Great radio spots with liberal messages

He covers Tax cuts/Deficits; Incumbency/Redistricting; Justificiation for War; Right to Vote; Sustainable Energy; Dissent

Is PERS responsible for the budget cuts we are currently facing?

Obviously, any costs that increase at a time when state revenues are declining contribute to the budget problem. But I think PERS has served as a scapegoat for budget problems that really result from years of imprudent tax cuts in Oregon.

If we rolled back many of the tax cuts of the last decade — especially cuts on corporations and the wealthy — we would be able to improve public services without taking away retirement benefits from public employees.

It is no more accurate to blame PERS for budget cuts and layoffs than it would be to blame the increased cost of education for our decaying roads and bridges.

Perhaps it is giving tax cuts to small businesses to buy Hummers that is the real culprit here.

Help for New Year's Resolutions

My Political Resolutions

1. Local activism
2. Practicing a political voice
3. Community outreach
4. Helping progressive campaigns
5. Being effective

I just found out, while getting numbed up for some dental work, that my dentist is a Republican, he doesn't like his "tax and spend" liberal sister-in-law and that he owns a hummer. He thinks funding Oregon PERS is causing the educational crisis in Oregon. What a shock. I've been going to him for over 25 years and he's a dear, sweet man. He just found out that I am a liberal and that I come from a family of liberals and that I'm Buddhist. Just doing a little community outreach work here...

Desmond Tutu is interviewed about our election in Newsweek

You said George Bush should admit that he made a mistake. Were you surprised at his re-election?
[Laughs] I still can't believe that it really could have happened. Just look at the facts on the table: He’d gone into a war having misled people—whether deliberately or not—about why he went to war. You would think that would have knocked him out [of the race.] It didn’t. Look at the number of American soldiers who have died since he claimed that the war had ended. And yet it seems this doesn't make most Americans worry too much. I was teaching in Jacksonville, Fla., [during the election campaign] and I was shocked, because I had naively believed all these many years that Americans genuinely believed in freedom of speech. [But I] discovered there that when you made an utterance that was remotely contrary to what the White House was saying, then they attacked you. For a South African the déjà vu was frightening. They behaved exactly the same way that used to happen here [during apartheid]—vilifying those who are putting forward a slightly different view.

Stand Up Democrats

A site to give ideas to fix the Democratic Party.

http://www.seattleweekly.com/features/0452/041229_news_recount.php

Great article from Seattle Weekly on how the Democrats' strategy on the recount won the election.

McCain will try to replace FEC and enforce limits on 527's

In addition, Feingold and I joined the congressmen in introducing legislation to require 527s to register as political committees and to comply with existing contribution limits.

It is clear that the FEC is a failed agency with overtly partisan commissioners who oppose both new and longstanding campaign finance statutes. The FEC has proved its ineffectiveness and its willingness to run roughshod over the will of the Congress, the Supreme Court, the American people and the Constitution. In January, the new Congress will convene, and we will initiate a new round of necessary reforms — beginning with a new enforcement agency to replace the FEC

Why is it that I don't trust him on this? In general, Democrats used the 527's more effectively than did the Republicans -- so the "loophole" has to be closed?

Back-door Draft

Sergeant Emiliano Santiago had almost finished his eight years with the National Guard when he was re-activated -- until 2031. He lost his case in front of a judge in Portland yesterday. Well, I guess that's going to make an all-volunteer military popular.

Tsunami

I had a dream last night of a tsunami engulfing our house and neighborhood. We don't live by the ocean, so that won't happen here, but I think it was due to a short video I saw on the internet last night of water coming into a resort somewhere in Thailand. People were standing around, not knowing that the water would keep coming and keep coming. An older couple was swept away with debris along a path. Others climbed the counters in the restaurant. There was an odd report from Sri Lanka today that they didn't find a lot of dead animals in the wild life park. They think the animals fled to the highlands before the wave came in.

I gave money to Mercy Corps yesterday to help with the disaster. Meanwhile the estimated death toll is climbing and climbing. It may go as high as 100,000.

Blue Year Resolutions

1. I will buy from companies that share and show progressive values, especially local and independent businesses, whenever I can.
2. I will let my elected representatives know that corporate money is not welcome in politics.
3. I will share this website with my friends and family, and let them know that we have the power to make real change.
4. I will tell Blue-friendly companies' headquarters and web pages that I've switched to them because of their support for Blue values.
5. I will take part in the movement to build an ethical, sustainable, blue economy by rewarding ethical, sustainable, blue businesses.

Bush's new term

Nor has Bush shown much responsibility for many of the first-term policies that, along with his tone, have turned smoldering anti-Americanism into a roaring conflagration. Take the Abu Ghraib scandal. While still maintaining the fiction that the interrogation abuses were merely the work of a few rogue MPs, Bush promoted one of the authors of the now infamous legal memos that prove such abuses emanated from White House policy. The man who once called the Geneva Conventions obsolete, Alberto Gonzales, will now become America's new attorney general, the highest law-enforcement official in the land.

Brian Baird's proposal for reading legislation before voting on it:

November 17, 2004
Washington, D.C. - U.S. Rep. Brian Baird has asked Republican House Leadership to ensure members have time to read bills before voting on them. Currently, House Rules provide for a three day period for all legislation, which gives members a chance to review the details of a bill prior to voting on it. Unfortunately, the Republican majority frequently waives this three day rule. They have done so on some of the most important, lengthy and expensive bills considered in the 108th Congress. Rep. Baird’s proposed change would require the House of Representatives to approve the waiver of this three day period by a two thirds majority vote.

“We were given less than 24 hours to consider the Medicare bill, one of the most substantive, complicated changes to our nation’s health care system in the last century,” said Rep. Baird. “The Medicare bill was over 600 pages long, authorized hundreds of billions of the taxpayers’ dollars, and members of Congress were not given enough time to read through it once before voting.”

The lack of time for review of legislation has long been a concern for members of both parties. In 1993, a Republican Leadership Task Force on Deliberative Democracy quoted, “A bill that cannot survive a 3-day scrutiny of its provisions is a bill that should not be enacted.” Rep. Baird’s rule would allow for time sensitive legislation to have the option to be rushed, but would prevent the routine waiver of the layaway period.

Rep. Baird added, “In order to responsibly fulfill our duties as elected representatives, members of the House of Representatives must have sufficient time to carefully review legislation, as well as propose and vote on amendments. This rule change would prevent the reckless rush to vote on consequential legislation without giving Members time to even read the entire text of the bill.”

Rep. Baird proposed this change to the Rules Committee on Friday, November 12, 2004. He is circulating a Dear Colleague asking for Republican and Democratic support for this common sense rules change. All changes to the Rules Committee procedure will be introduced in a bill by the Majority Leader the first day of the new Congress.

Top moveon.org priorities for the new year:

1. Election reform -- 5691 votes
2. Media reform -- 4529 votes
3. The Iraq war -- 4488 votes
4. The environment -- 3581 votes
5. The Supreme Court -- 3031 votes
6. Civil liberties -- 3018 votes

"Ohio GOP election officials ducking subpoenas as Kerry enters stolen vote fray"

Buy Blue -- Costco

If Wal-Mart represents red-state America's ruthless race to the bottom line, then Issaquah-based retailer Costco offers a blue-state alternative. The company is proving Wall Street wrong by adhering to a radical idea: Treating customers and employees right is good business.

Who Should Provide Broad-band Internet?
A Pennsylvania law bans cities from providing internet access. This is a class issue and a media control issue. The numbers I heard were in the range of Philadelphia planning to spend $15 million to provide a network that Verizon was going to make about $250 million from. You can see how that money talks!

Internet is essential to the America that I want to see. It has become part of our nation's infrastructure. The internet should be available to all citizens at a reasonable rate. It is one of the ways we can stay competitive in the world markets. Monopolistic telecom companies don't want to provide this without ruinious profit.

Bills limiting competition have been introduced in Florida, Texas, Arkansas, Nebraska, Nevada, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia and (yes) Washington. Read Free Press, a nonprofit working for media reform, about these battles.

Sinclair action still around.
A portion of my letter to Sinclair advertisers...

Advertisers who buy significant ads on the Sinclair TV stations, enable dishonest media to dictate their viewpoint to America. Political statements should not be disguised as news content. This is an assault on American values. Their "The Point" is a one-minute conservative commentary which contains a stream of one-sided anti-progressive rhetoric broadcast without any counterpoint. There is a long documented list of Sinclair abuses of the public airwaves. Until advertisers stop supporting Sinclair, I will not buy from their shops.

I'm really excited about this site: http://www.rawstory.com/. A news aggregator with a liberal slant. Yes!

www.broom.org/epic/

Interesting piece pretending to be a future report on how print media went away. I hope the intelligensia is headed that way, but I'm afraid that all those people voting Republican are heading for TV land.