Puget Sound Liberals Weekly Newsletter #214
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 Tom Cramer: Dave Reichert Again Supports Wall Street over Main
Street Ray McBain: Commentary Indicates 2 Necessary Actions Liberals and Democrats Links to the Beef Michelle Obama Launches Anti-Obesity Campaign* President Obama Promotes Bipartisan Jobs Bill Neither Congressional Republicans or Democrats Are Consistently
Liberal If I Could Dictate Fiscally Responsible Reforms** State and Local Links
to the Beef State Legislators Fail to Pass Two Important Bills Nation and World Links to the Beef Value of Dollar and Cost of Oil Featured Advocacy Group: Avaaz.org Our Liberal Spirit 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 · Substituting
a Progressive Income Tax · Replacing
Conservative Legislators Quote of the Week New Information may require a Paradigm Shift. Thomas
Kuhn
Calendar of Events
Saturday,
February 20 at 5:30 (Family Session), 8 Pm and 10:30 PM at West Seattle Bowl
(3505 - 39th Avenue SW, Seattle) - 8th Annual Bowled and
Beautiful (food and bowling in support of LGBT human rights campaign).
$35. To
register.
Saturday,
February 27 at 7 - 10 PM at Lakeland Hills Community Center (5801 Lakeland
Hills Way SE, Auburn) - Progressives on the Plateau celebration and
political discussion hosted by 31st LD Democrats. $25
single. $40 couple. To
register.
Saturday, February 27 at 7
PM at University of Washington Kane Hall room 120 - Health Care for All
forum. For more.
Communication
with Our Members
My Paradigm Shift
About a month ago, I experienced a
paradigm shift from believing that because Barack Obama had such an excellent
political strategy for winning the presidency, he must also have an effective
strategy for passing reform measures and winning congressional seats this
fall. I shifted to believing that
President Obama’s strategy has been flawed in not clearly demonstrating that he
favors Main Street over Wall Street and favors fiscal responsibility. He has not called the Republican bluff that
they favor Main Street over Wall Street and fiscal responsibility when they
favor the opposite.
I now believe that President Obama should
have immediately regulated Wall Street and immediately raised the money for
stimulating jobs from wealthy speculators and through eliminating wasted
military and other spending. He could
have done this to the extent politically possible while quickly starting his efforts
to obtain health care reform. On health
care reform, he should have given Max Baucus a strict deadline for obtaining
Republican support, so that many months would not wasted, risking the loss of
60 Senatorial Democratic votes.
I have not changed my paradigm
entirely. I still believe that President
Obama has time to take actions that he should have taken long ago, such that
Republican hypocrisy is revealed and many tea baggers realize that they should
be more concerned about Republicans than Democrats, with the result that as
many or more congressional Democrats are seated this fall.
As before, I believe that even a little
job recovery to lower unemployment to 8 or 9% will influence voters to support
Democrats and that such job recovery will occur as startups and small
businesses search feverishly and find the credit that they need, perhaps from
relatives and friends.
Opportunities
Useful
Websites: contacts, maps, community organizing tools, and more.
Obtain
a free ‘Corporations Are Not People’ bumper sticker.
Petitions
Tell
President Obama to make recess appointments to fill National Labor Relations
Board.
Tell Anthem
Blue Cross to explain its 39% rate increase.
Tell
Senate Majority leader Harry Reid to include a public option in a
reconciliation bill.
Tell
your state legislators to protect Washington children from BPA in sports water
bottles.
Tell
the National Marine Fisheries Service to protect the endangered beluga whale.
Tell
Governor Gregoire to address pollution for our largest coal fired power plant.
Tell
Ugandan leaders to oppose anti-gay law.
Commentaries
From Our Members
Tom Cramer: Dave Reichert Again Supports Wall Street over Main Street
Conservative Republican Dave
Reichert voted against HR4173, a bill to regulate Wall Street. Even after
millions of people lost their jobs, homes, and financial security, Dave
Reichert is working hard to protect Wall Street. The act would have changed
Wall Street and made them pay for their financial crimes and abuse. Middle
class Americans paid to bailout Wall Street with their taxes and are continuing
to pay through a growing deficit with people out of work and reduced tax
revenues. We, our children, and our grandchildren, will continue to pay for
Wall Street's abuses with our taxes, long-term job loss, and a reduced standard
of living for many years to come. Economists
are calling it a new normal. I call it a new abnormal.
Dave Reichert's friends on
Wall Street are being protected. They have recovered with record profits! I
want to represent the people in the 8th Congressional District and
defend them from Wall Street's abuses of power and my opponent's protection of
Wall Street's status quo of stealing the people's money and their future. I
want to create jobs now and cut Main Street's taxes in half. I want to represent
the Main Street middle class from Wall Street's abuses and the people, like
Dave Reichert, who work for them.
Sincerely, Tom Cramer, A Main Street, Middle Class
Guy Who Wants to Fight for You!
Ray McBain: Robert Kuttner’s Commentary Indicates 2 Necessary Actions
If Democrats can start sounding like Democrats
again, they'll have a better shot at holding onto their majority in Congress
next November. And if they do keep their majority, they should do two things to
turn themselves into a legislative party that can actually do the people's
business.
First, scrap the filibuster
rule. It isn't written into the Constitution, and in its modern form it only
dates to 1975, when the Senate changed the rules to permit a single senator to
require a supermajority of 60 votes on a given measure simply by threatening to
hold the floor indefinitely, even if the senator couldn't be bothered to show up. Before that rule change, you actually had to
keep talking and tie up the Senate in order to filibuster. Today, you need only
to declare your intent to filibuster, and any measure can be made to require 60
votes. As a consequence, the number of filibustered bills every session has
risen from around 7 before 1975 to about 100.
Second, dump committee chairmen
who are laws unto themselves. In the
next Congress, unless the Democrats lose their majority, somebody other than
Baucus should chair the Finance Committee. Tim Johnson should not be appointed to replace
Banking Committee Chair Christ Dodd. Read
the entire commentary. Ray McBain
Liberals
and Democrats
Michelle Obama Launches Anti-Obesity
Campaign
Health
care reform requires three major actions:
·
Eliminating the
participation of employers and for-profit private health insurers. Paying for health care insurance renders
employers uncompetitive with foreign employers who don’t have health care
costs. Private for-profit health
insurers are motivated to provide as little coverage as possible for as much
money as possible.
·
Reducing the
costs of health care by ensuring that every patient has a primary care doctor
who coordinates care by specialists and paying for patient outcomes instead of
procedures
·
Reducing
unhealthy lifestyle habits such as obesity and smoking that increase illness.
The
flawed health reform bills passed by the Senate and House do little with
respect to these needed actions, especially the latter.
Michelle
Obama has been a superb wife and mother as well being concerned with services
for military families and with encouraging healthy lifestyles. While Conservatives have constantly attacked
President Obama for being everything bad, they have not attacked Michelle.
Michelle
Obama has now mounted a major campaign to reduce obesity. This includes participation by communities,
schools and parents to exclude eating of fattening foods and stimulate eating
of healthy foods and increased exercise.
This campaign assembles a large coalition of these types of participants
while requiring little government action.
It includes:
Helping Parents Make Healthy Family Choices
Parents play a key role in making healthy choices for their children and
teaching their children to make healthy choices for themselves. But in
today’s busy world, this isn’t always easy. So Let’s Move will offer
parents the tools, support and information they need to make healthier choices
for their families. The Administration, along with partners in the private
sector and medical community, will:
Empower Consumers: By the end
of this year, the Food and Drug Administration will begin working with
retailers and manufacturers to adopt new nutritionally sound and consumer
friendly front-of-package labeling. This will put us on a path towards 65
million parents in America having easy access to the information needed to make
healthy choices for their children.
Already, the private sector is responding. Today, the American
Beverage Association announced that its member companies will voluntarily put a
clear, uniform, front-of-pack calorie label on all of their cans, bottles,
vending and fountain machines within two years. The label will reflect total
calories per container in containers up to 20oz. in size. For containers
greater than 20 oz., the label will reflect a 12 oz. serving size. While
more work remains to be done, this marks an important first step in ensuring
parents have the information they need to make healthier choices
Provide Parents with a Rx for Healthier Living: The American Academy of Pediatrics, in collaboration
with the broader medical community, will educate doctors and nurses across the
country about obesity, ensure they regularly monitor children’s BMI, provide
counseling for healthy eating early on, and, for the first time ever, will even
write a prescription for parents laying out the simple things they can do to
increase healthy eating and active play.
Major New Public Information Campaign: Major media companies – including the Walt Disney Company, NBC,
Universal and Viacom – have committed to join the First Lady’s effort and
increase public awareness of the need to combat obesity through public service
announcements (PSAs), special programming, and marketing. The Ad Council,
Warner Brothers and Scholastic Media have also partnered with the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to run PSAs featuring top
professional athletes, Scholastic Media’s Maya & Miguel, and Warner
Brothers’ legendary Looney Tunes characters.
Next Generation Food Pyramid: To
help people make healthier food and physical activity choices, the U.S.
Department of Agriculture will revamp the famous food pyramid.
MyPyramid.gov is one of the most popular websites in the federal government,
and a 2.0 version of the Web site will offer consumers a host of tools to help
them put the Dietary Guidelines into practice.
Empower Change: USDA has created
the first-ever interactive database – the Food Environment Atlas – that maps
healthy food environments at the local level across the country. It will
help people identify the existence of food deserts, high incidences of
diabetes, and other conditions in their communities. This information can
be used by parents, educators, government and businesses to create change
across the country.
LetsMove.gov: To help
children parents, teachers, doctors, coaches, the non-profit and business
communities and others understand the epidemic of childhood obesity and take
steps to combat it, the Administration has launched a new “one-stop” shopping
website -- LetsMove.gov -- to provide helpful tips, step-by-step strategies for
parents, and regular updates on how the federal government is working with
partners to reach the national goal.
Serving Healthier Food in Schools
Many children consume as many as half of their daily calories at school.
As families work to ensure that kids eat right and have active play at home, we
also need to ensure our kids have access to healthy meals in their
schools. With more than 31 million children participating in the National
School Lunch Program and more than 11 million participating in the National
School Breakfast Program, good nutrition at school is more important than
ever. Together with the private sector and the non-profit community, we
will take the following steps to get healthier food in our nation’s
schools:
Reauthorize the Child Nutrition Act: The Administration is requesting an historic investment of an
additional $10 billion over ten years starting in 2011 to improve the quality
of the National School Lunch and Breakfast program, increase the number of kids
participating, and ensure schools have the resources they need to make program
changes, including training for school food service workers, upgraded kitchen
equipment, and additional funding for meal reimbursements. With this
investment, additional fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and low-fat dairy
products will be served in our school cafeterias and an additional one million
students will be served in the next five years.
Double the number of schools participating in the Healthier US School
Challenge: The Healthier US School
Challenge establishes rigorous standards for schools’ food quality,
participation in meal programs, physical activity, and nutrition education –
the key components that make for healthy and active kids – and provides
recognition for schools that meet these standards. Over the next school year,
the U.S. Department of Agriculture, working with partners in schools and the
private sector, will double the number of schools that meet the Healthier US
School Challenge and add 1,000 schools per year for two years after
that.
We are bringing to the table key stakeholder groups that have committed
to work together to improve the nutritional quality of school meals across the
country.
New Commitments from Major School Food Suppliers: School food suppliers are taking important first steps to help meet the
Healthier US School Challenge goal. Major school food suppliers including
Sodexho, Chartwells School Dining Services, and Aramark have voluntarily
committed to meet the Institute of Medicine’s recommendations within five years
to decrease the amount of sugar, fat and salt in school meals; increase whole
grains; and double the amount of produce they serve within 10 years. By the
end of the 2010-2011 school year, they have committed to quadruple the number
of the schools they serve that meet the Healthier US School Challenge.
School Nutrition Association: The School Nutrition Association (SNA), which represents food service
workers in more than 75% of the nation’s schools, has joined the Let’s Move
campaign. Working with other education partners, SNA has committed to
increasing education and awareness of the dangers of obesity among their
members and the students they serve, and ensuring that the nutrition programs
in 10,000 schools meet the Healthier US School Challenge standards over the
next five years.
School Leadership: Working with
school food service providers and SNA, the National School Board Association,
the Council of Great City Schools and the American Association of School
Administrators Council have all embraced, and committed to meeting, the
national Let’s Move goal. The Council of Great City Schools has also has
set a goal of having every urban school meet the Healthier US Schools gold
standard within five years. The American Association of School
Administrators has committed to ensuring that an additional 2,000 schools meet
the challenge over the next two years. These combined efforts will touch
50 million students and their families in every school district in America.
Accessing Healthy, Affordable Food
More than 23 million Americans, including 6.5 million children, live in
low-income urban and rural neighborhoods that are more than a mile from a
supermarket. These communities, where access to affordable, quality, and
nutritious foods is limited, are known as food deserts.
Lack of access is one reason why many children are not eating recommended
levels of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. And food insecurity and hunger
among children is widespread. A recent USDA report showed that in 2008,
an estimated 49.1 million people, including 16.7 million children, lived in
households that experienced hunger multiple times throughout the year. The
Administration, through new federal investments and the creation of public
private partnerships, will:
Eliminate Food Deserts: As part of
the President’s proposed FY 2011 budget, the Administration announced the new
Healthy Food Financing Initiative – a partnership between the U.S. Departments
of Treasury, Agriculture and Health and Human Services that will invest $400
million a year to help bring grocery stores to underserved areas and help
places such as convenience stores and bodegas carry healthier food options.
Through these initiatives and private sector engagement, the Administration
will work to eliminate food deserts across the country within seven
years.
Increase Farmers Markets: The
President’s 2011 Budget proposes an additional $5 million investment in the Farmers
Market Promotion Program at the U.S. Department of Agriculture which provides
grants to establish, and improve access to, farmers markets.
Increasing Physical Activity
Children need 60 minutes of active play each
day. Yet, the average American child spends more than 7.5 hours a day
watching TV and movies, using cell phones and computers, and playing video
games, and only a third of high school students get the recommended levels of
physical activity. Through public-private partnerships, and reforms of
existing federal programs, the Administration will address this imbalance by:
Expanding and Modernizing the President’s Physical Fitness Challenge: In the coming weeks, the President will be naming new members to
the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports, housed at the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services. The council will be charged with
increasing participation in the President’s Challenge and with modernizing and
expanding it, so that it is consistent with the latest research and science.
Doubling the Number of Presidential Active Lifestyle Awards: As part of the President’s Physical Fitness Council, the
President will challenge both children and adults to commit to physical
activity five days a week, for six weeks. As part of the First Lady’s
commitment to solve the problem of childhood obesity in a generation, the
Council will double the number of children in the 2010-2011 school year who
earn a “Presidential Active Lifestyle Award” for meeting this challenge.
Safe and Healthy Schools: The U.S.
Department of Education will be working with Congress on the creation of a Safe
and Healthy Schools fund as part of the reauthorization of the Elementary and
Secondary School Education Act this year. This fund will support schools
with comprehensive strategies to improve their school environment, including
efforts to get children physically active in and outside of school, and improve
the quality and availability of physical education.
Professional Sports: Professional
athletes from twelve leagues including the NFL, MLB, WNBA, and MLS have joined
the First Lady on the Let’s Move campaign and will promote “60 Minutes of Play
a Day” through sports clinics, public service announcements, and more to help
reach the national goal of solving the problem of childhood obesity in a
generation.
Partnership for a Healthier America
Core to the
success of this initiative is the recognition that government approaches alone
will not solve this challenge. Achieving the goal will require engaging in
partnerships with States, communities, and the non-profit and for-profit
private sectors. To support this effort, several foundations are coming
together to organize and fund a new central foundation – the Partnership for a
Healthier America – to serve as a nonpartisan convener across the private,
non-profit and public sectors to accelerate existing efforts addressing
childhood obesity and to facilitate commitments towards the national goal of
solving childhood obesity within a generation. The Partnership for a Healthier
America is being created by a number of leading health care foundations and
childhood obesity non-profits, including the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation,
The California Endowment, W.K. Kellogg Foundation, The Alliance for Healthier
Generation, Kaiser Permanente, and Nemours, and will seek to add new members in
the days and months ahead. For
more.
President Obama Promotes Bipartisan Jobs Bill
President
Obama is promoting a February
25 meeting with Democratic and Republican leaders to attempt to find a
common approach to stimulating more jobs and to enacting health care reform. For
more. Harry Reid has offered a compromise
stimulus plan. Republicans are faced
with a dilemma. If they meet, their
ideas are likely to be exposed as not sufficient for either promoting job
creation or reforming health care. If
they don’t meet, they are exposed as being opposed to bipartisan
solutions. It will be interesting to see
whether they choose to meet.
Neither Congressional
Republicans or Democrats Are Liberal
A majority of Americans are Liberal. We believe that everyone should have equal freedoms
and opportunities, that we are each responsible for guaranteeing this equality
and that we should be competent and compassionate and we act accordingly. Due to misrepresentation and demonization of
the term ‘Liberal’, many deny that they are Liberals, even though their
attitudes and activities are Liberal.
Republicans are Conservatives who do not believe in
Liberal values. To get elected by
Liberal Americans, they must receive campaign contributions to be used to
deceive the public. Unfortunately, many
Democratic Legislators are also elected due to campaign contributions given to
them because they don’t act as Liberals.
They practice the ‘Old Politics’ which makes getting elected a higher
priority than the “New Politics’ of serving the public. These ‘Old Politics’ Democratic legislators
favor Wall Street over Main Street and are fiscally irresponsible in refusing
to tax Wall Street and other high income people.
During his campaign, President Obama spoke of ‘change
we can believe in’, which means change from the ‘Old Politics’ of self interest
to the ‘New Politics’ of public interest.
While others accused him of not having enough experience as a senator,
he replied that being in the senate too long would teach him to practice ‘Old
Politics’. But it turns out that he was
in the Senate long enough to learn to practice ‘Old Politics’. Upon becoming president, he placed the
Organizing for
In addition, President Obama recruited close advisors
on both economic and health reform who practice ‘Old Politics’. He has thus been unable to enact either
economic or health care reform. Unless
he quickly changes to listen to ‘New Politics’ advisors, many Democratic
congress members will be replaced by Republicans and needed reforms will not be
made. ‘New Politics’ advisors would
advise him to harshly criticize and regulate Wall Street while stimulating Main
Street jobs and advise him to practice fiscal responsibility as described in
the next commentary below. Doing this
would smoke out Conservatives who would favor Wall Street and oppose fiscal
responsibility. At least some Tea Bag
Conservatives would realize that it is President Obama who favors Main Street
over Wall Street and fiscal responsibility instead of Republican congress
members.
If I Could Dictate Fiscally
Responsible Reforms
If I could dictate fiscally responsible reforms as
PAYGO dictates to increase revenue and reduce costs to offset any tax cuts and
cost increases, I would implement most or even all of the measures for increasing
revenue that were presented in
last week’s newsletter. This would
produce a large transfer of revenue from our wealthiest Wall Street and other
high income earners to pay for measures to stimulate Main Street Jobs.
People fail to realize the enormous amounts of money
possessed by the several percent of wealthiest people. And they may believe as Conservatives
proclaim that these people use their wealth to create jobs. These wealthiest people have as much wealth and
income as the bottom 50% of people and still will have
plenty left after paying increased taxes.
Paul Buchheit, from DePaul University, revealed, "From 1980
to 2006 the richest 1% of America tripled their after-tax
percentage of our nation's total income, while the bottom 90% have seen their
share drop over 20%." Robert Freeman added, "Between 2002 and 2006,
it was even worse: an astounding three-quarters of all the economy's growth was
captured by the top 1%."
Due to this, the United States already had the highest inequality of wealth in
the industrialized world prior to the financial crisis. Since the crisis, which
has hit the average worker much harder than CEO's, the gap between the top one
percent and the remaining 99% of the US population has grown to a record high. The economic top one
percent of the population now owns over 70% of all financial assets, an all time record.
As mentioned before, just look at the first full year of the crisis when
workers lost an average of 25 percent off their
401k. During the same time period, the wealth of the 400 richest
Americans increased by $30 billion,
bringing their total combined wealth
to $1.57 trillion, which is more than the combined net worth of 50% of the US
population. Just to make this point clear, 400 people have more wealth than 155 million people combined.
They do not use this wealth to create Main Street
jobs. Instead they use it for
consumption, often of luxury goods produced abroad. And they use it for speculation, which must
be curtailed.
In addition to these tax increases on our wealthiest
people, I would eliminate wasteful spending in our military, agriculture and
other programs. For more. I would
eliminate many of the hundreds of our foreign military bases. Most of these are not needed for fighting
terrorism. They only exist to impose our
will on other countries. I would also
eliminate much military spending that is oriented against Cold War type
sophisticated technology enemies of whom there are none in sight. Military expenditures which would be kept
relate to replenishing the equipment of our national guard and other first
responders here at home, those which pay for our temporary presence in
Together, these tax increases and cutting of wasteful
spending could provide enough revenue to offset all the stimulus programs
needed to increase
As dictator, I could ignore the protests of
Conservatives that I am raising taxes on our wealthiest people who create
jobs. Or I could respond to point out
that they are the ones who are favoring Wall Street and other wealthy
speculators over
My priorities for stimulus spending would be as
follows:
· Provision of federal money for health care and
education such that all Americans have equal access to quality health care and
quality services. Having relieved states
of paying for these, they would be able to maintain their previous job levels
instead of forcing their unemployment.
· Provision of federal money for infrastructure and
green jobs, thus providing jobs, increasing the efficiency of our economy and
reducing our contribution to global warming.
· Provision of federal money to individuals in the form
of extended unemployment benefits, increases in the earned income tax credit,
larger food stamp allowances and similar measures to give Main Street people
money to spend which creates the demand for private goods and services,
resulting in more jobs.
In addition to these fiscally responsible PAYGO
actions, I would also implement measures to provide health care to all, such as
Medicare for all or simply adopting the Canadian system or one of those used by
the various European countries. I would
reform Medicare to:
· Require that every patient have a primary care
physician that coordinates the treatment by specialists.
· Reward health care providers for the health outcomes
they produce instead of the procedures that they apply. This would result in preventive, treatment
and hospice actions that assist patients instead of simply enriching health
care providers.
· Eliminate regional differences in Medicare payments,
setting them at the levels of regions with both excellent outcomes and low
levels.
Thus more people would have jobs and they would not be
faced with crippling health care bills and worse. All of this having been done in a fiscally
responsible manner.
Here’s the Beef
President Obama promotes
jobs, PAYGO, Bipartisanship and more.
Republicans
repeatedly oppose ideas that they say they support.
President
Obama Should Make Recess Appointments to the National Labor Relations Board.
Senator
Bernie Sanders call for use of reconciliation as Republicans did to pass their
tax cuts.
Four senators call for
including a public option in a reconciliation bill.
A
reconciliation bill may be ready for action after President Obama meets with Republicans.
At
the beginning of the next session, cloture rules may change to make it easier
to stop filibusters. For
more.
President
Obama’s favorability rating holds steady.
Republicans are not gaining in favorability.
President
Obama just doesn’t get it. He must favor
Main Street instead of Wall Street. For
more.
It’s
not just President Obama’s fault. There
is no Liberal mass movement to favor Main Street. For more.
Unless President Obama
starts promoting ‘New Politics’, he may not be re-elected.
A
more Liberal Democrat should compete with President Obama in 2012, perhaps
Howard Dean.
Few
strong Democratic candidates are willing to run for vacant congressional seats.
Senator
Evan Bayh may be replaced by a Liberal Democrat.
Instead
of our Federal Reserve, our Treasury Department may oversee systemic risks.
Liberals are promoting
a transaction tax to reduce speculation.
Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton says Iran is changing from religious to military dictatorship.
State and
Local
State Legislators Fail to Pass Two
Important Bills
State
legislators fail to counter BIAW and fail to pass public campaign
financing, in spite of House Speaker Frank Chopp promising to do both.
Here’s the Beef
Pacific
Northwest businesses lobby congress to pass comprehensive clean energy bill.
Our
Pacific Northwest small snowpack may not be the result of global warming.
Nation
and World
Value of Dollar and Cost of Oil
Greece
has large deficits and to a lesser extent, so do Spain, Portugal and
Italy. Reacting to this, the value of
the euro has fallen relative to the dollar.
In spite of the increased value of the dollar, the price of oil is still
over $70 a barrel. Now that other
European countries may assist Greece and other countries to reduce their
deficits, the value of the dollar may fall again. If so, we can expect oil prices to increase.
A
fall in the value of the dollar assists our trade balance and job creation by
increasing exports and decreasing imports.
The associated increase in the cost of oil has the benefit of
discouraging its use and the negative effect of giving money to foreign oil
providers which would otherwise create American demand for jobs. For
more. For
more.
Featured Advocacy Group
-------------------------------------- Avaaz.Org ---------------------------------------
Avaaz.org is a
new global web movement with a simple democratic mission: to close the gap
between the world we have, and the world most people everywhere want. Across the world, most people want
stronger protections for the environment, greater respect for human rights, and
concerted efforts to end poverty, corruption and war. Yet globalization faces a
huge democratic deficit as international decisions are shaped by political
elites and unaccountable corporations -- not the views and values of the
world’s people.
Technology and the internet have allowed citizens to connect and mobilize
like never before. The rise of a new model of internet-driven,
people-powered politics is changing countries from Australia to the Philippines
to the United States. Avaaz takes this model global, connecting people
across borders to bring people powered politics to international decision-making.
Coming together in this way, Avaaz has become a community of people from all
nations, backgrounds, and ages. Its
diverse community is brought together by its care for the world, and a
desire to do what it can to make it a better place.
The core of its model of organizing is its email list, operated in
13 languages. By signing up to receive its alerts, you are rapidly alerted to
urgent global issues and opportunities to achieve change. Avaaz members respond
by rapidly combining the small amounts of time or money they can give into a
powerful collective force. In just hours it can send hundreds of thousands of
messages to political leaders telling them to save a crucial summit on climate change , hold
hundreds of rallies across the world calling for action to prevent a genocide,
or donate hundreds of thousands of euros, dollars and yen to support nonviolent
protest in Burma. Click
here to see a list of its
campaigns and impact in 2007.
In less than three years, Avaaz.org has grown to over 3.5 million members, and
have begun to make a real impact on global politics. The Economist writes that
Avaaz is poised to deliver “a deafening
wake up call” to world leaders, the Indian Express welcomes “the biggest
web campaigner across the world” and Nobel Prize winner Al Gore says “Avaaz is
inspiring, and has already begun to make a difference.”
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here’s the Beef
Major
private health insurer tries to justify enormous increase in rates.
State legislators publicize
private health insurer’s abuses.
Various local
foundations fund large workers’ cooperative which creates green jobs.
North Dakota’s state
owned bank is funding jobs and drawing attention from other states.
Media ignores
excellent health care provided Haitians by Cuba.
5 reasons to reject
guaranteeing money spent for nuclear power plant construction.
Our risk of dying from a
terrorist downing an airplane is far less that other risks.
Our
Liberal Spirit
My Paradigm Shift
About a month ago, I learned
more about what the Tea Bag Conservatives were criticizing and realized that
President Obama had not clearly distanced himself from their criticism. Before that, I had believed that because
President Obama was able to win election to the presidency, he knew how to
assist congressional Democrat to win elections this coming fall.
But I suddenly realized that
while President Obama had won election based upon promising ‘Change we can
believe in.’, he had not governed that way.
Based upon advice from the closest advisors he appointed, he allowed the
‘Old Politics’ of self interest to continue, instead of fighting for the ‘New
Politics’ of public interest. He did not
clearly indicate that he favored Main Street over Wall Street and did not
implement fiscally responsible policies, thus providing the window for
criticism by Tea Bag Conservatives. He
hobbled his campaign contributors by placing them in Organizing for America
under the Democratic Party where they could not campaign for ‘New Politics’
with respect to regulating Wall Street speculators, reforming health care and
other reforms.
This was my paradigm
shift. But I still believe that
President Obama has time to demonstrate both his favoring of Main Street over
Wall Street and fiscal responsibility, such that Congressional Democrats can
win elections this fall.
What does this have to do
with our behavior amidst the freedoms and opportunities that we have or don’t
have? If we obtain new information or
insights into our freedoms and opportunities, we should consider shifting our
paradigm, instead of maintaining our previous false assumptions.
Recommended Books – See our list of books for liberals
Dean Baker, 2010, False Profits. Recovering from
the Bubble Economy
This book is
should be read by President Obama and all others who favor
Any response to
the credit collapse caused by Wall Street’s speculative credit bubble should
not reward Wall Street large financial corporations nor enable them to continue
their speculation. But TARP and other
Federal Reserve programs both rewarded Wall Street and enabled it to continue
its speculation, all without providing credit for justifiable
Dean Baker
demonstrates that the TARP bailout of large financial firms should have be done
differently by taking ownership of them, wiping out their shareholders,
refusing to pay huge bonuses (Wall Street argued that these bonuses were
protected because they were contractual, but they were willing to allow union
wage contracts to be dishonored.), and
restricting their speculative activities. The
In addition to
TARP, the Federal Reserve gave secret loans to large financial companies
without conditions, thus rewarding them and allowing them to continue their
speculative activities. Dean Baker
indicates that these were both unnecessary and harmful.
Ordinarily when a
firm becomes bankrupt, any firms that it owes money fail to receive it. Our government had no obligation to pay the
money that AIG owed. In bailing out AIG,
TARP was really bailing out the large financial firms and others who had
unwisely contracted with AIG which failed to have the capital to honor its contracts. Even if AIG was bailed out, it should have
only paid out a percentage of what it owed.
One of the
arguments for the TARP bailouts was a supposed collapse of the commercial paper
market through which non-financial firms raised capital. Dean Baker indicates that the commercial
paper market had not collapsed and that the Federal Reserve had the authority
to buy commercial paper.
In summary, by
not using TARP and Federal Reserve lending to restrict Wall Street Speculation,
our Federal Reserve and Obama Administration favored Wall Street over