcotic substances seized in the state is among the highest in the country.

Recoveries of narcotic and psychotropic substances by Punjab Police

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Punjab labour shortage

RISING labour rate during the Paddy season in Punjab are pushing the cost of cultivation at one level. At another level, they are making the farmhands better off and happy.  This season the supply of labour from the poorer states of Bihar, eastern Uttar Pradesh is less, leading to shortage and higher cost. Punjabi youth from the farmer families either wants to migrate to greener pastures or stays away from hard labour. Roughly 20 lakh farm workers are involved in paddy sowing and plantation.

Rates in the Malwa belt :

2000 - Rs-300 per acre

2005 - Rs-500 per acre

2007 - Rs-600 per acre

2009 - Rs-2000 per acre

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