Derrick's Progressive News
Sen. Michael Bennet to the Rescue!
Progressive News Contents
Gretchen Randolph Says It Well
Senator Ron Wyden Will Have a Single Payer General Election Contender
Here In Washington County, It’s 12-Year Incumbent David Wu Vs. Challenger David Robinson
Rep. Grayson Has Huge Lead in REPUBLICAN Primary
Bennet to Unveil Reforms Targeting Filibuster, Lobbying
Economists: Another Financial Crisis on the Way
Is Taxpayer Money Being Funneled Through The Chamber Of Commerce To Kill Health Reform?
Republican Plan For 2010: Document Mocks Donors, Plays on 'Fear'
Notable Bill Passed By the Oregon House Feb 15th - 26th
Funny or Die's Presidential Reunion
Rush Limbaugh is Selling His NYC Condo – A View Into His World
Just For Fun: <Broken Link>
Gretchen Randolph Says It Well
Derrick: Gretchen is the new co-House District Leader (Oregon House Seat 35) for the Washington County Democrats. She is also a very good friend of mine.
…no real solution can be accomplished with many legislators beholden to the corporations. Corporate personhood and campaign finance reform are blocking most core reforms. Voters from all grassroots groups no matter what our issue, environmental, health, banking, labor, must join together to fight the power of the corporations over our democracy.
- Gretchen Randolph 3/3/10
Senator Ron Wyden Will Have a Single Payer General Election Contender
The Oregon Green party will be running a Single Payer Health Care candidate for Ron Wyden’s Senate seat. They will nominate their candidate this Saturday. Dr. Rick Staggenborg is the likely winner. Although generally pretty liberal, Sen. Wyden has been siding mostly with the large corporate health insurance industry against common sense, cost effective, universal health care.
Can Ron survive in a three-way race if there is a credible single payer candidate for the tens of thousands (hundreds of thousands) of Oregonians fed up with the current congress and their pathetic efforts at heath care reform and vote for Rick? The Massachusetts voters proved that voters will vote against their own best interests to PUNISH BAD/LACKLUSTER BEHAVIOR.
Since the polls that show Americans prefer a simple Medicare For All solution but continue to be ignored, I guess one way for single payer supporters to have their votes counted is to vote for a professed Single Payer supporter. When these non-Democratic candidates nation-wide get 10% to 20% of the vote, maybe the defeated Dems will finally take the liberals seriously.
Here In Washington County, It’s 12-Year Incumbent David Wu Vs. Challenger David Robinson
Derrick’s Opinion:
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David Robinson
New blood
New energy to fight for Oregon and the country. Dave has an impressive resume, including many years of military service. Dave is the leader we need. Someone who is not afraid of tough talking Republicans.
http://www.davidrobinson2010.com/index.html
Dave’s wife’s Sandy Webb is no political light weight either; she is running for Oregon House District 26 that has been Republican for many years. |
David Wu
Status Quo
12-Year Incumbent, not enough done, no significant leadership roles taken, no impassioned speeches on House floor, contributing member of the “I’m afraid of Republican rhetoric little done” congress. Wu has had his chance - now it’s time for a change.
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Rep. Grayson Has Huge Lead in REPUBLICAN Primary
No, that's not a typo. According to a poll of registered Republicans last week, Congressman Alan Grayson has an enormous lead in the Republican primary for Florida Congressional District 8 (FL-8).
Of course, Grayson is a Democrat. Yet Grayson is far and away the leading choice among registered Republicans in FL-8. In fact, he has almost twice as much support among Republicans as all his Republican opponents combined.
In the poll, Grayson won the support of 27.8% of registered Republicans. None of Grayson's 13 opponents scored higher than 3.7%. Their combined performance was only 14.5%. The remaining 57.7% of registered Republicans were undecided.
30.1% of registered Republican women support Grayson. And Grayson has the support of 25.5% of registered Republican men.
Grayson also has an enormous lead in name recognition. 76.9% of Republicans know Grayson; none of his opponents scored higher than 15.1%. 81.4% of Republican men know Grayson, and 72.4% of Republican women know him.
Grayson received high marks from Republicans for his Constitution initiative. Over half of all Republicans said that they were more likely to vote for Grayson because he passed a resolution urging high schools to teach the Constitution, and he had distributed tens of thousands of copies of the Constitution throughout the district.
Interestingly, Grayson is more popular among Republicans than Republican Governor Charlie Crist is. 42% of Republicans have an unfavorable opinion of Crist, far more than those who have an unfavorable opinion of Grayson.
Asked to comment, Congressman Grayson said, "it's like I've been saying: People like a Congressman with guts. They want someone who works hard, pays attention, and gets things done. For goodness sake, we increased federal competitive grants in this district by 98% in our first year.. That extra $100 million benefits Republicans, Independents and Democrats equally. People of every political persuasion want to see action to help solve their problems, and that's what they're seeing from us."
When asked if he might run in the Republican primary, Grayson said, "as this poll shows, if I did, then I would win."
The poll was conducted on Feb. 26th. There were 324 respondents, all registered Republicans in FL-8. The margin of error was 5%. The poll was conducted by Middleton Market Research.
Bennet to Unveil Reforms Targeting Filibuster, Lobbying
By Michael Riley | The Denver Post | 03/03/2010 | Read more: Link
Charles Baccus provided this article/link.
Joining a growing number of lawmakers angry at Washington, U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet today will announce an ambitious set of reforms to change many of the rules under which his colleagues work, including an effort to restrict earmarks and limit the filibuster.
Using a scheduled midmorning speech on the Senate floor, Bennet will propose a package of bills that would cut a broad swath across a set of practices and procedures that have become notorious symbols of a gridlocked Capitol.
He will propose eliminating anonymous holds, banning private-sector earmarks, freezing pay and budgets for members of Congress, and barring lawmakers from lobbying for life.
Other reforms carry a symbolic punch. Lawmakers who hop rides on private jets would have to pay a percentage of the total charter cost and disclose everyone else onboard.
But the kicker is the call to restructure the filibuster, a tool that has been wielded with devastating effect in the past year by Republicans and moderate Democrats.
Bennet, who is up for election this fall and faces a primary challenge from Andrew Romanoff, would reduce the majority required to overcome a filibuster to 55 votes after specific conditions were met.
"It's one thing to hope we can just end the filibuster, but we need to put together a realistic proposal that will change the way the Senate works," said Guy Cecil, Bennet's chief of staff. "There have always been minority protections under the filibuster rule. The problem is that it's being abused."
Earmarks Highly Valued
Many of the proposals are likely to be controversial, and not just among members of the opposition party.
Members of both parties see earmarks as a way to fund pet projects for communities in their states. And the constant threat of a Republican filibuster has enhanced the power of a small group of moderate Democrats who are now key votes on most major legislation.
But Bennet's aides see him as part of a group of lawmakers less wedded to the arcane rules of Senate procedure, and willing to rewire a legislative process that is alienating voters.
Bennet is unrolling the package in the middle of a week in which a popular extension of unemployment benefits blocked until Tuesday night by a single Republican senator — Jim Bunning of Kentucky — has become a symbol of Washington's dysfunction.
And he is joining a rush of lawmakers who — out of both genuine disgust and the necessity of politics — are declaring Capitol Hill's politics broken. That includes Evan Bayh, the popular moderate Democrat from Indiana who cited the bickering and partisanship in announcing his decision not to run for re-election this year.
"Having been here for a little over a year, it didn't take me long to figure out why the government has such a tough time getting things done — it's because they use rules and procedures to make each other look bad with the sole purpose of gaining more power," Bennet said Tuesday. "Coloradans are tired of that approach, and so am I."
Many of Bennet's ideas are likely to get support from reform groups if not his own colleagues; in fact, some ideas have long been on the list of good-government advocates.
Willing to Break up Bill
Under Bennet's proposals, Capitol Hill staffers would be banned from lobbying their former bosses for six years, and committee staffers couldn't lobby any member of the committee for the same period.
He would require that a small number of randomly selected earmark projects be audited, to ensure the money had been spent as intended and benefited taxpayers.
And members of Congress couldn't raise their salaries or the budgets of their offices until after four successive quarters of economic growth. (Bennet said he would apply all his proposals to himself even if they didn't pass into law.)
But those same forces of partisanship that Bennet is hoping to combat will make passage of many of his reform ideas a tough slog. For example, changing the rules that govern the filibuster require the ascent of two-thirds of senators — or 67 votes — a very tough threshold.
But aides said their boss hopes to pass at least some of the package and will break out the most popular pieces if necessary.
"We will be introducing whole pieces of legislation that incorporate a lot of these ideas," Cecil said. "But frankly, some of this is more difficult to do than others.
"If there are pieces of it we feel we can attach to something else, we're going to do that," he said.
Economists: Another Financial Crisis on the Way
Nonpartisan Group Led by Nobel Winner Calls for Stronger Financial Reforms
by Matthew Jaffe | Published on Wednesday, March 3, 2010 by ABC News | Link
Even as many Americans still struggle to recover from the country's worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, another crisis -- one that will be even worse than the current one -- is looming, according to a new report from a group of leading economists, financiers, and former federal regulators.
In the report, the panel, that includes Rob Johnson of the United Nations Commission of Experts on Finance and bailout watchdog Elizabeth Warren, warns that financial regulatory reform measures proposed by the Obama administration and Congress must be beefed up to prevent banks from continuing to engage in high risk investing that precipitated the near collapse of the U.S. economy in 2008.
The report warns that the country is now immersed in a "doomsday cycle" wherein banks use borrowed money to take massive risks in an attempt to pay big dividends to shareholders and big bonuses to management -- and when the risks go wrong, the banks receive taxpayer bailouts from the government.
"Risk-taking at banks," the report cautions, "will soon be larger than ever."
Without more stringent reforms, "another crisis -- a bigger crisis that weakens both our financial sector and our larger economy -- is more than predictable, it is inevitable," Johnson says in the report, commissioned by the nonpartisan Roosevelt Institute.
The institute's chief economist, Nobel Prize-winner Joseph Stiglitz, calls the report "an important point of departure for a debate on where we are on the road to regulatory reform."
The report blasts some of Washington's key players. Johnson writes, "Our government leaders have shown little capacity to fix the flaws in our market system." Two other panelists, Simon Johnson, a professor at MIT, and Peter Boone of the Centre for Economic Performance, voiced similar criticisms.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner "oversaw policy as the bubble was inflating," write Johnson and Boone, and "these same men are now designing our 'rescue.'"
The study says that "In 2008-09, we came remarkably close to another Great Depression. Next time we may not be so 'lucky.' The threat of the doomsday cycle remains strong and growing," they say. "What will happen when the next shock hits? We may be nearing the stage where the answer will be -- just as it was in the Great Depression -- a calamitous global collapse."
The panelists call for major banks to maintain liquid capital of at least 15 to 25 percent of their assets, the enactment of stiffer consequences for executives of bailout recipients and for government officials to start breaking up firms that grow too big.
In the report, Elizabeth Warren, who was chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel, reiterates her calls for an independent agency to protect consumers from abusive Wall Street practices.
"While manufacturers have developed iPods and flat-screen televisions, the financial industry has perfected the art of offering mortgages, credit cards and check overdrafts laden with hidden terms that obscure price and risk," Warren writes. "Good products are mixed with dangerous products, and consumers are left on their own to try to sort out which is which. The consequences can be disastrous."
Frank Partnoy, a panelist from the University of San Diego, claims that "the balance sheets of most Wall Street banks are fiction." Another panelist, Raj Date of the Cambridge Winter Center for Financial Institutions Policy, argues that government-backed mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have become "needlessly complex and irretrievably flawed" and should be eliminated. The report also calls for greater competition among credit rating agencies and increased regulation of the derivatives market, including requiring that credit-default swaps be traded on regulated exchanges.
With the Senate Banking Committee, led by Chris Dodd, D-Conn., poised to unveil its financial regulatory reform proposal sometime in the next week, the report calls on Congress to enact reforms strong enough to prevent another meltdown.
"Sen. Dick Durbin once said the banks 'owned' the Senate," says Johnson. "The next few weeks will determine whether or not that statement is true."
Copyright © 2010 ABC News Internet Ventures
Is Taxpayer Money Being Funneled Through The Chamber Of Commerce To Kill Health Reform?
By Lee Fang | 3-3-10 | Think Progress | Link
Charles Baccus provided this article/link. Comment: Yet another example of how the Repugnuts somehow manage to use taxpayer $ to their advantage and actually get away with it with no accountability. People just shrug their shoulders. PUKE.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, an umbrella lobbying organization for international corporations and big business, is one of the driving forces fighting to kill health reform. In 2009, the Chamber dropped $123 million in lobbying, much of it against health reform, and organized an attack ad campaign against health reform, spending another $100 million. Now, as health reform enters its final stages, the Chamber is gearing up to blanket critical districts across the country with a new series of attack ads.
While the Chamber refuses to publicly list its membership, several confirmed Chamber members are banks which were bailed out by taxpayers and still have not repaid the TARP funds. For instance, New York Private Bank & Trust received TARP funds and still owes $254,892,509 back to the government. Diana Cantor, the bank’s managing director, is a board member of the Chamber Foundation and wife of Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA), two leading opponents of reform. How can taxpayers be reassured that Cantor’s bank, and other bailed out Chamber banks, are not using taxpayer dollars to fund the Chamber’s anti-reform activities? Here are the bailed out banks we know are funding the Chamber and have not paid back TARP:
– Citigroup, a member of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, received bailout money. Citigroup still owes taxpayers over $22 billion in TARP funds.
– Marshall & Ilsley Bank, a member of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, received bailout money. M&I Bank still owes taxpayers over $1.6 billion in TARP funds.
– New York Private Bank & Trust, a member of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, received bailout money. Diana Cantor, the bank’s managing director, sits on the Chamber Foundation’s board. New York Private Bank & Trust still owes taxpayers over $250 million in TARP funds.
To preserve brand identity and maintain secrecy, many businesses use groups like the Chamber to launder money for political means. For instance, health insurance companies lied and told the public all last year that they were supportive of reform — while simultaneously funneling up to $20 million dollars for attack ads through the Chamber (the other $80 million spent on Chamber attack ads against health reform is still unaccounted for).
Although reform would benefit the business community at large by controlling insurance costs and improving worker health, the Chamber is taking a rigid, ideological approach. Indeed, the Chamber is known to have become increasingly partisan under the leadership of Tom Donohue; an analysis by the Wonk Room found that the Chamber’s board is dominated by Republican donors. The Chamber seeks to kill large progressive reforms in order to kill progressive policies in general. Chamber officials have even gone on record noting they hoped to block health reform as a tactical measure to kill clean energy reform, a priority of many Chamber member companies.
As Matt Yglesias has observed, American trade associations like the Chamber “behave in a highly ideological, highly solidaristic manner rather than as narrow interest groups.” By promoting gridlock and the status quo, the Chamber hopes to stall other key progressive agenda items banks oppose, like labor and financial reform
Republican Plan For 2010: Document Mocks Donors, Plays on 'Fear'
BEN SMITH | 3/3/10 | Politico | Link
The Republican National Committee plans to raise money this election cycle through an aggressive campaign capitalizing on “fear” of President Barack Obama and a promise to "save the country from trending toward socialism."
The strategy was detailed in a confidential party fundraising presentation, obtained by POLITICO, which also outlines how “ego-driven” wealthy donors can be tapped with offers of access and “tchochkes.”
The presentation was delivered by RNC Finance Director Rob Bickhart to top donors and fundraisers at a party retreat in Boca Grande, Florida on February 18, a source at the gathering said.
In neat PowerPoint pages, it lifts the curtain on the often-cynical terms of political marketing, displaying an air of disdain for the party’s donors that is usually confined to the barroom conversations of political operatives.
The presentation explains the Republican fundraising in simple terms.
"What can you sell when you do not have the White House, the House, or the Senate...?" it asks.
The answer: "Save the country from trending toward Socialism!”
Manipulating donors with crude caricatures and playing on their fears is hardly unique to Republicans or to the RNC – Democrats raised millions off George W. Bush in similar terms – but rarely is it practiced in such cartoonish terms.
One page, headed “The Evil Empire,” pictures Obama as the Joker from Batman, while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leaders Harry Reid are depicted as Cruella DeVille and Scooby Doo, respectively.
The document, which two Republican sources said was prepared by the party’s finance staff, comes as Chairman Michael Steele struggles to retain the trust and allegiance of major donors, who can give as much as $30,400 a year to the party.
Under Steele, the RNC has shifted toward a reliance on small donors, but the document reveals extensive, confidential details of the strategy for luring wealthy checkwriters, which range from luxury retreats in California wine country to tickets to a professional fight in Las Vegas.
The 72-page document was provided to POLITICO by a Democrat, who said a hard copy had been left in the hotel hosting the $2,500-a-head retreat, the Gasparilla Inn & Club. Sources at the event said the presentation was delivered by Bickhart and by the RNC Finance Chairman, Peter Terpeluk, a former ambassador to Luxembourg under President George W. Bush.
The RNC reacted with alarm to a question about it Wednesday, emailing major donors to warn them of a reporter’s question, and distancing Steele from its contents.
“The document was used for a fundraising presentation Chairman Steele did not attend, nor had he seen the document,” RNC Communications Director Doug Heye said in an email. “Fundraising documents are often controversial.
“Obviously, the Chairman disagrees with the language and finds the use of such imagery to be unacceptable. It will not be used by the Republican National Committee – in any capacity – in the future,” Heye said.
The most unusual section of the presentation is a set of six slides headed “RNC Marketing 101.” The presentation divides fundraising into two traditional categories, direct marketing and major donors, and lays out the details of how to approach each group.
The small donors who are the targets of direct marketing are described under the heading “Visceral Giving.” Their motivations are listed as “fear;” “Extreme negative feelings toward existing Administration;” and “Reactionary.”
Major donors, by contrast, are treated in a column headed “Calculated Giving.”
Their motivations include: “Peer to Peer Pressure”; “access”; and “Ego-Driven.”
The slide also allows that donors may have more honorable motives, including “Patriotic Duty.”
A major Republican donor described the state of the RNC’s relationship with major donors as “disastrous,” with veteran givers beginning to abandon the committee, which is becoming increasingly reliant on small donors.
The party’s average contribution in 2009, according to the document, was just $40, and the shift toward a financial reliance on the grassroots may help explain Steele’s increasingly strident tone toward the Obama Administration.
While the crude portrayal of Obama may be - as Steele ‘s spokesman put it - “unacceptable,” other elements of the presentation may be of equal interest to close political observers.
The RNC plans to raise $8.6 million from major donors alone in 2010, less than 10% of its total 2009 fundraising take, which was primarily from small donors."
The center of that plan is an extensive, and colorful, schedule of events. Along with traditional fundraisers with conservative luminaries including Weekly Standard Editor Bill Kristol and former presidential candidate Steve Forbes, the party plans to raise $80,000 for a trip to London to meet David Cameron, the British Conservative Party leader, on September 17.
The RNC’s “Young Eagles” – younger major donors and the only group, according to a major donor, continuing to pull its weight financially – are invited to a “professional bull riding event” in October, expected to raise $50,000, and to a no-holds-barred Ultimate Fighting Championship fight in Las Vegas the same month, expected to raise $60,000.
The RNC’s aim, according to one section of the document: “Putting the Fun Back in FUNdraising.”
CORRECTION: The RNC raised a total of $81 million in 2009. An earlier version of this story understated that figure.
Derrick: Here are two slides from the Powerpoint presentation:
Notable Bill Passed By the Oregon House Feb 15th - 26th
Margaret Doherty provided this link/article.
Here are some of the exciting bills that have moved out of the House in the final weeks of the February Session:
HB 3655: Extends unemployment benefits for the 19,000 Oregonians whose benefits have run out or will soon expire.
HB 3706: Brings banks and other lenders under the Oregon Unlawful Trade Practices Act providing Oregonians needed protections against banks and other lenders that use deceptive practices.
HB 3657: Protects neighborhood property owners from the negative impacts of vacant, neglected foreclosured properties by requiring upkeep of these properties.
HB 3656: Protects families who have financed the purchase of their homes using 80/20 loans from being sued after foreclosure if both mortgages were issued at the same time by the same lender.
SB 1045: Primarily prohibits employers from using credit history to screen potential employees, removing an unfair obstacle to getting hired and getting back to work.
Funny or Die's Presidential Reunion
Barack Obama gets a surprise visit in the night from ex-Presidents Bush Sr., Bush Jr., Clinton, Ford, Reagan and Carter to get a few pointers about the Consumer Financial Protection Agency and why it's so important. There's a big fight brewing in the Senate around the proposal for this new Agency.
Here's why: Over the last 30 years, big banks have built their business model around ripping their customers off—excessive overdraft fees, outrageous interest rates, exploding mortgages.
Now that they're faced with the prospect of an agency whose only job is protecting consumers from these rip-offs, the banks are freaking out. They make billions from these scams, so they're giving millions in campaign contributions to try to undermine this new agency—and it's working. Unfortunately, too many Democrats are ready to water down reform to bring a few Republicans on board. Republicans are refusing to come along until the "compromise" legislation is so weak as to be almost meaningless.
Rush Limbaugh is Selling His NYC Condo – A View Into His World
Derrick: ‘Average, man of the people’ Rush Limbaugh is selling his NYC condo for $13,950,000. He was obviously living like a rich spinster, maids quarters and all. At this web site, you can view photos and floor plan. And to think that incomes like this should only pay 15% income tax while we working slubs pay 30% of our much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much smaller incomes.
Watch the Video | Recruit Your Friends | Fight The Smears
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Rush Limbaugh is no 'man of the people'. What 'man of the people' spends $81,450 just in monthly condo expenses? What 'man of the people' spends fortunes on hand painting ceilings and walls? Rush is not like the rest of America and he knows it. Join us on "I'm Sick of Right Wing Smears" on Facebook to help us reach 10,000 fans. Only with a force of motivated activists will we be able to fight back the smears and lies that Rush Limbaugh and his cronies peddle on a daily basis. It is time for all of us to band together and fight the smears once and for all. It is critical for you to recruit your friends to join the page and watch the video. Can you help? Yours, |
Just For Fun: <Broken Link>
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Derrick Duehren www.Duehren.com
By day, I’m a technical writer/human factors Specialist for a local telecommunications company; by night, I’m a fire-breathing defender of liberal social policies. I’m a news hound and share with you stories and videos that I feel are worth sharing with you all (530 as of Jan 2010). I do not share my mailing list and all newsletters go out as blind copies, so everyone gets their own individual copy. I am a registered Democrate, and a PCP in the party (OR-390), but I’m a progressive first. |
~ YES WE ARE ~
Making single payer happen one person
one phone call/Fax ~ at a time ~
Regina Dobson |
Get information, resources, and more at our web site: SinglePayUSA.com.
Contact Congress Daily: Send a Free E-Fax at www.1payer.net/faxapp/.
Other Good Sites for Single Payer Information:
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I love the picture "peasants fro Plutocracy." It speaks volumes and should be pasted all over Congress. Your articles are great and I wish I had time to read them in detail and follow through. We're doing our fighting for single payer and universal health care but our voices are being muffed by a very arrogant and ineffective congress.
Peace
Nora
Nora. M. Nash, OSF
Director, Corporate Social Responsibility
Sisters of St Francis of Philadelphia
I like your newsletter; keep in touch. Oh, yeah: the party website is www.pacificgreens.org. Best way to find out what's going on at the moment (like whether we've changed our name - which we won't for the foreseeable future.)
We'll start sending you press releases and announcements - for instance, nominations.
Charles N.
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