Standing Firm: PDA Organizing at Charlotte Convention
Stage being set up for PDA’s Progressive Central’ forum near the Democratic Convention in North Carolina
2012 Convention: Pulling Democrats’ Platform to the Left
By Martin Wisckol
Beaver County Blue via Orange County Register
Sept 5, 2012 – Proudly liberal activist Tim Carpenter, who toiled in Orange County for more than 20 years before resettling in Massachusetts and co-founding Progressive Democrats of America, has made a career of standing staunchly to the left of mainstream Democrats, relentlessly beckoning and cajoling others to come a little closer.
His 8-year-old PDA group was at it again Tuesday, with a “People’s Convention” at a Charlotte church and soup kitchen that featured the Rev. Jesse Jackson, former presidential candidate Michael Dukakis, a couple Congress members, several Congressional hopefuls – including Paul Ryan‘s Democratic opponent – and a host of progressive leaders.
“The country would have been a lot better if Jesse Jackson was elected and, if not, Michael Dukakis,” said Carpenter, recalling the 1988 presidential field from which George H.W. Bush emerged victorious.“We wouldn’t have had Bush I and maybe not Bush II. But (Jackson and Dukakis) are still engaged. And they’re coming here instead of parading around the convention.”
As usual, Carpenter is pushing an agenda beyond which most Democratic lawmakers are ready to support. But before outlining the list, Carpenter took a moment to celebrate a Tuesday victory: At the Democratic convention, delegates approved a platform backing marriage rights for gays – a clear distinction from Republicans.
“This election is not simply a choice between two candidates or two political parties,” the platform summarizes, “but between two fundamentally different paths for our country and families.”
The specific support for gay marriage comes after President Bill Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act into law and, until recently, Barack Obama opposed gay marriage.
“That’s a victory that’s been a struggle for a long time,” Carpenter said.
Among the 240 people who paid registration dues for the Tuesday event were 92 convention delegates, rallying around eight central issues including:
A single-payer, “Medicare for all” health-care system that, unlike the Affordable Care Act, would leave no American without health insurance. A series of initiatives to diminish corporate influence over the political system. “Main Street, not Wall Street,” Carpenter said. A carbon tax and other measures to address global warming. Immediate withdrawal from Afghanistan. A diplomatic solution to the brewing conflict with Iran. “We’ve got to stop the saber rattling,” Carpenter said.
While it’s trying to pull Obama more toward these positions, PDA supports the incumbent’s reelection as far preferable to a Mitt Romney presidency.
And Carpenter remains as positive and optimistic as ever on a number of fronts. Take, for instance, Rob Zerban, the PDA member challenging vice presidential candidate Ryan in his other race, reelection to Congress.
“Now we get to beat Paul Ryan twice,” he quipped.
If We Can Shoot It Down in Texas, Why Not in Pennsylvania?
Texas Loses Latest Voter ID Battle after Judges Strike Down ‘Retrogressive’ Law
Judges find that law requiring voters to present photo ID at the ballot box placed ‘unforgiving burdens on the poor’
By Chris McGreal
Beaver County Blue via The Guardian, UK
August 30, 2012 – The court said that the law was ‘likely to have a retrogressive effect’ by limiting access to the ballot box. Photograph: Mario Tama/Getty
A federal court has struck down a Texas law requiring voters to present photo identification at the ballot box in the second ruling this week to effectively accuse the state of racial discrimination and attempting to manipulate elections.
In an escalating legal battle between mostly Republican-controlled states and the Obama administration over voter ID and other election laws, a panel of three judges in Washington DC found that the Texas legislation imposed "strict, unforgiving burdens on the poor" because of the cost and process involved in obtaining identification.
The US justice department told the court that voters would have to pay for birth certificates and travel up to 250 miles to obtain ID cards. The court said this imposed a "heavy burden" on any voter and would be "especially daunting for the working poor" who are more likely to be racial minorities.
The court concluded that if the law was implemented it "will likely have a retrogressive effect" by limiting access to the ballot box. It said that evidence submitted by Texas in support of its claim that the law was not discriminatory – and was necessary to combat voter fraud – was "unpersuasive, invalid, or both".
Continue reading If We Can Shoot It Down in Texas, Why Not in Pennsylvania?
Dollarocracy Over Democracy, 2012
One Percenters Buying Themselves an Aristocracy
By Leo Gerard
USW President, via Huffington Post
August 30, 2012 – The U.S. Constitution guarantees separation of church and state. What this nation needs now is separation of wealth and state.
Without such a protection, Americans stand to lose their democracy. They’ll be ruled instead by an aristocracy of 1 percenters.
That’s the 1 percenters’ plan. To them, it was no more than a perk when the U.S. Supreme Court enabled politicians to open their wallets for unlimited, anonymous campaign contributions. That’s because way before the 2010 Citizens United ruling, 1 percenters were working on a takeover. If the 99 percent don’t stop them soon, don’t establish some sort of separation of wealth and state, then the nation will lose its founding precepts — that all men are created equal and that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. Aristocracies can ignore the governed.
Already the 1 percenters have been extraordinarily successful. The rich really do enjoy advantages. They’ve succeeded in stuffing Congress with their peers. In America, fewer than 1 percent of all people are millionaires. In Congress, 47 percent are. The median net worth of a U.S. senator in 2010 was $2.56 million.
Those guys haven’t experienced what it’s like to try to pay a mortgage, fix the car and keep food on the table for the average household with a median income of less than $52,000. They’re completely out of touch with the 50 million Americans who don’t have health insurance.
The Long Struggle for Voting Rights
By Al Hart
UE News Managing Editor via Beaver County Blue
August 20, 2012, Pittsburgh, PA – Since the founding of the United States, working people have had to fight to win, and to keep, the right to vote. And through American history, rich and powerful people, often calling themselves "conservatives", have tried to maintain their privileges by depriving other Americans of the right to vote.
The story of the long struggle for voting rights in America is thoroughly and brilliantly told in ‘The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States,’ by Alexander Keyssar, who teaches history and social policy at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. This highly- readable account was first published in 2000, and the 2009 revised edition brings the story up to nearly the present, when voter suppression has again become a national issue.
Before and immediately after the American Revolution, the right to vote in most of the 13 original states was limited mainly to white men, and in most states, only those who owned a certain amount of property. Free blacks who owned property had voting rights in some Northern states and, for a while, North Carolina. The most common property qualification was a freehold of 50 acres (among others, this disqualified tenant farmers who leased land.) In some states the requirement was property of a certain monetary value, such as 50 pounds, or a taxpaying requirement. When Vermont gained statehood in 1791, it was immediately the most democratic state, with no property or tax requirements for voting.
Even Papers as Far Away as New Zealand Are Shocked at PA’s GOP Voter Suppression Efforts
Dorothy Cooper, Tn, denied vote by the same GOP efforts back by Santorum here.
Eligibility rules bar millions of voters in US
By Peter Huck
New Zealand Herald
Aug 18, 2012 – When Dorothy Cooper applied for a free voter identity card in Chattanooga, Tennessee, she supplied a rent receipt, a copy of her lease, her birth certificate and her voter registration card to prove who she was.
Voter ID is mandatory to prevent fraud under a new state law passed by Republicans, despite scant evidence fraud exists.
But the 96-year-old, who was on the voting roll, left her marriage certificate behind. Cooper was denied the ID.
Wilola Lee in Pennsylvania has a similar story to tell. The 60-year-old has voted in most national elections since the 1970s, worked at her local Philadelphia polling station and is retired from the city’s education department. She has a social security card and a state identity card.
But a new law, passed by a Republican-controlled legislature, says voters must use an ID card issued by the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation.
To get one you need a birth certificate. Lee’s was destroyed by fire. Efforts to get one from Georgia, her birthplace, have been frustrated for the past decade.
PA 12th Congressional District Race “One of Most Competitive in Country”
from Huffington Post:
# Pennsylvania 12th District
As a result of redistricting, fellow incumbents Jason Altmire (D) and Mark Critz (D) faced off against each other in the Democratic primary in the newly drawn conservative twelfth district in western Pennsylvania. With the help of local unions and Bill Clinton’s endorsement, Critz narrowly defeated Altmire in the April primary.
Since winning the primary, Critz — a “Frontline” Democrat — has been trying to distance himself from President Obama, who is unpopular in the district, and has announced that he will not be attending the Democratic National Convention. Since the district has a high number of of Medicare recipients, Critz has already tied his opponent, Keith Rothfus (R), to Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget, which would make significant cuts to the popular entitlement program.
The NRCC started running ads against Critz in the Pittsburgh media market in August, and has added him to its “Young Gun” recruitment program. At the end of June, Rothfus had more cash on hand than the Democratic incumbent. An August internal poll for the Critz campaign showed him leading Rothfus by ten points, but he has consistently been hovering at 50 percent or below.
This is shaping up to be the most competitive race in the state, and one of the most competitive in the country.
Continue reading PA 12th Congressional District Race “One of Most Competitive in Country”
MEDIA RELAUNCHES CAMPAIGN AGAINST SOCIAL SECURITY
MEDIA RELAUNCHES CAMPAIGN AGAINST SOCIAL SECURITY
by Harry Targ
The Lafayette, Indiana Journal and Courier, a Gannett Newspaper, printed an Associated Press story, Monday, August 13, on the front page above the fold, entitled“Little Security for Program’s Payouts.” It warned that Social Security would be in financial crisis by 2033.
The $2.7 trillion surplus in the fund, the story suggested “is starting to look small.” The story did admit that for thirty years the social security fund received more in taxes than it paid out to eligible recipients. But it raised the fear that the balance sheet would undoubtedly change in the future. In addition, the story indirectly blamed Social Security for federal deficits by suggesting that“surpluses also helped mask the size of the budget deficit being generated by the rest of the federal government.”
Banksters Turn against Obama
by Randy Shannon
When the banksters wrecked the economy in 2007, they jumped on the Obama campaign bandwagon in hopes of saving their positions of power in the economy and the government.
They were able to achieve a lot of their objectives under Obama, but not all of them. The Consumer Protection Act and Obama’s attempt to liquidate Citibank rubbed the banksters the wrong way.
Now, the banksters want more than Obama can deliver. As the story below reveals, they have executed an about-face and are throwing their money at Romney.
If Obama is re-elected the banksters chance for a double down on their economy-wrecking program may be at risk. If Obama is elected there will be a real struggle to save Medicare and Social Security from the cuts the banksters have planned.
It will take an aware and energetic voter turnout to beat the banksters in a presidential election. The big money is on Romney but the people will decide.
Goldman Sachs Leads Split With Obama, as GE Jilts Him Too
By Jonathan D. Salant – Aug 9, 2012 10:10 AM ET
Goldman Sachs Group (GS) employees have changed to red from blue.
Four years ago, employees of New York-based Goldman gave three-fourths of their campaign donations to Democratic candidates and committees, including presidential nominee Barack Obama. This time, they’re showering 70 percent of their contributions on Republicans.
That’s the biggest switch among the 25 companies whose employees have given the most to candidates and parties since 1989, according to data through June 30 compiled by Bloomberg from the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington-based research group that tracks campaign donations. Goldman isn’t alone; 13 of the companies’ employees are now giving more to Republicans after backing Democrats four years ago.
Shayna Metz and Beaver County’s Marcellus Awareness Committee Defending Our Water!
Shayna Metz, Center, at Protest
Industry Woman Cycles Against Fracking Current
By Bill Utterback
Beaver County Times
August 4, 2012 – On a cross-country cycling trip created to promote clean water as a priority over Marcellus shale drilling, Shayna Metz of Industry waded into the Youghiogheny River. She was moved to poetry.
“I push against the current … I wade deeper and stand and fight,” she wrote in an online blog.
Metz, a Geneva College graduate, pushed against the surging current of natural gas drilling by serving as project coordinator for the Tour de Frack, a bicycle trip that began July 14 in Butler County and ended July 28-29 on the lawn of the Capitol in Washington, D.C. The cyclists, and a bus full of supporters from western Pennsylvania who joined them, participated in the "Stop the Frack Attack" rally, labeled the first national anti-fracking event.
Continue reading Shayna Metz and Beaver County’s Marcellus Awareness Committee Defending Our Water!
Beaver County Blue: Voice of the 17th CD of Progressive Democrats of America 