Submitted by Mike_Hiland on January 23, 2012 - 10:29pm
Please take a moment to send an email to the President urging him to support the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in his fiscal year 2013 budget proposal.
Hunger, food insecurity, joblessness, and low wages currently affect very large numbers of people in the U.S.—especially young adults, parents, children, seniors and people with disabilities—and these problems are expected to persist at unacceptably high levels. In difficult economic times, it is more important than ever to support SNAP, a program that helps people obtain adequate amounts of food throughout the month.
In 2010, Congress cut future SNAP benefits and we hope that you will ask the President to continue his support for the full restoration of those benefits before cuts take effect in 2013. Cuts to SNAP would result in higher levels of hunger and food insecurity throughout the country.
Submitted by Mike_Hiland on December 14, 2011 - 11:19pm
What does great teaching look like and why should we care?
The Chalkboard Project is kicking off a series of digital conversations to help our Citizens’ Corps become informed about emerging issues in education. We count on you and members of this active alliance to advocate for meaningful policy change that will address Oregon’s education challenges.
Each of these virtual brown bags are designed to provide you with relevant news about education issues and to hear first-hand accounts of ongoing developments from local, state and national policy experts and educators.
Submitted by Mike_Hiland on December 7, 2011 - 10:40pm
John Lewis is a current congressman from Georgia, but he was a major leader in the civil rights movement back in the 60s. This book is his story of the civil rights movement. It is a great historic account written by someone who is a true American hero. Nothing else can describe his perserverance and what he went through.
The civil rights struggle is one of the great American stories of the last century. A time when America was made to live up to its creed and highest ideals. The ending of segregation and the expansion of voting rights were victories won from the bottom up. This book and the history of the civil rights struggle should be required reading and understood by all Americans. The civil rights movement made us what we are today.
He starts the book describing his life as a child growing up in a poor share croper family. How hard it was to keep your head above water. It reflects the stories of so many who struggle on the edge of poverty.
In college as a young kid, he was one of the leaders of the Nashville sit-ins aimed at ending segregation within local businesses. They took inspiration from the Montgomery Bus Boycott which introduced Martin Luther King Jr to the world stage. Lewis’ group devoted themselves to learning the principles of non-violent struggle which had such a direct impact on their success.
One of the interesting people he introduces here is Diane Nash, she was the leader of the Nashville sit-ins and is one of the un-sung heros of the movement. I have daughters and I was especially inspired by hearing her story. For all its high aims of freedom, the civil rights movement did struggle with issues of gender equality. Many of the female leaders had to struggle within the struggle to develop and exert their leadership.
Our EITC coalition can achieve important wins next year, despite the fact that continuing budget constraints make it unlikely that the 2012 legislative session will seek to improve Oregon's Earned Income Tax Credit.
One such win would be to obtain an extension of the credit's expiration date. The Oregon EITC currently is scheduled to sunset January 1, 2014. Unless the legislature extends the sunset date, the EITC will expire by that date, with serious economic consequences for low-income working families with children. Now is a good time to push for extending the EITC's sunset, a move that would have no impact on the current biennial budget.
Another important step is to make sure that improving the EITC is a part of any state strategy to reduce poverty. Governor Kitzhaber's office has indicated that in the coming months it will release a plan to address poverty. Our coalition will encourage the Governor's office to include improvement of the EITC, one of the most targeted and effective ways to make work pay for low-income working families with children, in any such plan.
Submitted by Kathy Cvetko on October 31, 2011 - 3:12pm
Saturday, I went to a meeting about the Occupy movement, sponsored by MoveOn.org. "House" meetings like this were happening all over the country! (I always find that so inspiring!).
The meeting provided an insightful look at how this movement is developing. One of the attendees has been on the General Assembly of Occupy Portland from the beginning. The discussion we had centered on how the movement is growing, being organized, and avoiding a "take-over" by any 1 grp.
Eventually, the hope is that the main theme, that our legislators and elected officials work FOR us, and that our corporations should not be allowed to run ramshod over the middle class, will bubble up to affect change. After all, people that are involving themselves in these movements are 99% of Americans!
It will take time for this movement to affect change; however, I have no doubt whatsoever that it WILL do so. The Council rep for MoveOn gave us a model that politicians everywhere could follow in responding to the Occupy movement. It's what MoveOn did when they realized they needed to get involved. They listened to their people!
Here's what happened: MoveOn's agenda had been to call and petition our legislators to help get the Obama jobs bill passed. This particular Council rep said that she could not do that. She told MoveOn she didn't feel that blitzing reps with calls would do anything to get it passed, as it's being stonewalled by Republicans. She was planning on backing off the Council for a while.
Simultaneously, and unknown to her, Council members all over the country were reporting the same thing to MoveOn.
So, guess what MoveOn did? They changed course! They decided to figure out how best to liaison with the Occupy Movement across the country. That's when they set up meetings with members and an Occupy rep from each relevant city.
Submitted by Kathy Cvetko on October 25, 2011 - 6:45pm
I'm a bit dismayed that we, the Democratic Party, don't make more of our functions accessible and affordable to the poor, or even to the less wealthy.
For instance, the 2011 Neuberger Banquet and Auction, the topic of which is making the American Dream once again possible for ALL Americans. How many of those Americans can afford $100 tickets? Or, even $90 tickets, if you're a PCP, Senior, Student or Veteran?
I'm both a PCP and a Veteran, and I'm coming up on being a Senior. I'd (still) consider myself middle-class, but that price is not one that I can justify on my family's present budget. Although I think I could both contribute meaningful dialogue AND learn a quite a lot at a function like that, I don't think it's a fair price for the "average" American.
If part of our party's agenda is to LISTEN to the voices of those usually unheard, how can we expect to do that when access to events with high party officials and state big-wigs is determined, in essence, by the size of our bank accounts?
I spent an hour and a half at Occupy Portland tonight. These notes are for those who wonder what is really going on but only have time to watch the evening news. This is not definitive but merely a set of observations.
It is currently a tent city of about 300 tents, or perhaps 600 or more people. They have been in the park for 13 days. It bears some resemblance to the Rainbow Gathering, particularly in the level of amorphous organization. It has art venues, a health clinic, waste disposal services, music, a central information area, a mediation patrol for disputes, and a host of people doing things like coordinating to help the truly homeless in Portland and working with Portland Parks to set up secure funding to make sure parks are restored when this is all over.
It is not frivolous and it is not just a flash in the pan. Although there are some street people and people for whom the venue is a refuge (as was the Rainbow), the most active people see this as the start of a very long grass roots battle that must be waged to restore the democracy of the 99%. Many of them are young, but they are much more organized than you might imagine. They have lists of volunteer work to do, they take care of the poop stations, they have a group kitchen with certified food handlers, they have ways of finding camp sites, and they are slowly becoming more organized and are growing. This may change when really crappy weather sets in, but the core realizes that the system is not working for them or many in the country and want to see a situation where the democracy is not controlled by 1% . They are very serious about this.
I’ve noticed over the years, there are some fundamental differences in the way Republican and Democratic politicians think. Here are just 15 examples.
Republicans fear that the government has too much control over corporations. Democrats fear that corporations have too much control over our government.
Democrats believe it benefits all of us to help the weakest and the poorest among us. Republicans believe it benefits all of us to help the wealthiest and most powerful among us.
Republicans believe large corporations will always do what is best for the American people if the government stays out of the way. Democrats believe large corporations would disembowel you and sell your organs to the highest bidder if the government didn’t stop them.
Democrats believe everyone is entitled to health care regardless of their ability to pay. Republicans believe everyone is entitled to jack squat if they can’t pay for health care.
Submitted by Mike_Hiland on August 2, 2011 - 9:17pm
Pretty discouraged by how extremist the GOP has become. They were willing to put us in default and throw the economy back into recession in order to win big cuts to government spending and further cripple the recovery. They want to cut college loans and aid to poor families while at the same time protecting tax cuts for the wealthy. Making sure that the wealthy have to make no sacrifices, thats its all on the backs of the poor and middle class.
The debt cannot be reduced while the economy has still not fully recovered. Budgets should naturally run surpluses during good times and deficits during bad times. But the GOP strategy was to run deficits all the time through tax cuts for the wealthy. Thus when a recession does occur the deficit will expand dramatically and they can force the kinds of cuts they have dreamed about, moving government more and more away from the needs of average Americans.
The only way to reduce it fairly is through both new revenues and spending cuts, but they would rather sacrafice millions of jobs in a renewed recession than have their constituients pay there fair share. It is very clear who the GOP stands for and they cannot be allowed to get away with holding the economy for ransom.
Submitted by Jack Kirkwood on July 28, 2011 - 8:28pm
As published in Hillsboro Argus July 26, 2011
Tea Party people see their approach as restoring the principle of individual responsibility expected by the founders of this republic. But they have ignored another principle.
Alexander Hamilton stressed that the new central government assume the debt of states incurred during the Revolutionary War. One purpose was to gain the support of wealthy people throughout the former colonies for the new government under the US Constitution. His plan became law.
After World War II the enormous debt for war costs was addressed by taxing the very wealthy at more than 90% of income. That helped pay down the debt but also influenced executives to limit their salaries and put more resources into businesses that provided jobs for returning veterans.
The notion that taxing the wealthy for their fair share reduces their ability to create jobs has no basis in national experience. Government reduced taxes in 2001 and then tried to win two wars, passed a drug bill to expand Medicare, and bailed out big banks and corporations to avoid their collapse—all on borrowed money.
That happened while American corporations were expanding productive capacity in other countries where labor costs were lower and environmental protections less stringent. They are unlikely to aggressively create jobs here until demand increases.
Submitted by Glendora Claybrooks on July 25, 2011 - 9:28pm
A COMATOSE STATE
Written By Glendora Claybrooks
July 25, 2011
The United States of America is indeed in a comatose state, whereas our 112thCongressional government’s inability to function in a forthcoming capacity that would resolve the debt-ceiling crisis has landed us in this unsettling position. What is a comatose state? A comatose state is a paralyzing condition of the mind that results from either an injury or illness. Because of the nature of this condition, the best-practiced medicines will not expedite the body’s brain activities required to bring forth the consciousness needed in order for an individual to function as expected. To alleviate or expedite this conditional circumstance requires time, of which our country no longer has.
Submitted by Glen_Geller on June 16, 2011 - 11:39am
The Truth About the Economy.
Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich said he could explain the problems with the economy
in less than 2 minutes, 15 seconds—and he did it (with illustrations to boot).
Submitted by Glen_Geller on May 24, 2011 - 10:36am
This came to me as an email today. I thought it would be good to post here as A.G. Kroger will be our guest speaker at the May 25 Washco Dems CC meeting. This a just one example of how our great Democratic officers and Legislators in Oregon are working hard to protect and serve all our citizens.
More bad news in the US House. The deficit cannot be balanced by targetting the poor. I have never seen worse proposals coming out of DC than I have this year from the US House. We need to retire these guys in 2012. (click the link to read the full article)
WASHINGTON — House Republicans are targeting domestic nutrition programs and international food assistance as they try to control spending in next year's budget. In a bill released Monday, Republicans proposed cutting $832 million – or 11 percent – from this year's budget for the Women, Infants and.......
Submitted by classicisland@y... on May 16, 2011 - 11:03pm
Another hugely successful WashCo Springfest smash hit! The collective efforts of everyone involved created a blistering buzz in the air! A tremendous thanks to Rosa Colquitt, Willow Washburn, Karen Schouten and the entire team for putting on a fabulous fundraiser! Too many highlights to mention except to say... it's great being around a highly power-charged group of Dems who care about their elected's and leaders heading into 2012~ Congratulations one and all! Now on to the task of Winning the Future!!
Submitted by Karen Packer on May 13, 2011 - 6:49am
The Democratic Legislators have released proposed redistricting lines for both legislative and congressional districts. The final set of public hearings commence next week. It is exceedingly important for Democratic activists and concerned members to testify in support of the Democratic legislator's proposed Option 1. Please try to attend a session listed in the attached press release or submit written testimony. Our election prospects for the next 10 years depend on successful passage of Option 1!
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