A Levi-Strauss-affiliated Haitian factory calls in anti-Aristide forces to enforce labor discipline:

On Tuesday, March 3rd, all of the workers were mobilized to protest the firings. All of a sudden, members of the “rebel” army at Ouanaminthe arrived, with guns, to rough up the workers. Several workers were handcuffed. After much mistreatment and threats, they were forced to resume work. Later, the rebels revealed that they had been contacted the previous evening by factory management who informed them that the workers were going to “make problems” at work the next day. Management even gave them a list of union members that they were to get rid of.

Al Sharpton, the “Boy Preacher,” mulls pulling out of the race in exchange for ideological and tactical commitments from Kerry:

“I don’t know if ‘discontinue’ is the word I would use,” said Sharpton, referring to his candidacy. “But clearly, from the beginning, our intention was to go out and affect policy. It was always a matter of how we would fold into an anti-Bush campaign. That was always part of the plan.” Sharpton said he wanted Kerry, the Massachusetts senator, to adopt a stronger stance on a number of issues, including advocating a greater role for the federal government in combatting police brutality and racial profiling…

Sharpton, 49, said he would also like Kerry to commit in the fall campaign to hiring more minority staffers, to buying advertising and services from minority-owned firms and to buying ads on black and Latino-oriented radio and television programs.

While Dennis Kucinich, the “Boy Mayor,” remains resolute about staying in until it’s over:

“Until Sen. Kerry is nominated at the convention and they have the roll call of states, that’s how the nominee is formally chosen,” he said. “I know it’s informally chosen by newspaper editors, but there’s a formal choice that has to go to the delegates. I made it clear, you can parse it any way that you want, that I’m in this race all the way to the convention. And I haven’t changed in saying that from the beginning.”

Kucinich – running a campaign based on liberal values such as government-paid health care for all, creation of a “Department of Peace,” cancellation of the North American Free Trade Agreement, withdrawal from the World Trade Organization and a quick pull-out from Iraq – said his presence gives a forum for important ideas in the Democratic Party. “There are critical differences within the Democratic Party which have to be aired, and they really reflect on whether or not the Democrats can win the election in November,” he said. “It is urgent that this debate stay inside the Democratic Party, because if we stop the debate right now and the debate is just taken outside the Democratic Party, it will be assumed that Democrats may not care about these things.”

More bad news on jobs:

The economy added just 21,000 jobs last month, down sharply from January’s gain and far below the type of increase that was common in the 1980’s and 1990’s. The unemployment rate held steady at 5.6 percent, the Labor Department reported, mostly because many people stopped looking for work, removing them from the government’s official count of the unemployed…

The problems showed up in nearly every corner of the labor market. Manufacturers cut jobs for the 43rd consecutive month. Hourly wages for most of the workforce rose just 3 cents, roughly at the rate of inflation. The average length of unemployment rose to 20.3 weeks, its highest level since 1984.

South Dakota and Wyoming have just joined twenty-nine other states in abolishing the juvenile death penalty, which remains legal in the US and only a few other countries in the world (it’s a disturbing list). As Brian Roberts of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty observes:

The recent successes in Wyoming, South Dakota and New Hampshire show that momentum is with us. When the U.S. Supreme Court banned the execution of people with mental retardation, 30 states outlawed this practice. Now 31 states outlaw the juvenile death penalty. We’re well on our way to sweeping the juvenile death penalty away to the dustbin of history, where it belongs.

Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson takes a brave stance against empirical facts about health and human services:

Even if you don’t have health insurance, you are still taken care of in America. That certainly could be defined as universal coverage.

Um, no.

Firefighters chafe at being co-opted as symbols for Bush-Cheney 2004:

The campaign of Senator John Kerry, the presumptive nominee for the Democratic Party, as well as firefighters and some families of the victims of the World Trade Center attacks, have criticized the use of the images as cynical exploitation of a national tragedy.

The International Association of Fire Fighters Union, which was meeting today in Bal Harbour, Fla., approved a resolution asking the Bush campaign to pull the advertisements, the union’s spokesman, Jeff Zack, told The Associated Press. The resolution also urges Bush to “apologize to the families of firefighters killed on 9/11 for demeaning the memory of their loved ones in an attempt to curry support for his re-election.”

Students here at Yale and on four other campuses have announced a national campaign for disclosure by Farallon, one of the nation’s largest hedge funds:

The coalition wants information from the San Francisco-based company about
its investments so that it can better evaluate whether some of them may be environmentally and ethically questionable.

Mr. Ruben said the impetus for the campaign stemmed from a controversy related to Yale’s investments that came to light more than two years ago. Yale unions revealed that the university was a member of a partnership that owned a Colorado ranch, of which Farallon was managing partner. Farallon wanted to pump and sell water from an aquifer below the ranch that is adjacent to a national monument.

Check out the website, Unfarallon.Info, to get a sense of the breadth and depth of the morally suspect projects around the globe subsidized by this and other universities.

An environmental activist from Oregon will be speaking at Yale in WLH this afternoon at 4:30, followed by a “carnival of investments” headed over the David Swenson’s office.

Kerry takes nine out of ten Super Tuesday states; Dean wins Vermont. Edwards will concede the race tomorrow:

Kerry saluted Edwards for his “compelling voice” and “great eloquence” and predicted the first-term senator from North Carolina would be a leader in the party for “years to come.”

Addressing supporters Tuesday night in Atlanta, Georgia, Edwards strongly signaled [his] decision with words of praise for Kerry. “He’s run a strong, powerful campaign,” Edwards said. “He’s been an extraordinary advocate for causes that all of us believe in.”

Ward 22 voters issued a powerful mandate for change and a loud call for a progressive partnership between Yale and New Haven by electing Alyssa Rosenberg and Shaneane Ragin as Ward 22 Co-Chairs tonight 3 to 1. Congratulations to them and to everyone involved with the campaign.