Enhancing Freedom, Opportunity and Cooperation in
Through informing and networking Liberals and Liberal Organizations.
Our vision is hundreds of thousands of well-informed
Our Website Our Editor To Unsubscribe Table of
Contents * Featured
Articles Calendars of Events Communication With Our Members Opportunities Petitions Commentaries from Our Members Alan Durning: WCI’s
Carbon Cap-and-Trade System Rich Austin: Single Payer Insurance Needs a Vote Dave Miller: Obama says U.S. Isn’t a Christian Nation Liberals and Democrats Links to the Beef Obama’s Strategies for Reducing Global Warming Youth Are Creating Long Term Democratic Supremacy State and Local Links
to the Beef Our 8th Congressional District Race Featured Advocacy Group: Environmental Groups - Nation and World Links to the Beef We Need to Clean Up the World’s Water Our Liberal Spirit Quality vs. Quantity of Life -- Our
Political Priorities ·
Fair Clean
Elections and Open Government ·
Fair Taxes and
Competent Spending ·
Investment for
Productivity ·
Quality
Health, Education, Jobs, Income ·
Environmental
Protection and Energy Independence ·
Security and
Equal Rights ·
Justice and
Peace Everywhere ·
International
Cooperation and Leadership Conservatives oppose all of these Let’s
End Our National Nightmare
Let’s
Restore Our American Dream More on Conservative opposition to our
American Dream Washington State’s 5 Major Needs ·
Federal
Funding for Health and Education · Substitute
a Progressive Income Tax · Replacing Conservative
Legislators Quote of the Week You can’t take it with
you.
Calendar of Events
Saturday,
April 11, 6 to 9:30 PM at Lee/ Burkhart residence (4802 S Othello St, Seattle)
- Seattle Salon, discussion of
hot button timely issues.
Saturday, April 11 at 6:30 PM at Bill Bradburd’s home (1640 S Lane Street, Seattle) – inSPIRe
social potluck, with John de Graaf leading discussion of work/life balance, time, sustainability,
vacations and the concept of Affluenza. Bring a potluck dish and some
food for donation to the food bank.
Friday, April 24 (3-9 PM); Saturday, April 25 (9 AM-6 PM); and Sunday,
April 26 (9 AM – 3:30 PM) at Seattle – Camp
Wellstone training for citizen activists, campaign workers and
candidates. $50 - $200. To
register.
Communication
with Our Members
Considering our links as news
commentaries, our weekly newsletter contains as much political news commentary
each week as do typical daily newspapers.
I am spending an increasing amount of time each week, examining half a
dozen commentaries for each one that I provide a link for you. Do you
skim the links and click on the ones that interest you?
Do
you sign any of the petitions?
Opportunities
and Petitions
Useful
Websites: contacts, maps, community organizing tools, and more.
Access
to jillions of political cartoons.
Download
Sightline Institute’s climate policy primer ‘Cap and Trade 101’. About
Sightline.
Obtain Progressive
States Networks resources for improving many state government services.
Petitions
Tell
Dept. of Health and Human Services to rescind Bush’s Health Care Denial Rule.
Tell
your senators to confirm three judge nominees who have expressed pro-choice
opinions.
Tell
Congress to support a public insurance option in health reform.
Tell
Congress to support a public insurance option in health reform. Different petition than above.
Tell
Congress to cut wasteful military spending.
Tell
Governor Gregoire to use stimulus funds for residential weatherization.
Commentaries
From Our Members
Dear Dave, As you know, for twelve months and more,
Sightline has been working double time—on top of the regular services you make
possible such as Sightline Daily and
the Cascadia Scorecard—to
provide intellectual leadership in Cascadia’s climate policy debate.
Like allied leaders and legislative champions, we are
hoping that the three largest Cascadian jurisdictions–British
Sightline’s influence in regional climate policy has
continued in 2009. Washington Governor Chris Gregoire’s cap-and-trade bill, for
example, had Sightline’s fingerprints all over it. Unfortunately, as I wrote to you two weeks
ago, in at least
Whatever unfolds, I want you to know, Sightline is
poised to make big contributions. We’re not at the end of the game; we’re not
even at the end of the first inning. Why?
·
We remain
hopeful about the weeks ahead in the legislatures, as senior
researcher Eric de Place has written.
·
The pendulum of
public and political opinion is swinging in favor of climate pricing, as communications
strategist Anna Fahey has written.
·
New doors to
climate pricing keep opening. Even as state legislatures consider their
options, the WCI process continues, addressing essential specifics of erecting
a strong cap-and-trade policy. Meanwhile, perhaps most helpful, President Obama
has asked Congress to send him a national cap and trade law this year; his
proposed budget even counts revenue from the auctioning of carbon permits under
that proposed law.
Whatever unfolds in the realm of climate policy,
Sightline is ready to follow the opportunities, wherever they lie in the
Northwest—even if they lie in informing the Northwest Congressional delegation
on what to look for in national cap and trade legislation. The clear, credible,
values-based work you make possible will continue to inform and shape
decisions, as it has done so dramatically already. Eric Hess, one of our newer
staff members, reports that almost one-fifth of all Google searches for the
term “cap and trade” brought the searcher to Sightline.org’s Cap and Trade
101 primer. Your
support is improving understanding of climate pricing—not only across Cascadia
but across
So thank you!
And let’s keep it up. This is a time for boldness not timidity. With
your help, we’re going to keep swinging for the fences. Sincerely,
Rich Austin:
Single Payer Insurance Needs a Vote
Although 73 Democrats have endorsed HR 676, the United State National Health Insurance
Act (single payer) Speaker Pelosi refuses to hold hearings on the bill. That is most curious. Hearings were held on steroid use by
professional athletes (perhaps 1/10,000 of the population of our nation). Hearings are scheduled for BCS (Bowl
Championship Series) rating procedures, but 300 million people just like you
and I can’t get a hearing on HR 676!
Something is rotten is D.C. The medical-industry complex has lavished
over $2.2 billion on
News flash! As I was writing
this, Ed Schultz (progressive talk radio host , soon to be on MSNBC) opined that achieving true health care reform
may be the most difficult struggle we’ve faced since the civil rights
movement. And it will take people
marching in the streets to win. Rich Austin
Dave Miller: Obama
says
At a press conference yesterday in
In answering a question from the press, President Obama said: “…one of
the great strengths of the United States is—although as I mentioned, we have a
very large Christian population—we do not consider ourselves a Christian nation
or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation; we consider ourselves a nation of
citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values.” Dave
Miller, president, Eastside Chapter of Americans United
Liberals
and Democrats
Obama Watch – Week 11
Also go to Whitehouse.gov.
Travels Abroad
Tuesday: Traveled to
Thursday: Attended G-20
economic summit in
Friday: Went to NATO
summit in
Saturday: Traveled to
April 5: Traveled to
April 6: Visited
April 7: Visited
G-20 Agreements
G-20
agreed to clamp down on tax havens and to provide money for the IMF to assist
poorer nations to counter their economic collapse. Dean Baker questions whether
IMF is best funding agency. G-20
agreed to international regulatory back-up to national regulations. European countries argued that their safety
net is enough stimulus, but agreed to more stimulus if it is needed. Dean Baker argues that Europeans
need to implement more stimulus.
President Obama’s Successful Mediation
Mr. Sarkozy and Mr. Hu disagreed about tax
havens. Mr. Obama pulled Mr. Sarkozy
aside, took him to a corner, "and discussed possible alternatives. Once they arrived at one, President Obama
"sent a message to the Chinese" that a counter-offer was on the
table. The Chinese spent some time considering the offer. But they took a few
minutes. So Mr. Obama, with the
assistance of translators, suggested that he and Mr. Hu have a conversation as
well. They, too went to the corner to talk. After a few minutes, Mr. Obama
called upon Mr. Sarkozy to join them. They
reached an agreement. There was a
multiple shaking of hands.
Diplomacy Done Right
President
Bush refused to negotiate with countries with whose policies and actions he
disagreed, derogating them instead for domestic political reasons. Turning 180 degrees, President Obama looks
for points of agreement and possible cooperation with other countries,
negotiating with them on such issues to open the way for negotiating issues of
disagreement. We are quickly seeing that
many possibilities for cooperation exist between our Country and
A New Relationship
On
Friday at a French town meeting, President Obama called for a new relationship
between Europe and the
In
Legislative Expectations
Both houses of congress passed budget resolutions which provide
most of what President Obama asked. Our
Obama administration hopes that by the August recess, House and Senate
committees will have sent health care bills to the floor and Waxman's House committee
will have reported out a comprehensive energy bill. But opposition
to President Obama’s proposals will be difficult to overcome.
See
arguments for inclusion of public health insurance in the health reform. For
more.
President Obama’s Multiple Strategies for Reducing
Global Warming
Cap and Trade
The
goal of cap and trade is to "steadily reduce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas
emissions economy-wide in a cost-effective manner." The "cap" is
an annual limit on total pollution; large emitters (such as power plants and
petroleum refineries) must acquire pollution allowances from the government.
These allowances can be traded, "rewarding the most efficient companies
and ensuring that the cap can be met at the lowest possible cost to the
economy.
As
McKinsey and Company has found, putting a cap on carbon emissions corrects market failures by driving investment into efficiency and fuel economy
improvements that actually save everyone money. Then it spurs investment into
the expansion of renewable energy, creating new jobs and a competitive
advantage in the international marketplace. Despite conservative claims, environmental protection creates economic growth. When a
cap-and-trade program to stop acid rain pollution from power plants was
established in 1990, as Center for American Progress Senior Fellow Daniel J.
Weiss explains, industry studies included "hysterical predictions" about "the loss of tens
of thousands of jobs, and compliance costs totaling tens of billions of
dollars." In reality, pollution reductions cost "one quarter of
original EPA estimates," electricity rates fell 10 percent, and the
Energy Conservation
Total
electricity use, per capita, 1960-2001
Because a coherent energy
policy is critical to our nation's future, Obama's proposed plan goes far
beyond capping emissions to reform the transportation and electricity infrastructure, prioritize energy efficiency, transform the housing industry, and create millions of new high-paying
jobs. For more.
Jim McDermott’s Bill
Congressman Jim McDermott
introduced The Clean Environment and Stable Energy Market Act of 2009 in
the House of Representatives. You can read the bill online at www.Thomas.gov. He says, “I want to reduce carbon emissions
over time through the use of permits sold at a predictable price that is set by
the Secretary of the Treasury.” “Price
predictability is key to enabling producers of products and resources that emit
greenhouse gas emissions to reduce their carbon footprint. The reason is
simple- the enormous financing that it will take to transform
”Yes, my legislation mandates reductions in carbon emissions; in fact, there is
a schedule in the legislation that cuts carbon emissions 80% by the middle of
the century. And the bill includes a Climate Protection and Economic Security
Trust Fund where revenue raised from the sale of permits would be deposited. I
envision this money being used to help nurture and sustain the transformation
of
Youth Are Building Long Term Democratic
Supremacy
Eric
Greenberg’s book Generation
We presents a Liberal vision for
Michael
Connery’s book Youth
to Power describes the many attempts that been made to stimulate youth
to political action. The success of
these and future efforts is crucial to quickly enabling our New Politics. The imperative is for all of us older
Liberals to reach out to youth and encourage their significant involvement in
our Democratic Party. They are the voters,
we have been hoping for. In stead of
just saying “no” to youth, we need to say “yes you can.”
Another
growing population and source of Liberal voters are Hispanics. I hear much about efforts to register
them. But I have seen no action in my
Are Our Culture Wars Over?
Just
as the culture wars of the 1920s (prohibition and anti-evolution) faded with
the onset of the depression in the 1930s, so our recent culture wars have been
eclipsed by our economic collapse.
President Obama has easily reversed President Bush’s policies on
supporting family planning organizations and stem cell research, with more
changes to come. Popular opinion no
longer supports Christian Conservative positions, which have been tarnished by
the behavior of some of their leaders, and diminished as younger evangelicals
embrace a Liberal environmental and social agenda.
Continuing
to promote Christian Conservative cultural positions will only farther
marginalize the Republicans. Turning off
younger voters may even threaten their last strongholds in our southern and border
states. For more.
Here’s the Beef
Predictions
concerning when our various states will legalize same-sex marriage.
Nancy
Pelosi is an excellent political strategist.
The
Center for American Progress is siding with the hawks.
Read the
Republican questionnaire of members concerning their opinions.
Republicans
react strongly against release of Bush torture memos. Threaten to stop appointments.
State
and Local
Organizing for
Across the country, state leaders are considering
obtaining new revenue from high-income residents to avoid budget cuts and
fund needed investments for long-term economic recovery. Ignoring tired
rhetoric about the panacea of tax cuts for economic growth, nationwide policy
leaders are instead raising taxes on high-income residents to fund greater
investments in public needs.
Increasing
Our
Priorities
Our message should be economic stimulation, health, education,
safety net and tax fairness.
Economic Stimulation
Without increased revenue, reductions in vital public
services and the staff who provide them will occur, thus adding to our economic
recession. Increased revenue will enable
adequate public employment and pay to provide needed public services. And pay for purchasing services from private
contractors. Supported employees will
spend their income to create additional multiplier employment. Some funds will go to low income people with
similar multiplier effects.
Health and Education
Health and education are vital parts of our
infrastructure, which enable people to be social resources which enhance our
economy. Health and education also
provide a safety net to people who would otherwise suffer greatly and produce
greater public costs.
Safety Net
Many disabled people, children and seniors whose
families cannot take adequate care for them, and other depend upon a wide
variety of services, including public assistance for income, housing, health care,
counseling and training, supervision, and more.
Often unable to advocate for themselves, these people often find their
needs are easiest to ignore, and needed services not provided. Adequate public revenue is particularly
necessary for providing an effective safety net.
Tax Fairness
Our tax system must be fair. High income people must pay their fair share
for supporting the infrastructure which makes their high income possible,
instead of keeping their share as unearned income. Once our economy recovers, some of the
revenue must be used to enable reductions in sales and/or property taxes which
unfairly affect our middle and low income people. In the long run, most people will pay reduced
taxes.
The next step is to organize to enact such a tax.
Name
The organization might be called, ‘Friends of
Washington State Government, or ‘Friends of Washington’. Better might be ‘Care for Washington’ or
‘Washington Cares’. Its vision might be
to enable
Leadership
Care for
Care for
Membership
Petitions should be circulated by email, household canvassing
and in public places to obtain thousands of individual members. As with Barack Obama’s campaign, software
should be used to enable local groups to form, especially youth groups. Support should also be obtained from hundreds
of advocacy organizations. Membership
drives should be closely coordinated with fund raising.
Tens of thousands of yard signs and bumper stickers
should be easily available throughout
The membership drive should proceed rapidly, with the
posters and yard signs appearing suddenly to provide a shock and awe
experience.
Fund Raising
Donations should not be obtained from
corporations. Wealthy people should be
approached for $25,000 contributions with additional $25,000 loans. Fund raisers should be hired to raise smaller
donations.
Many fund raising events should be held, including:
· Auctions: of donated health, educational and
counseling services
· Runs: with runners running for preschool services,
K-12 education, higher education, disabled, children, working families,
seniors, etc.
· Entertainment (with dinner): including music, drama,
documentary films and more
Paid fund raisers and campaign strategists may be
used, but care should be taken to prevent their pride from becoming obstacles
to cooperative volunteer campaigning.
Creativity
Many other ideas are
should be explored, while some of these may not be feasible.
A Glorious Struggle
Our struggle for tax
reform will be the mother of all political battles. It will be high risk, but the alternatives
pose a greater risk. It will pit Liberal
and Progressive forces for public good, against Conservative forces for their
own self interest. It will pit proven
investment economics against disproven trickle-down market fundamentalism.
Our strategy must be to
quickly refine and disseminate our message.
We must continually repeat our values and their roots in our American
(and Washington) history. Then we must
strongly attack any opponents for their obstruction
of jobs, of investment, of infrastructure, of our safety net, and of our
The above proposals are
creative and fanciful. But by
considering lots of ideas, we are more likely to choose the best ones that
work.
New Politics for
The
New Politics promoted by Barack Obama is rapidly replacing the Old Politics in
the other
Our
national Democratic party is sending several political organizers to our
Our 8th Congressional District Race
Darcy
Burner’s and before her, Dave Ross’s candidacies were severely hampered by
their lack of prior political experience. We have a number of state legislators in our 8th
Congressional District, who are well qualified Liberals able to define Dave
Reichert and themselves in ways that will appeal to both our urban and suburban
and our exurban, small town and rural voters.
Very important will be mobilizing our youth throughout all parts of our
8th Congressional District.
I
have long been an admirer of Ron Sims.
It will be difficult for our next King County Executive to fill his
shoes. I am not acquainted with the
three declared candidates: Dow Constantine, Fred Jarrett and Larry
Phillips. They all appear to be well
qualified Liberals. Dow Constantine and
Larry Phillips have the advantage of their experience as King County
Councilmen.
Featured Advocacy Group ----
Environmental Groups ----------------------------
Environmental Priorities Coalition
and their partners
Washington Environmental Council and
their members
Washington Conservation Voters
Transportation Choice
Coalition
Washington Citizens for
Resource Conservation
These
environmental groups have different emphasizes and priorities, but they work
closely together. I believe that they
should also work closer with labor organizations and with our Democratic
party.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here’s the Beef
Percentage
of companies offering health insurance benefits is dropping quickly.
$27
million stimulus funds available for retraining Washington unemployed and low
income workers.
Nation
and World
Mark to Market for Dummies
From Matthew Philips’ commentary in April 13th,
2009 Newsweek.
To most people, it's an arcane accounting rule. But to bankers,
it's the whole ballgame: "mark to market" pricing is the practice of
requiring banks to value their assets based on their current market value. Not
what banks paid for those assets yesterday. Not what they could get for them
in, say, a year or two when the financial industry has settled down. What they
could get right now. Which is basically bubkes. Banks have been pleading for
this requirement to be lifted since the credit crisis began, and last week they
got their wish. Confused? Here are four things you need to know about
"mark to market" in order to sound smart at a cocktail party.
1. Banks say mark-to-market pricing cost them billions.
When the housing bubble burst, the market for all those mortgage-backed
securities vanished, leaving bank balance sheets larded with assets that no one
wanted. So at the end of each quarter, banks had to write down billions of
dollars of "toxic assets"—even though their value might've been
artificially, and only temporarily, depressed. But if banks never intended to
sell an asset in the current market, they reasoned, why should they be forced
to value it as if they did?
2. The key players: five big-shot accountants in
Banks began lobbying Congress last year to do away with mark-to-market, arguing
that they couldn't lend because it had bled away so much capital. Congress in
turn put the heat on the Financial Accounting Standards Board, a group of five
über-accountants based in
3. The new guidelines, and the fly in the ointment.
Banks can now use "significant judgment" to value assets.
Translation: they can stop assigning doomsday values to securities they think
will have more value down the road. The hitch: some investors fear the rule
change will help banks disguise their garbage, which was part of what got us
into this mess in the first place.
4. Bully for the banks, but will this actually work?
It'll help big banks like Citi recoup billions in losses. But it does little to
solve the underlying problem: piles of troubled assets no one wants. And it
might not help for long, because Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner plans to
rebuild a market for the assets by handing private investors cheap credit so
they can start buying them up.
We Need to Clean the World’s Water
Billions
of people are suffering from our increasing lack of clean water. Global warming, inefficient use and pollution
are causing more people to lack the clean water they need. People, mostly women, have to make greater
efforts to obtain water for household purposes.
Millions of children are dying from diseases caused by dirty water. Farm production is harmed, causing increased
food scarcity, malnutrition and death.
We
need to slow global warming. We need to
use more water more efficiently. We need
to reduce pollution. We need new
affordable non-carbon based energy to desalinate salt water. (We also need to quit polluting our
oceans.) Once we recover from our
economic collapse, our water collapse may be are next major issue. Recovering clean water should be part of
recovering our economy.
Here’s the Beef
Military Secretary
Robert Gates cuts some military hardware, but still proposes larger budget. More.
U.S. intelligence agencies
still not well organized.
Red Cross reports on
U.S. Torture. ACLU calls for special
prosecutor.
Senator Patrick Leahy
gives up on truth commission.
Ralph Nader identifies 10
people who early on predicted our economic collapse.
Joseph Stiglitz predicts
plan to determine value of mystery securities will fail.
Unionization
increases wages of typical service worker by 10%.
Half
of workers laid off last year have found new jobs. Half of new jobs have less pay.
Three types of inequality
cause less equal people to die sooner.
More
specialists, fewer primary care doctors mean that most attention goes to only
parts of us.
One in
ten Americans use food stamps.
700,000 unemployed may exhaust
their benefits this year.
How
to Use Economic Stimulus Funds to Improve Direct Care Jobs.
Tax
credits for paid time off makes jobs more family friendly and creates more jobs.
Rising tide for marriage
equality.
Local communities
create currency to stimulate their economy.
Time
Warner seeks to charge internet users by the bandwidth they use.
Center for American
Progress calls for electronic companies to avoid using Congo minerals.
Power
prices should reflect all costs, including environmental impacts.
Izzies awarded to stars
of independent media. For more.
President
Obama should do more than allow visits to Cuba.
He should stop the economic blockade.
Our
Liberal Spirit
Quality not Quantity of Life
Our Consumption lifestyle is
unsustainable. We can’t continue
borrowing to purchase stuff. Even
assuming increased earnings, if increased earnings are to be maintained, we
will need to invest more in our public infrastructure instead of spending for
private consumption. Our environment
can’t stand the consumption that we have been doing.
We
need instead a Conserving lifestyle
which is more oriented to living simply with more emphasis upon our relations
with others. We already see this
happening as people cut back their consumption and more people are using
MySpace and Facebook. We must hope that
as our economy recovers, people will not return to excessive consumption. We must hope that the often superficial
contacts that people make with MySpace and Facebook are associated with closer
ties between us and our relatives, colleagues, neighbors and acquaintances.
We
need to greatly reduce the number of people employed in financing and selling
stuff, from mansions to cars to gadgets and other stuff. We need our manufacturing workers to switch
from producing so much stuff for private consumption to producing products used
in our infrastructure. We need more
people employed as caretakers for our disabled, children and seniors, with
better training, better wages and better career tracks. We need to learn to create and enjoy our
families the way that we admire in our President Obama’s family.
We
can’t take it with us. If we have time
to reflect on our death bed about our life, aren’t we more likely to reflect on
our relations with the people we love, than with the things that we have
loved. Maybe not for some of us. But it is striking how many people’s last
words seem to be I love you to some other person. For more.
Recommended Books – See our list of books for liberals
Eric Greenberg with Karl Weber, 2008, Generation We. How Millennial Youth are Taking Over
Michael
Connery, 2008, Youth to Power. How Today’s Young Voters are Building
Tomorrow’s Progressive Majority
Eric Greenberg’s book
contains an excellent description of our Liberal vision and priorities. He believes that these are held by millennial
youth (born from 1978 through 2000) who with their large numbers and increased
political activism will increasingly dominate our politics. Alienated by the Old Politics of both the
Republican and Democratic Parties, they describe themselves as Independents,
favor the New Politics of serving our common good, and almost always vote for
Liberal Democrats.
Michael Connery’s book is a
history of attempts to organize the political participation of our millennial
generation.
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