UPDATE: JUNE 18.  Today the House of Representatives approved a "stand alone" Fast Track Authority bill on a vote of 218-208. Democrats who voted in favor again included Rep. Blumenauer, Bonamici and Schrader.

One Win but battle not over.

On Friday, President Obama's corporate driven trade agenda was dealt a serious blow in large part due to the huge grassroots insurgence of phone calls, emails, faxes, meetings, rallies and general rabble-rousing done by all of us and our allies in the labor, environmental, consumer, farmers, internet users, public health, LGBTA and other peoples' movements. Those movements have really stepped up to the plate to say No to Fast Track, the TPP and other corporate trade agreements.

But the fight will continue and so we must be ready ON MONDAY to swing back into action.

What happened on Friday is that the corporatists' plan fell apart. The Senate had passed a combined Fast Track/Trade Adjustment Assistance bill (62-37) last month. But the House split it apart, resulting in two votes, one on Fast Track and one on Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA). The House voted in favor of Fast Track Authority (219-211, with 28 Democrats voting with the Republicans) but soundly defeated TAA (126-302). Democrats, who typically support TAA, voted against it because of various modifications made to it in order to attract conservative Republican votes and most importantly, because it had to pass for Fast Track to move forward. Not wanted Fast Track to move, Democrats in large number voted No. Note, however, that Oregon Representatives Blumenauer, Bonamici and Schrader, all Democrats, voted wrong on both these pieces of legislation, voting to move Fast Track forward.

Because of differences between the House approved Fast Track and the Senate version, it must either go to the Senate for their approval or the House must try to pass the TAA in another vote on Monday or Tuesday. Speaker Boehner has called for the House to reconsider during that time frame. If the Speaker does not think that a vote would produce the desired result, he might delay the vote. For us, the more delay the better. Or the Fast Track bill could be sent to the Senate as is, without the TAA, for their approval.

So our job now is to CALL, CALL, EMAIL, and CALL more and more often.

Monthly Comprehensive Reporting of Citizens Financial Status

(by Don Baham on May 12, 2015)

The federal government’s monthly reporting of national employment/unemployment numbers is inadequate to provide a comprehensive picture of citizen’s financial health.

To remedy this, we need the federal government to provide the following additional information to the citizenry at the same time as the employment/unemployment numbers are provided:

a. The combined monthly income of both the employed and unemployed for the last three months.

b. An authoritatively-compiled estimate of a livable monthly income.

c. The monthly income of the employed alone for the last three months.

d. The non-employment monthly income of the unemployed alone for the last three months.

e. The length of time that the unemployed have been unemployed by age group.

f. The length of time that the unemployed have been unemployed by race.

Chris Hedges recently, writting on TruthDig, quoted Ralph Nader on the need to Make the Rich Panic, which Nader says is something Bernie Sanders' bid for President running as a Democrat will not do.

“The only way you can get the parties’ attention is if you take votes away from them,” Ralph Nader told me by phone. “So,” he said of Sanders, “How serious is he? He makes Clinton a better phony candidate. She is going to have to agree with him on a number of things. She is going to have to be more anti-Wall Street to fend him off and neutralize him. We know it is bullshit. She will betray us once she becomes president. He is making her more likely to win. And by April he is done. Then he fades away.”

Chris goes on to says that only an independent political party dependent on a mass movement can achieve the revolutionary change needed. Read the rest here. 

The Oregon Progressive Party issued this press release today

:
Oregon Progressive Party asks Portland City Council to Join Seattle and Denounce Trans-Pacific Partnership and Fast Track
April 3, 2015
Contact:David Delk davidafd@ymail.com 503-232-5495

This week the Seattle City Council voted 9-0 in favor of a resolution to oppose the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership and the proposed "Fast Track" method of adopting it in Congress. See the article in the Seattle Times. The full text of the Seattle resolution is below.

Seattle is a major port city. International trade is a foundation of its economy. The Seattle City Council took this action, despite phone calls from President Obama and opposition from Ed Murray, mayor of Seattle.

"We urge the Portland City Commission to pass a similar resolution against the Trans-Pacific Partnership and Fast Track," said Jason Kafoury for the Oregon Progressive Party. "The Trans-Pacific Partnership would destroy the environmental, labor, and social justice laws of the United States and all of the states and localities within it. TPP puts the corporations in charge of both the economy and the government."

David Delk, chair of the Oregon Progressive Party stated, “The Trans Pacific Partnership would undermine the rule of law based on nation states, replacing it with rule of, by and for multi-national corporations. The ability of local governments like Portland's to make decisions would be subject to attacks by multi-national corporations, making a mockery of democracy.”

Shame on Mayor Hales and the Portland City Council for Rejoining the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF)

The Progressive Party applauds Commissioners Fritz and Novick for voting against rejoining the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF)

Progressive Party members Jason Kafoury and David Hess spoke against the City of Portland rejoining the JTTF agreement at the February 5, 2015, City Council meeting. Only Police Chief Larry O’Dea, U.S. Attorney Amanda Marshall and a representative from the Portland Business Alliance supported rejoining the JTTF. Over 35 activists, including Brandon Mayfield, spoke against rejoining the agreement. Over a hundred citizens attended. Please watch the videos at http://www.portlandoregon.gov/article/518464.

At the March Oregon Progressive Party public meeting, we appoved this statement to be mailed to our US Senators/Representatives and other stating our position of opposition to the granting of Fast Track Authority to the president as well as to the Trans Pacific Partnership, NAFTA on steriods corporate trade agreement. 

Because Oregon Senator Ron Wyden plays a unique role in moving the next corporate trade agreements forward, the Oregon Progressive Party calls for Senator Wyden to abandon his talks with Senator Hatch of the Senate Finance Committee for granting revised Trade Promotion Authority (Fast Track Authority) to President Obama and to opposite the trade agreements which President Obama has been negotiating in top secret for as long as the past 5 years.

IN a letter to the editor of the The Oregonian, OR Progressive Party state council member wrote:

The Oregonian continues to repeat Kate Brown's talking points of favoring campaign finance reform. The record suggests that is a smoke screen to get votes. In fact, as Secretary of State, she has had the opportunity to enforce Measure 47, passed in 2006 by the state's voters, with strict limits on campaign contributions and expenditures. She has chosen not to enforce the law.

In the present legislature she has proposed two bills - one a constitutional amendment to allow limitations on contributions in candidate elections only. An effective amendment would also cover independent expenditures in candidate elections as well spending on initiative campaigns. The second would set some contribution limits in candidate elections but leaves gaping holes, and then, to add insult to injury, would overturn those limits contained in the voter approved Measure 47.

If Ms. Brown were truly in favor of campaign finance reform, she would have enforced the law which already exists instead of trying to eliminate it.

Our party stands for keeping fossil fuels in the ground. Public resources should be dedicated to clean, renewable energy such as wind and solar power.  

We urge the Portland Planning and Sustainability Commission to vote No on the proposed zoning amendment that will allow propane to be piped through an environmentally sensitive area. That zoning has existed since 1989 and exists to stop  environmentally dangerous activity like this proposed terminal. Why change it now?

Environmentalists worry that storing this propane could result in a massive explosion that would endanger thousands of citizens. In addition to accidental explosions, trains with 100 cars of compressed liquid propane are easy targets for terrorism.

The Canadian company Pembina wants to use Portland as its major export point for fossil fuels shipping to Asia.

We urge residents to attend the March 17 Planning and Sustainability Commission meeting and oppose the export terminal.

Tuesday, March 17, 3:00 PM
Planning and Sustainability Commission (PSC)
1900 SW 4th Ave.
Portland OR

Send comments to psc@portlandoregon.gov with "Terminal Zoning" in the subject line or send a letter to the PSC at above address, Attn: Terminal Zoning

More information is available on this informative flyer from ILWU, Columbia Riverkeeper, and Audubon Society of Portland. 

OPP calls for end to negotiations of more NAFTA-style trade agreements and no Fast Track Authority for the President

So, when the President and his largely Republican and corporate-friendly Democratic party allies in Congress now talk about making passage of Fast Track Authority and the Trans Pacific Partnership the number one area of cooperation in the new Congress, we must demand that the President stop negotiating these new agreements and that Congress not grant him Fast Track Authority.

Support a 28th constitutional amendment by printing this as a post card and then mail a copy to each of your US Senators and Representatives. Complete instructions and addresses are available on the Alliance for Democracy website here.

Rally before Sen Wyden's Portland Town Hall Meeting

Saturday, January 3, 2:00 PM, (Town Hall meeting starts at 2:30 PM)
Portland Community College, SE Campus
SE 82nd and Division

Sen Wyden is having a series of town hall meetings and, at this one in Portland, we will rally to let Sen Wyden know that we do not support the same old Fast Track Authority (FTA) which he has opposed in the past. FTA has been used in the past to speed corporate trade agreements (like NAFTA, CAFTA and the most recent US So Korea Agreement) through Congress without the usual democratic process - FTA allows limited debate and no amendments. More information on other town halls meeting is available on the Economic Justice Action Group of 1st Unitarian Church website at http://www.ejag.org/events.html

Sen. Wyden has indicated that he is working with Republican Senator Hatch, new chair of the Senate Finance Committee, to present a modified Fast Track Authority bill for approval as one of the most pressing pieces of business for the new session of Congress.  But if that modified FTA does not allow Congress to fully debate the agreements presented and allow amendments to the agreements to be presented, debated and voted on, then it will still be the same old Fast Track Authority.

We need to tell the Senator that we don't want to speed job destroying environmentally harmful,corporate trade agreement which attack the soverienity of the nations through Congress.  We expect, we demand full debates and then rejection of such agreements.

If you can't be at the rally, then please email and call his office with the messge that you are paying attention and that you expect him to represent you, not the corporate interests which drive the writing of agreements like the Trans Pacific Partnership, the Trans Atlantic Free Trade Agreements and the Trade in Services Agreement.

Portland Premier of Internationally Acclaimed Film
"Shadows of Liberty"
 Friday, December 12 at 7:00 PM, The Oregon Labor Center,  3645 SE 32nd Ave
Cost:  Free, with donations appreciated.

Sponsored by Alliance for Democracy, Move to AmendPDX, Economic Justice Action Group of First Unitarian Church, KBOO, OR AFL-CIO

ABOUT SHADOWS OF LIBERTY: Shadows of Liberty reveals the extraordinary truth behind the news media: censorship, cover?ups and corporate control. Filmmaker Jean-Philippe Tremblay takes an intrepid journey through the darker corridors of the American media landscape, where global conglomerates call the shots. For decades, their overwhelming influence has distorted news journalism and compromised its values.  In highly revealing stories, renowned journalists, activists and academics give insider accounts of a broken media system. Controversial news reports are suppressed, people are censored for speaking out, and lives are shattered as the arena for public expression is turned into a private profit zone.  Tracing the story of media manipulation through the years, Shadows of Liberty poses a crucial question: why have we let a handful of powerful corporations write the news?

FEATURING: Danny Glover, Julian Assange, Dan Rather, Amy Goodman, David Simon, Daniel Ellsberg, Norman Solomon, Janine Jackson, Dick Gregory, Roberta Baskin, Robert McChesney, John Nichols, Kristina Borjesson, Chris Hedges, and many more.

The Oregon Progressive Party (OPP) stands in solidarity with the people of Ferguson MO in their struggles for justice in a system based on injustice, especially for those whose skins are black or brown. The immediate issue is the killing by a white police officer, Darren Wilson, of a young black man, Michael Brown, compounded by the refusal by the local grand jury to indict that officer on any charge. While the grand jury's refusal to indict was expected, still the people of Ferguson are outraged. And the people of all America are outraged not only by this white on black killing but also because of the system of injustice represented by this process is only a symptom of the institutional racism and classism present in America today.

HEALTH CARE FOR ALL OREGON 2015 RALLY AND LOBBY DAY

Join the Oregon Progressive Party and 
Health Care for All Oregon
on the steps of the Oregon capital in Salem on

February 11, 2015
11 AM - 1 PM

The 2015 legislative session will have started earlier in the week and we gather to tell our state representatives and senators that we need a health care financing system in Oregon which is
Affordable
Universal
and results in better health care outcomes
for all Oregonians.

We need a Single Payer Healthcare system to replace the private for-profit insurance system we have now.

Register today to go and rally and then to lobby our elected officials. Register here.

Everybody In, Nobody Out!
Because health care is a human right!