02/27/18 02/27/18 [captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from pacifica, this is democracy now! >> this exhaustive research that has been done around discriminatory lending practices, race-based lending practices. is intolerable. amy: redlining. the state of pennsylvania and city of philadelphia have launched probes s into modern-dy redlining after an investigation

revealed african-american mortgage applicants in philly are almost three times as likely to be denied a conventional mortgage as white applicants. and the problem is occurring nationwide. we will speak with investigative jojournalistst aaron glantz of reveal and pennsylvania state senator vincent hughes. then we look at a supreme court case that could deal a massive blow to public unions nanationwide. >> facing a legal argument of front of the supreme court, they are making a political attack on all of you. that is what this is about. it is a political attack. the first care about amendment. -- thinkt care about about making more money at the expense of all of you. amy: all that and more, coming up. welcome to democracy now!

democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. the supreme court has dealt a major blow to president trump's efforts to rescind daca, the obama-era deferred action for childhood arrivals programs, which gives at least 700,000 young immigrants permission to live and work in the united states. on monday, the court refused hear a white house appeal of lower court rulings saying trump's move to cancel the program was unconstitutional. monday's decision by the supreme court means the legal challenges to daca's cancellation will continue to work their way up through the courts. in the meantime, daca recipients will be shielded from deportation and allowed to continue to renew their protected status. but monday's move by the supreme court does not resolve the future of the program. a group of undocumented activists are currently on a 250-mile walk from new york city to washington, d.c., to demand congress pass a permanent

solution to daca and protect young undocumented immigrants. president trump met with governors monday to discuss gun control, even as he bowed to demands by the national rifle association to back away from proposals to increase the age for purchasing an assault-style rifle and to change the rules on bump stocks. at the meeting at the white house with governors, president trump also claimed that he would have run into the marjory stoneman douglas high h hool during the february 14 mass shooting, in which 17 people were killed by a former student. pres. trump: i really believe, you don't know until you test it, but i really believe i would an ---- even if i do not have weapon. and i think most of the people in this room would have done that, too, because i know most of you. at the way they performed was really a disgrace. president trump also he had amy: lunch with the leaders of the nra, wayne lapierre e and chris cox, o over the weekend ad

that lawmakers shouldndn't bebe afraid of the nra. preses. trump: don't worrrry abt ththe nra. they are on ouour site. half of you are so afraidid of e nra. there's nothing to be afraid of. amy: during the meeting, washington state governor jay inslee spoke out against president trump's proposals to arm teachers to deter mass shootings. >> i've listened to the first grade teachers that don't want to be pistol past being -- is the packing is great teachers. i've listened to law enforcement who say they don't want to have to train teachers as law-enforcement agencies, which takes about six months. i think this is the circumstance were we need to listeten that educators should educate and they should not be foisted upon us responsibility of packing heat in first grade classes. i understand you have suggested this and we suggest things and sometimes then we listen to people about it, and maybe they don't look so good a little later. i just s suggest we e need a lie less tweeting a a little morore listening. amy: this all comes as in florida, broward county sheriff

scott israel is facing increasing calls to resign over his department's inability to stop the mass school shooting. which included his department's failure to take seriously dozens of previous calls about the gunman douglas kruse, about whom -- nikolas cruz, about for residents had expressed fears for years. one of his deputies scot , peterson, has resigned after details emerged that he took cover outside the school during the shooting. he is now claiming that he didn't enter the school because he thought the shooting was happening outside. in georgia's republican lieutenant governor casey cagle has attacked the airline compapy delta after it said it would stop offering discounted prices to nra members, becoming one of a slew of companies to break ties with the nra. in response, lieutenant governor , who leads the georgia state senate, said republican lawmakers would retaliate against delta by eliminating a

$50 million sales tax exemption on jet fuel, which benefits delta. the shipping company fedex, however, says it will not drop its discounted prices for the nra, despite pressure from activists. white house senior adviser ivanka trump, who is also president trump's daughter, refused to answer questions about the slew of sexual harassment and assault allegations against the president. ivanka trump has positioned herself as one of the key people within the trump administration working on policies related to women and gender equality. yet when asked in an nbc interview about the many women who have accused trump of sexual harassment or assault,t, ivanka said t the question was inappropriate. >> do you believe your father's accusers? >> i t think it is a pretty inappropriate question to ask a daughter. the accusers of her father when hee is

affirmatively stated that there is no truth to it. i don't think that is a question you would ask many other daughters. i believe my father. i know my father, so i think i have that right as a daughter to believe my father. amy:y: that is ivanka trump, senior white house advisor, who is just returned from south korea were she led the united states and the witch role of its closing ceremony. president trump is proposing appointing his private pilot to head the federal aviation authority. the faa has a man -- annual budget of $16 billion and is responsible for r regulating and overseeing civil aviation in the u.s. members of the aviation indudusy widely said trump's personal pilot john duncan lacks the experience to head the agency. one anonymous lobbyist told politico "the only person that thinks it isis a good idea, from what i gather, is the president." in syria, activists say the

government is continuing to carry out airstrikes and artillery shelling in the rebel-held enclave of eastern ghouta, outside damascus, despite a daily five-hour pause in the fighting ordered by russia, the syrian government's main backer. meanwhile, the british foreign secretary boris johnson has expressed support for airstrikes targeting the syrian government, if there is incontrovertible evidence that the regime hass carried out chemicical attacks. the united nations and syrian and international human rights -- syrian human rights organizations have repeatedly accused the syrian regime of using chemical weapons, a charge the syrian g government denies. china announced unexpectedly send it is dropping presesidentl term limits, cleararing the way for president xi jinping to serve indefinitely. the announcement overturns decades-old term limits in china. meanwhile, the prominent chinese human rights lawyer li baiguang has died in a state-run hospital in nanjing.

chinese human rights groups are calling for an independent investigation into his death. in the democratic republic of congo, government soldiers shot and killed at least four anti-government protesters on sunday during nationwide protests against president joseph kabila's extended rule. kabila's term ended in 2016, but elections have repeatedly been postponed, allowing him to hold on to power. in the israeli-occupied west bank, israeli soldiers raided the village of nabi saleh and arrested 10 members of the prominent activist family the tamimis, including 15-year-old muhammad tamimi, who was previously shot in the face by israeli soldiers. the tamimimi family has gained international attention after a video went viral of muhammad's 17-year-old cousin, ahed tamimi, slapping an israeli soldier after learning her cousin had been shot in the face. he is scheduled to have reconstructive surgery on his skull next week. ahed is now facing a dozen -- hasas been held in pririson a

and is now facing a dozen charges in an israeli soldier courtroom. it is being reported the same prosecutor's office for the first time historically linked benjamin netanyahu to the bribery scandal involving communications giant aimed at securing moree favorable media coverage for netanyahu and his family. many in netanyahu's in her circle have already been arrested. back in the united states in washington state, the american civil liberties union has filed a lawsuit on behalf of a jailed mexican immigrant who says he was beaten and put into solitary confinement for joining a hunger strike. jesus chavez flores is one of 120 immigrants detained by ice at the northwest detention center who went on a hunger strike to protest conditions at the facility which is run by the

private for-profit geo group. flores was able to record a video message after he was beaten. >> they hit my friend in unit c3. they hit me and they hit another friend. when the guard comes towards me, i'm afraid to encounter him. it is a guard that when i pass him in the hall, i feel fear because he is a rough person who should not be working here in these centers because they are here to take care of us, not to beat us. just look at how he left my eye. amy: he recorded this in the jail. in the legal victory for the lgbt community, a federal appeals court has ruled a key civil rights law prohibits employers from discriminating based on sexual orientation. the case involved a gay skydiving instructor who had filed a civil rights lawsuit alleging his firing violated part of the landmark 1964 civil rights act.

monday's ruling is also a blow to the trump administration's justice department, which unexpectedly intervened in the case against the gay skydiver. in georgia, u.s. intelligence contractor reality leigh winner is slated to appear in court today in augusta. she's pleaded not guilty on charges of leaking a top-secret document claiming russian military intelligence conducted a cyberattack on at least one u.s. voting software company just days before the november 2016 election. during today's court hearing, winner's lawyers are set to ask the judge to exclude her statements to fbi agents the day she was arrested, arguing she was denied her miranda rights. in sports news, members of the nba championship team the golden state warriors are meeting with kids in washington, d.c., today instead of meeting with president trump as a protest against the administration. last september, trump rescinded the customary invitation to the championship team after its star

player, steph curry, spoke out against the president, and said he would not visit the white house. an art and entertainment news, bollywood fans around the world are mourning the death of superstar indian actress sridevi, who died on saturday at the age of 54 while attending a family wedding in dubai. she's one of the indian film industry's most famous actresses, widely credited with changing the role of women in the industry. she pushed for equal pay and equal screen time for women. among those mourning her death is political rapper and singer m.i.a., who tweeted -- "sad to loose the legend #sridevi its like loosing a legend like michael jackson for me. she did so much for #tamil women and indian movie industry and brown people everywhere. rip for now but hurry up and come back!!!!" and activist and cancer patient zahara heckscher has died at the age of 53.

zahara heckscher was repeatedly arrested protesting against the trans-pacific trade partnership, known as the tpp, and its so-called death sentence clause, which would have extended drug company monopolies on medicines. this is zahara heckscher speakingng on democrcracy now! t her motherer, who also died ofof breast c cancer. >> i was only 11 when she died of breast cancer, and that was before these drugs were available. she only lived one year after she was diagnosed, and that is what breast cancer means without access to the modern medicines, the biologics, and other emerging medicines, for example, have kept me alive for seven years so far and still going strong. so i know very personally what it means when people don't have access to the medicines. i also know that breast cancer, it is not about just the individual patient. it is about the family. sonme, i am fighting for my

to have a mom as much as i am fighting for myself and for other women and their families. amy: that's activist, mother and writer zahara heckscher, who died from breast cancer at the age of 53 on saturday. to see our full interviews with her, go to democracy now.org. and those are some of the headlines. this is dedemocracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. juan: and i'm juan gonzalez. welcome to all of our listeners and viewers from around the country and around the world. a stunning new investigation byy reveal and the center for investigative reporting has uncovered evidence that african-americans and latinos continue to be routinely denied conventional mortgage loans at rates far higher than their white counterparts across the coununtry. according to the piece, the homeownership gap between whites and african americans is now wider than it was during the jim crow era reveal based its report on a review of 31 million mortgage records filed with the federal

government in 2015 and 2016. the investigation found the redlining occurring across the country, including in washington, d.c., atlanta, detroit, philadelphia, st. louis, san antonio, texas. amy: since its publication earlier this month, the report has sparked national outrage and, in some states, unusually swift political action. pennsylvania's attorney general and state treasurer have both launched investigations into redlining in philadelphia. this is democratic state senator vincent hughes of pennsylvania questioning pennsylvania attorney general josh shapiro during a recent senate budget hearing. >> are you aware of the study that was just published by the senate for investigative reporting that looksks at discriminatory lending pracactices? f "kepttudy titles itself out."

are you knowowledgeable about wt has been going on in this area? >> i am, and frankly, i'm disgusted by it. i read the articles. we were aware of this -- some of thisis before ththe articles evn came out. in terms ofonly wrong what is happening to that individual who is being denied a mortgage based on this reporting, but to your point, it holds the city back.. it holds neighborhoods back. it holds people back from achieving what theyey are capabe of achieving. obviouously, i havee been n very careful today about saying too much about investigations. i will take the somewhat unusual step of announcing here todayy that we e have launchehed an .nvestigation we are chasing this down post up we take this seriously. juan: meanwhile, the philadelphia city council has passed a motion for oversight

hearings and community g groupsn redlined neighborhoods have begun organizing to pressure culpable banks to end their racially discriminatory practices. all this comes as a bipartisan group of lawmakers on capitol hill is momoving to gut provisis of the dodd-frank financial reform bill enacted after the 2008 financial crisis. the bill forces banks and credit unions to disclose to the government detailed information about who they lend to. the ranking democrat on of -- the ranking democrat on the senate banking committee, senator sherrod brown of ohio, has cited reveal's reporting as a reason for congress to put the breaks on this effort. amy: well, for more, we're joined now by two guests. in san francisco, california , we are joined by aaron glantz, senior reporter at reveal from the center for investigative reporting. his new investigation is headlined, "kept out: how banks block people of color from homeownership." and joining us from the capital of pennsylvania, from harrisburg, democratic state senator vincent hughes of pepennsylvania, who serves as te

democratic chairman of the senate appropriations committee. thank you both for joining us. aaron, if you would start out by laying out what your investigation found and what exactly redlining is. >> we wanted to know why it was, as you mention in your intro, that even though segregation in housing discrimination has been a legal for 50 years that the homeownership gap between blacks and whites in america is now greater than it was during the jim crow era. 31 millionzed mortgage records. my colleague went through virtually every mortgage application that was made in the united states in 2015 and 2016 using data available under the home mortgage disclosure act. and we control for how much money a person made in the neighborhood they wanted to buy

in and the size alone they wanted to take on. an six other factors that might play into whether a person might get a mortgage, whether person would be able to buy a home. and we found that in 61 cities across the country, including philadelphia, st. louis, orlando,san antonio, gainesville, washington, d.c., and in all of these cities around the country, people of color were more likely to be denied a conventional home purchase loan even when they made thehe same amount of moneys their white counterpart, even when they wanted to buy in the same neighborhood as their white counterparts, and even when they wanted to take on the same size alone as their white counterparts. juan: i would like to ask senators use, the starting line in this piece is the homeownership gap between whites and african-americans is now wider than it was during the jim crow era. did that come as a surprise to

you, and your reaction to the series overall? think what we have to do is look at this directly from the great reporting that reveal did, and understand a ripple e effect that comes when you have this kind of discrimination going on. for example, philadelphia has the largest poverty rate of any major city in the nation, 26%. the largest of any city in the nation. the ripple effect on housing, 15,000 vacant houses. the ripple effect on wealth. effect onple education funding. because now because of this problem, we don't have the capacity to provide local dollars to a state that is not doing what it is supposed to do in terms of funding basic education in pennsylvania. we're talking about specifically around the discrimination fees, but then we have broaden the lens to see how

this plays itself out across the board on a never of other public policy manners, and it is extremely, a very serious problem. , you mention it has been 50 years since redlining was outlawed. most americans are familiar with the term "redlining," but they're not really family are with how this discriminatory lending policies occurred. i want you to talk a little bit about that. gotham,"k "reclaiming i mention some of the people who were the forerunners of this, a trio of individuals who were irritations of housing value in the united states and ended up running the fha, but they all had racially biased views. the fha being the agagency that ensured many of the home mortgages in the 30's, 40's, even today.

cap cops said d things like, there's one difference in people, namely race, that can result in rapid decline of property value. so they were basically the gradingho created this system by ethnic and racial groups of who was best suited to obtain a federally insured mortgage. and this has become, as you mentioned, until 1968, the basis for most lending in the united states. but how has it continued even after it was outlawed? >> that is what we wanted to know, right? back in the 1930's, there were employees of the federal government and the home owners loan corporation went out into cities. a true lines on maps. they said certain neighborhoods were hazardous to lending. that was their word. the cousin they were threatened by negroes were infiltrated by roes or foreigners, and that

is why they told banks to stay when the 1930's. in the 1960's, all of that becomes illegal, yet here we are many generations later, and we are seeing some of the same results. i should add, we look at those old redlining maps in philadelphia and other cities. we found there were some neighborhoods that were redlined back in the day that still could not get loans, but then we found something else i found frankly even more disturbing. that there were neighborhoods that were redlined back in the day that now were getting loans, but only to white, gentrifying newcomers. then there were other neighborhoods in philadelphia that were middle-class african-american neighborhoods where people made good money working union or other middle-class jobs and just wanted to get a nice home improvement loan or refinance their debt so they could have a comfortable retirement, and the banks were saying no as well.

and those were neighborhoods, some of them, that back in the 1930's, were colored blue or green. ththey were deemed best or desirable for the home owneners loan c corporation. back then there were not - -- ty were white neighborhoods. we foundnd if a neighborhood had gone from predominantly white to now being a majority people of color neighborhood, that those neighborhoods as well now faced denial today. amy: let into the segment with president lyndon johnson 50 years ago, april 1968 in assigning the fair housing act. >> the voice of justice speaks agagain. it proclaimsms t that fair housg beieings whohuman live in n this country is now a part of the american way of life. amy: that was lyndon b johnson

50 years ago in 1968. we will l continue with aaron glantz and vincent hughes in a moment. ♪ [music break]

amy: "my hometown," by bruce springsteen. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman with juan gonzalez. our guests are aaron glantz with this remarkable piece called "kept out" looking at millions of cases around the country of redlining. he is senior reporter of reveal. vincent hughes, democratic state senator of pennsylvania. wouldsenator hughes, i ask you about what can be done, especially with some of these lending institutions. some of the ones mentioned in .he series are pnd

what can local legislatures in the face of apparently not that much interest at the federal ,evel can deal with this issue what can you do at the state and municipal level to make these lending institutions more accountable? >> once we became aware of the information -- you're right, it is an incredible amount of andarch done by aaron emanuel. once we became aware of this, as you sign your clips, we asked the attorney general to initiate an investigation. we asked the state treasurer. we specifically asked the state treasurer, where is the state depositing its moneyey, what bas is the state using? quite frankly, if there's a bank that is participating in this discriminatory behavior, they don't need to be in the business of holding state tax dollars. so he is pulling together research on that level. we are working directly with counseling kenyatta johnson to initiate the local hearings in

philadelphia. and because of the federal government walking away from its oversight responsibilities, it really is going to require cities, local communities, states to initiate their own action to try to address this racist, disiscriminatory behavi. and that is what we're urging folks to do, not just in pennsylvania, but all across the country. acrossu have small towns in states across the country that don't have the size of the city of philadelphia who depend upon homeownership to keep their communities going, but local neighborhoods cannot get a loan, they cannot get a mortgage, they cannot create the wealth in their families, in their communities, as i said before, it has a tremendous ripple effect across the board in every other aspect of a person's reality and a community's reality. amy: let's go to a clip from a

pbs newshour video accompanying the investigation. >> adrian stokes has owned her home for decades. she lives there with her pitbull. there's a lot of new investments in the area and property values have skyrocketed. but normal wear and tear has taken a toll on her house. bank, went to a local first trust, the only one with a brananchn the neighbhborhood. >> i went to get a home equity loan because i wanted to fix up my home. >> she was looking for $30,000. because of rising property values, had $200,000 of equity in her house. she was current on her mortgage and she has a steady income. >> i just wanted a home equity loan to fix up my house, and i could not believe they denied me. >> she was told her credit score was not good enough. without the loan, she's afraid

the condition of her house will only get worse. amy: aaron glantz, tell us more about adrian stokes and people like her, what is being done, what was done during the obabama years, the number of lawsuits brought -- has any been brought under the trump administration when you're talking about this pervasive problem? >> i mean, i think when we hear , story like adrian stokes's the reason we wanted to bring her story to a national audience is because she lives in this neighborhood in philadelphia called point breeze, which is a historically african-american neighborhood which is sing a tremendous influx of wealthy white newcomers. so gentrification. i wanted to know, why is it that when communities gentrify, when new money comes in, when blighted and vacant properties are occupied, that the existing residence there do not feel lifted up? that they don't feel personally improved? that instead they feel pushed out?

in this case, adrian stokes house was suddenly worth a lot more and she said, now i want to fix it up. now i want to fix that broken pump. i want to fix my circuit breaker. i want to fix my windows. she goes to her local bank, the holy one in the neighborhood. they say no. her local bank, first trust, which is a local pennsylvania institution, helped more than 500 people in philadelphia buy homes over the last five years, and only a small fraction of them, less than two dozen, were african-american. we see that with many institutions. and many institutions, nearly all of them, 99%, under president obama, got a satisfactory or outstanding grade under the community reinvestment act, which is a landmark law signed in 1977 by jimmy carter to try to get banks to lend in low income

communities. and what we found was these institutions were exploiting a loophole in the law, that they did not anticipate a gentrification. so nearly every one of them was getting a passing grade. -- all of forward that data, all of those inspections come all of the mortgage records we reviewed all related to the obama administration. now we have, to your question, president trump in office. the person who has the position now as comptroller of the currency, basically, the nation's top bank cop, who is charged with enforcing the community reinvestment act, he ran a bank called onewest with steve mnuchin, who is now trust treasury secretary. and for the five years he was in charge of onewest, which is one of the largest banks headquartered in southern california am a they helped exactly three african-americans

to purchase homes in just 11 latinos. he is now in charge of enforcing these laws designed to get banks to serve low income people across the country. juan: one of the rebuttals of some of the banks to your series is that you are -- you're crunching of the numbers leaves out certain factors like credit oftories or credit scores the applicants. could you talk about that rebuttal and why even issue a credit scores is suspect in terms of raciaial bias? >> we looked at all of the data that is publicly available under the home mortgage disclosure act , which included how much money people made, the neighborhood the wanted to buy in, and amount of house, the amount of debt they wanted to take on. we included a lot of other factors like the demographics of the neighborhood and the regulating agency over the financial institution where they are trying to the loan, and everything we could.

there were some things we could not include because the banks have been fighting to keep them secret. and one of them was credit score , another really important metric that we could not use was debt to income ratio like the amount of debt total that a person has, including their car payments, etc., in addition to the loan they're trying to take on in relationship to their income. and the reason we could not include that information that we wanted to include was because the banks, since the. frank act was passed in 2010, has been fighting to keep that information secret. so global economy crash because of bad loans, congress and president obama said banks, yet to start giving the public and the government information about bar or credit scores them a role debt burden, and other factors and the banks have been kicking and screaming for seven years now and we still don't have it. so here we come at center for

investigative reporting and we go through all of the records that are publicly available. the banks say our analysis that shows people of color cannot get a loan even when they make the same amount of money as whites is no good because we don't include the very information that they are trying to keep secret and that they have successfully cap secret up until this point. amy: i want to go back to someone we spoke to a few weeks ago on democracy now!, rachelle faroul, who manages a million-dollar grant at her job at the university of pennsylvania. two lenders turned her down when she tried to buy a home. rachelle describes what happened next. >> it really wasn't until my partner, who identifies as asian and not half white, stepped in and offered to be my co-borrower that it was pretty much smooth sailing to the extent that our applicatioion was approved, buts soon as she came on, i was largely ignored and really all

that matter was my money. that is, unfortunately, not the experience of a large number of blblack people who try to bubuy homes in america. denied us are routinely our applications are rejected, and we are forced to continue to rent from people who don't care about us, don't care about our well-being, and don't really consider gerdau you the ways in which we heleld -- amy: you only got it when n hano fran sign on with you? >> yes. it is something we laugh about. her application was approved at a time whehen her score was in e that t is what mattered most. first, for whatevever reason, wt didid not matter at all was the was workinghanako part-time at a grocery store. her most recent pay stub was

like $115. i was helping her pay her health insurance because she has such little cash. amy: their broker who turned down rachelle faroul's first location said race played no role in the rejection. philadelphia mortgage advisors' chief opererating officer, j jil quinn, sent a statement to reveal that read in part -- "we treat every applicant equally and promote homeownership throughout our entire lending area." meanwhile, rachelle's loan officer at santander, dennis mcnichol, referred reveal to his company's public affairs department. the bank issued a statement that read in part -- "while we are sympathetic with her situation, we are confident that the loan application was managed fairly."