Washington Post Fires Harold Meyerson

Peter Dreier 

Harold Meyerson

Fred Hiatt, the Washington Post's editorial page editor, has fired columnist Harold Meyerson, one of the nation's finest journalists and perhaps the only self-proclaimed socialist to write a weekly column for a major American newspaper during the past decade or two.  ( see post below) 

At a time when America is experiencing an upsurge of progressive organizing and activism -- from Occupy Wall Street, to Black Lives Matter, to the growing movement among low-wage workers demanding higher minimum wages, to Bernie Sanders' campaign for president -- we need a regular columnist who can explain what's going on, why it's happening, and what it means. 

More than any other columnist for a major U.S. newspaper, Meyerson provided ongoing coverage and incisive analysis of the nation's labor movement and other progressive causes as well as the changing economy and the increasing aggressiveness of big business in American politics. He was one of the few columnists in the country who knew labor leaders and grassroots activists by name, and who could write sympathetically and knowledgeably about working people's experiences in their workplaces and communities. 

The Rich Get Richer

Harold Meyerson
“Follow the money,” “Deep Throat” famously tells Bob Woodward, hot on the trail of The Post’s most celebrated story, in the film “All the President’s Men.” In more recent decades, following the money has yielded a tale quite as calamitous as Watergate: the evisceration of the American middle class at the hands of the American rich.

A Pew Research Center study released in December documents this shift. In 1970, middle-income households claimed 62 percent of all personal income, while upper-income households received 29 percent. In 2014, the share going to middle-income households had declined to 43 percent, while that going to the top had soared to 49 percent. (While many on the right insist that the poor are somehow draining the middle class’s pocketbooks, that malignant myth is completely belied by Pew’s figures.

Sy Hersh Blockbuster: Top U.S. General Ignored Obama, Led Secret Plot to Protect Assad and Bring Russia Into Syrian War @alternet

Sy Hersh Blockbuster: Top U.S. General Ignored Obama, Led Secret Plot to Protect Assad and Bring Russia Into Syrian War @alternet

antiracismdsa: Dreamer Speaking for Bernie Sanders

antiracismdsa: Dreamer Speaking for Bernie Sanders: Begin at 7;19

Organizers Seek $15 Hour Wage in Sacramento

Allen Young

A group of community organizers on Monday formally launched a $15 hourly minimum wage ballot measure in Sacramento. The group, known as Raise the Wage Sacramento, must now collect signatures to qualify the measure for the November ballot.

"We will take our ballot initiative and shop it for endorsements" to fund and operate a campaign, said Tamie Dramer, chair of Organize Sacramento, a group affiliated with Raise the Wage Sacramento.

The initiative would override the city's $12.50 minimum wage ordinance passed in October, starting with a minimum wage of $11.50 in 2017 and rising to $15 in 2020, with inflation adjustments thereafter. It would also provide workers with one hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours worked.

Protesters Rally Against Western States Petroleum Association, Oil Caucus

by Dan Bacher 

On December 10, 350 Sacramento and Rootskeeper.org co-sponsored a Day of Action in Sacramento with the theme "How the Grinches Stole Climate Justice." 

The event, held on the last day of the Paris Climate Talks, started with a rally by over 40 people on the West Steps of the Capitol. The Raging Grannies opened and closed the march with their songs against fracking and Big Oil. 

Speakers at the rally included Chris Brown of Sacramento 350, Jessica Wohlander from the Rootskeeper, Valarie Martin of Californians for Green Energy and others. I spoke about the power of the Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA) in California. 

Bernie Sanders Knocks Donald Trump's Scapegoating Strategy | MSNBC

Senator Bernie Sanders, Democratic candidate for president, talks with Rachel Maddow about Republican front-runner Donald Trump's extreme views on Muslims in America, and what Trump's supporters are attracted to in him as a candidate.

Tell the Networks- Cover Bernie

We all knew that the corporate media wouldn't give Bernie a fair shake. The classic quote is "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised". But we had no idea the numbers would be this ridiculously unfair. 

On evening news programs this year, Trump's insane ramblings garnered 234 minutes. Bernie? 10 minutes. That's not a typo. 234 to 10!

So it's time for all of us Bernie supporters to lend our voices to the fight. The good news is it will only take a couple of minutes of your time. See the multiple means for contacting ABC, CBS, and NBC's evening news programs below. That's where we'll start.

Now, let's get to work. Find east-to-use contact links below. Use them and let us know what you've done, by reporting to mikefox@pdamerica.org. Explain that basic journalistic principles require that they report on Bernie fairly and comprehensively. 

You can mention that Bernie has more supporters than Trump according to the consensus numbers from national opinion polls, attendance at rallies, and total number of donors.

Or that he is far ahead of where then-Senator Obama was in both the polls and total fundraising at this time in the 2008 cycle. 

Or that Bernie received endorsements from unions and grassroots advocacy organizations including the Communications Workers of America, Democracy for America, National Nurses United, and the Working Families Party.

Will Voters Elect a Fascist ?

Will US Voters Elect a Fascist as President ?

Robert Kutner

It appears that nothing Donald Trump says deflates his standing in the polls. The more outlandish his comments, the more his support grows.

The Washington Post recently reported on a focus group conducted by arch-Republican strategist Frank Luntz with 29 Trump supporters. Literally no argument Luntz could devise shook their faith in Trump -- but only reinforced it.

America has been a sitting duck for a figure like Trump for a long time. The combination of a deeply eroding democracy, the downward mobility of white men other than the top ten percent, and the fusion of shallow media celebrity with politics -- all this has created tinder as vulnerable to conflagration as a brittle forest after years of drought.

Combine these conditions with a real threat of terrorism that is bewilderingly complex, and the right celebrity bully -- and you have a perfect storm for an American Caesar.

We're Going To Change Everything

Creamer: Dems Must Unite Against New Effort to End Unions | Democratic Strategist

Creamer: Dems Must Unite Against New Effort to End Unions | Democratic Strategist

Bernie Watch Parties

Did you see last week's headline? "Report: ABC World News Tonight Has Devoted 81 Minutes to Trump, One Minute to Sanders."

The big networks, controlled by a handful of large corporations, have largely ignored Bernie's record breaking campaign. At the same time, they are serving up wall-to-wall coverage of Donald Trump's racist and xenophobic rantings.

Saturday's debate gives Bernie an all-too-rare opportunity to get his message directly out to American voters via national television. And fellow Bernie supporters are gathering to watch together at an event near you:

News Shows Give 234 minutes to Trump, 10 Minutes to Sanders

A new report finds the flagship news programs at major networks NBC, CBS and ABC have dedicated 234 minutes this year to stories about Donald Trump—compared to just 10 minutes for Democratic presidential candidate Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. The gap comes despite Trump and Sanders often having similar levels of support in primary polls. The Tyndall Report found ABC’s World News Tonight, for example, has devoted 81 minutes to Trump campaign stories—and less than one minute to Sanders, for the entire year.

So it's time for all of us Bernie supporters to lend our voices to the fight. The good news is it will only take a couple of minutes of your time. See the multiple means for contacting ABC, CBS, and NBC's evening news programs below. That's where we'll start.

Now, let's get to work. Find east-to-use contact links below. Use them and let us know what you've done, by reporting to mikefox@pdamerica.org. Explain that basic journalistic principles require that they report on Bernie fairly and comprehensively. 

antiracismdsa: College Protests- Worthwhile Causes

antiracismdsa: College Protests- Worthwhile Causes: by Jimmy  Franco, Sr The deep-seated anger that caused the recent outbreak of student protests at colleges across the country has be...

US Funds for Climate Change

David Halperin

Attorney, advocate, writer at RepublicReport.org

U.S. Fund to Fight Global Climate Change Is Less Than Annual Payout to a Single For-Profit College

Last week, at a critical point in the Paris negotiations on global climate change, Secretary of State John Kerry announced that the United States would commit $800 million annually to help developing nations adapt to a warming climate and move to cleaner energy. $800 million doubled the prior U.S. pledge, and the announcement may have helped seal the deal. $800 million is a great deal of money. But it is actually less than U.S. taxpayers provided in the past year to each of five major for-profit college companies -- all of which have been under investigation in recent years by federal and state law enforcement agencies for deceiving their students, lying to government regulators, and other abuses.

Robert Reich : The Investments of the 158

Historic Climate Deal Reached, But Campaigners say the Work is Just Beginning

Historic Climate Deal Reached, But Campaigners say the Work is Just Beginning

Wall Street Journal Covers DSA

BOLIVAR, Pa.—Sen. Bernie Sanders calls himself a democratic socialist, and when voters scan the Web to see what that means, the trail often leads to a band of about 6,500 leftists pining for relevance in a country that has long deemed “socialism” a dirty word.

Since he entered the race in May, the Democratic Socialists of America have seen monthly new members spiking two and three times the levels of a year before. 

Nearly 10,000 people visited the group’s website the day of the Democratic debate in Las Vegas in October—more than six times the usual number.

Photo by Reid Jenkins

“This is a gift from the socialist gods,” Joseph Schwartz, a Temple University professor and a vice chairman of the Democratic Socialists, said at the group’s biennial national convention in Pennsylvania last month. About 120 people showed up—a 33% jump that members attribute to Mr. Sanders’s candidacy.

For much of their 33-year history, Democratic Socialists have had little to celebrate. Capitalism has endured. Mainstream campaigns don’t always want them around.

Sac City Unified to Reduce Class Sizes k-3

Choosing Democracy: Sac City Unified to Reduce Class Sizes k-3: By Duane Campbell The Sac City Unified district has decided to reduce class sizes in k-3 classes down to a maximum of 24 students for th...

Bernie Sanders Looks Forward to Beating Donald Trump

Stand Up to Hate

antiracismdsa: Stand Up to Hate:   The political statement below was passed by the DSA National Political Committee on December 1, 2015. Unfortunately, in just the one w...

Donald Trump and the Republican Party's 2016 Death Spiral

Joe Palermo 

Donald Trump, the Republican Party's frontrunner for the 2016 presidential nomination, is now promising if he's elected to close down Mosques, track Muslims with a database, and stop them from entering the country. Is anybody surprised at this point that Trump would take anti-Muslim xenophobia to a whole new level?

In his most brazen statement to date Trump demanded "a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what the hell is going on. We have no choice," he said. "We, have, no, choice!" His remarks received a thunderous ovation at a rally in Nuremberg, South Carolina. 

Rachel Maddow suggests that Trump might be intentionally going over the cliff to get himself ejected from the Republican Party to open up the field to another less extreme candidate who would have a better chance of winning the general election. But who exactly from the Republican National Committee or the Republican-controlled Congress is going to step up to jettison Trump? Reince Priebus? Paul Ryan? Mitch McConnell? Mitt Romney? There's no indication that the RNC or any prominent Republican figure can hit the brakes on the Trump clown car.

Choosing Democracy: Donald Trump is Dangerous to Democracy

Choosing Democracy: Donald Trump is Dangerous to Democracy: Sacramento Bee Editorial Board.  Dec. 6, 2015. It is supreme irony that Donald Trump’s campaign slogan is “Make Americ...

Climate Marches World Wide Being Ignored by Mainstream Media

Over 3,000 people from a coalition of over 100 labor, environmental, faith, and social justice groups held a march and rally Saturday, November 21, 2015 to demand a legally binding global agreement to implement “rapid, effective and just” responses to climate change at the 2015 UN Conference of Parties in Paris (AKA COP21). 

The Northern California Climate Mobilization started with a gathering at 10:30 am at Lake Merritt Amphitheatre in Oakland, followed by a march at noon to Oscar Grant Plaza at 14th St. and Broadway. 

The march was led by indigenous leaders holding a colorful array of signs proclaiming, “Defend the Earth,” Leave It In The Ground,” “Despierta – Awake,” “Idle No More” and other slogans. 

The marchers included Bay Area frontline communities at risk from threats that include highly toxic and lethally volatile “bomb trains” carrying fracked crude and dirty tar sands to the 5 Bay Area refineries, and dirty coal shipped through the Ports of Oakland and Richmond. Marchers came in buses from Sacramento, Sonoma County and other areas. 

Fighting Back Against a Rising Tide of Nativism

Dylan Roof

“Fighting Back Against the Rising Tide of Nativist and Racist Reaction”

A statement by the National Political Committee of Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)

November 30, 2015

The Democratic Socialists of America call on all progressives across the United States to join together in a broad coalition against the rising tide of racist and nativist politics in the United States. The nativist fear-mongering by one Democratic and 27 Republican governors about the alleged threat posed to U.S. residents by Syrian refugees (themselves often fleeing ISIL violence) and undocumented immigrants obscures the true violent threat to our collective security: nativist, racist and misogynist terrorism. 

Recent tragedies have shown all too clearly the state of crisis in which we find ourselves. The Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood shooting illustrates how right-wing hostility to women’s rights makes those providing and seeking reproductive services targets for murder. The shooting of Black Lives Matter protesters in Minneapolis by white supremacists demonstrates that anyone doing work around racial justice must now expect and prepare for a violent racist response. And in Chicago, recent revelations of a year-long cover-up by city officials of the blatant police murder of Laquan McDonald add yet another chapter to the shameful history of police terror against African Americans and other communities of color. Meanwhile, ongoing harassment of individuals and groups who appear to be Muslim or immigrants goes under-reported in the press, as do attacks on mosques and Black churches. 

Robert Deer 

Over the past decade, heavily armed and mostly white men have killed or injured close to 1,000 individuals in politically-motivated shootings and other mass killings. These are not isolated incidents. They are encouraged by a rhetorical climate produced by right-wing politicians and media personalities who blame immigrants, poor African Americans and foreign countries for the decline in white working-class standards of living. Donald Trump is a perfect example: for him, the barriers to America’s “greatness” are Mexican immigrants, Muslim terrorists, Black protesters, China’s economic and military power and American leaders too weak to oppose them. This nativist politics diverts attention from the 1% — the capitalist class —that long ago declared war on working-class and poor people of all races. This politics is not the fault only of the Republican leaders who espouse it, but also of Democrats like Barack Obama and both Bill and Hillary Clinton, whose “free trade” and austerity policies contribute to the declining standards of working-class communities. This utter failure to put forward convincing ways to explain and solve the crisis leaves a vacuum that racists easily fill.

MAN vs EARTH

What's at Stake at the Paris Climate Conference ?

Naomi Klein

Friday, November 20, 2015. The Guardian

Whose security gets protected by any means necessary? Whose security is casually sacrificed, despite the means to do so much better? Those are the questions at the heart of the climate crisis, and the answers are the reason climate summits so often end in acrimony and tears.
The French government’s decision to ban protests, marches and other “outdoor activities” [1] during the Paris climate summit is disturbing on many levels [2]. The one that preoccupies me most has to do with the way it reflects the fundamental inequity of the climate crisis itself – and that core question of whose security is ultimately valued in our lopsided world.

Related: Organisers of cancelled Paris climate march urge global show of support [2]

Here is the first thing to understand. The people facing the worst impacts of climate change have virtually no voice in western debates about whether to do anything serious to prevent catastrophic global warming. Huge climate summits like the one coming up in Paris [3] are rare exceptions. For just two weeks every few years, the voices of the people who are getting hit first and worst get a little bit of space to be heard at the place where fateful decisions are made. That’s why Pacific islanders and Inuit hunters and low-income people of colour from places like New Orleans travel for thousands of miles to attend. The expense is enormous, in both dollars and carbon, but being at the summit is a precious chance to speak about climate change [4] in moral terms and to put a human face to this unfolding catastrophe.

Why the Sharing Economy Is Hurting Workers and What We Can Do About It

Paradise Burned : How Climate Change is Scorching California

Capital and Main

Jeff Zimmerman: Emergency Photographers Network

Paul Duncan, a battalion chief with California’s state firefighting agency, was at home in Northern California enjoying a day off on September 12 when he got the message: A wildfire was burning on Cobb Mountain, about a dozen miles away from Hidden Valley Lake, where he lived with his wife and two daughters.

Duncan, 46, decided to leave and help knock down the blaze because he knew the fire unit in the area was already short-staffed from putting out on another conflagration. Besides, his nearly 30 years of experience persuaded him there was no way a fire burning on a mountain to the west could burn down to the valley floor and then race eastward to threaten the Duncans’ home.
His optimism was short lived. Upon arriving on Cobb Mountain Duncan got some troubling news. The fire he was fighting was heading toward his family. At 5:13 p.m. he texted them: “The fire will be encroaching on Hidden Valley within an hour.”
Six minutes later his house was on fire.
His family escaped safely, but they were later faced with having to drive through fire on the roads. At 6:37 p.m., Duncan texted a message to his family he never imagined he’d have to send.
“If you have to drive through fire, keep your lights on, turn on your flashers and KEEP MOVING.”
Ten minutes later, his wife, Courtney, called in a panic — there was too much fire to drive through. Duncan reassured her and told her to “step on the gas and drive through the fire.”
“This was a ferocious fire, wind-driven in brush, moving about 25 to 30 miles per hour,” Duncan would later tell Capital & Main [1], after his house had burned to the ground. “I’ve never seen this type of fire behavior, especially this far north in California. It came with a speed more like a Santa Ana fire in Southern California.”

Hawks Want Us to Send Troops to Syria

Washington Post

Republicans Face Threats

Bernie Defines Socialism

Democratic presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders speaks at Georgetown University in Washington, Thursday, Nov. 19, 2015.

Harold Meyerson, 

During the 1930s conservatives repeatedly alleged that Franklin Roosevelt was really a socialist. Today, Bernie Sanders said they were right.

In a long awaited speech heralded as providing his definition of “democratic socialism,” the Vermont senator and Democratic presidential candidate on Thursday afternoon told a packed crowd of Georgetown University students—most of whom waited hours in a drenching rain to hear him—that by democratic socialism, he meant the economic and social principles laid down by FDR, most particularly in his 1944 State of the Union Address. In that speech, Roosevelt proclaimed that the nation needed a second, economic bill of rights. Sanders quoted the passage in which Roosevelt’s laid out the philosophic basis for such an expansion of rights: “True individual freedom,” Roosevelt said, “cannot exist without economic security and independence. Necessitous men are not free men.” The Vermont senator ran down the list of rights that Roosevelt enumerated: a decent job at decent pay, time off from work, a decent home, health care, and, for businesses, “an atmosphere free from unfair competition and domination by monopolies.”

The only other figure Sanders cited as shaping his vision of socialism was Martin Luther King, Jr. (Unlike FDR, King did indeed identify himself a democratic socialist, as did such other key civil rights leaders as A. Philip Randolph, Bayard Rustin, and James Farmer. Roosevelt called himself various things—most commonly a liberal, and once, when asked his philosophy, responded that he was “a Christian and a Democrat”—but never a socialist.) King, said Sanders, followed in FDR’s footsteps in proclaiming the need for economic as well as civil rights.

Syrian Refugees - Elizabeth Warren

Over the past four years, millions of people have fled their homes in Syria, running for their lives. In recent months, the steady stream of refugees has been a flood that has swept across Europe.

Every day, refugees set out on a journey hundreds of miles, from Syria to the Turkish coast. When they arrive, human smugglers charge them $1000 a head for a place on a shoddy, overloaded, plastic raft that is given a big push and floated out to sea, hopefully toward one of the Greek islands.

Last month, I visited the Greek island of Lesvos to see the Syrian refugee crisis up close. Lesvos is only a few miles away from the Turkish coast, but the risks of crossing are immense. This is a really rocky, complicated shoreline – in and out, in and out. The overcrowded, paper-thin smuggler rafts are tremendously unsafe, especially in choppy waters or when a storm picks up.

Friedrichs v California CTA

Choosing Democracy: Friedrichs v California CTA

Faith Leaders -- End Fracking

800_religous_leaders_sing...
original image ( 5184x3456)

Faith Leaders Urge Governor Jerry Brown to End Fracking in California 

by Dan Bacher 

As Governor Jerry Brown was getting ready to portray himself as a "climate leader" at the upcoming United Nations Climate Summit in Paris, faith leaders, environmental advocates, frontline communities and residents from across California rallied at the State Capitol in Sacramento on November 12 to call on Brown to halt all dangerous oil and gas drilling practices, including fracking. 

DSA Advances Sanders Campaign

Members come from around U.S., support Sanders 

Nov. 14,2015.

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 By Chris Potter / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

An Orthodox Christian church retreat in Westmoreland County might seem an unlikely place for the nation’s largest socialist organization to hold a national convention. But then the American political map is being redrawn in countless ways – not least by the organization’s favorite presidential candidate, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.

“We’ve been pushing Bernie before he was running,” said David Duhalde, deputy director of the Democratic Socialists of America. “We knew he would give a large space for a conversation about democratic socialism.”

Organizers say 120 DSA members traveled from as far away as California to the Antiochian Village retreat in Bolivar. They’ll be there through Sunday, talking about a revolution that seems a bit more plausible than it did a year ago.

“This has already been such a mobilizing moment,” said Dustin Guastella, a Philadelphia DSA member who co-chairs the group’s We Need Bernie Committee.

Though Mr. Sanders refers to himself as a democratic socialist, he is not a DSA member. But the organization claims 6,500 Americans who are, and members say the movement has attracted new interest since Mr. Sanders decided to run as a Democrat this past spring.

Governor Brown's 10 Worst Environmental Policies

The governor failed to show up for an environmental award after outrage from environmentalists, indigenous leaders and labor activists who exposed Brown's abysmal environmental record.

By Dan Bacher / AlterNet

On October 17, Governor Brown failed to show up to receive a “Right Stuff” environmental award from the BlueGreen Alliance at a gala dinner at Le Parc Hotel in San Francisco as over 60 people protested outside.


Every year, the Apollo Alliance Project of the BlueGreen Alliance Foundationrecognizes business, community, environmental and labor leaders for their “outstanding work in advocating for family-sustaining jobs, clean energy, stronger infrastructure, and a better future for all of us.” This year, they selected Governor Jerry Brown as a winner in the government category.


Outraged over the selection of Brown for the award after he has advanced so many bad environmental policies such as promoting fracking, a coalition of environmentalists, indigenous leaders and labor activists organized the protest to expose the real, abysmal environmental record of Governor Brown.

Students Take Over Campuses Demanding Free College

Students Take Over US Campuses Demanding Free College

PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION

Student activists held actions on some 120 campuses, demanding free tuition, cancellation of student debts and a $15 minimum wage for campus workers. 

Zach Cartwright 

US Uncut

November 12, 2015

To see the videos, Go to the source.  U.S. Uncut. 

An unprecedented wave of action is sweeping across 120 college campuses today. Participants in the nationwide “Million Student March” (#MillionStudentMarch) are uniting around three demands: tuition-free public colleges and universities, cancellation of $1.3 trillion in student debt, and a $15 an hour minimum wage for all campus workers. Here are some live updates from campuses across America participating in the historic first-ever national day of action for free college.

The Million Student March at the University of California’s Santa Barbara campus swelled to several hundred this afternoon. This video shows the size of the crowd as they gathered in front of Campbell Hall:

Hundreds of students took over the Temple University campus in Philadelphia this afternoon. They were later joined by students from Drexel University and the University of Pennsylvania’s Philadelphia campus for a march on city hall:

At the University of Texas’ main campus in Austin, several hundred students walked out:

Trump Proposes an Inhumane Immigration Plan - Wash...

antiracismdsa: Trump Proposes an Inhumane Immigration Plan - Wash...: Ed. note. To its credit, the Washington Post recognized the Trump deportation plan for what it is.  Washington Post By Editorial B...

Big Oil Lobbying Money Dominates Legislature

Big oil lobbying money turns California the WRONG kind of green

By Dan Bacher

Western States Petroleum Association Spent Record $6.75 Million In 3 Months!

California has over the years acquired a largely undeserved reputation for being the nation’s “green” leader when in fact the state’s so-called “visionary” environmental policies have resulted in some of the most polluted rivers and air, most imperiled fish populations, most destructive public work projects and most racist and environmentally unjust treatment of Indigenous Peoples and people of color in the nation.

The biggest-ever gusher of Big Oil lobbying money into the state in one quarter, July 1 to September 30, 2015, resulted in the gutting or the defeat of every bill that the oil industry opposed, exposing once and for all the “Big Lie” that California, the country’s third largest oil producing state, is the nation’s “green” leader.

The Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA), the largest and most powerful corporate lobbying group in Sacramento, set a new record for spending in one quarter when it spent an amazing $6,750,666.60 lobbying state officials in the third quarter of 2015 to lobby against Senate Bill 350, Senate Bill 32 and other environmental bills it opposed.

SEIU: Do the Right Thing

SEIU is about to endorse the candidate who doesn't support $15 an hour

According to recent news accounts, the SEIU International Executive Board (IEB) is about to endorse Hillary Clinton on Tuesday, Nov. 17.

SEIU's biggest national campaign is the Fight for $15 and a union. Across the country, we are organizing workers to strike and demand a $15 minimum wage. Leaders and organizers will lose credibility if SEIU endorses a candidate in the Democratic Primaries who does not support a $15 minimum wage.

Members need to tell SEIU President Mary Kay Henry that an endorsement for Clinton at this time will divide and weaken our union. Call SEIU at 202-730-7000 and ask for Mary Kay Henry's office or email her at henrym@seiu.org.  SEIU also has a "concerns and complaints" line for members at 202-730-7684. Make your voice heard now!

Hillary Clinton is on public record as opposing a federal minimum wage of $15 per hour. She supports $12 an hour by 2020.  While she will support a higher minimum wage in certain markets and for certain sectors, she is not supporting the principle demand of SEIU's most important campaign as a national policy position.  It is hard to ask workers to strike for $15 an hour in one breath when we are opposing the candidate (Sen. Sanders) who proposed national legislation for $15 an hour, in order to support a candidate who rejects our demand.

"If we do not vote, the haters will win," Dolores Huerta

antiracismdsa: "If we do not vote, the haters will win," Dolores...: Dolores Huerta  Dolores Huerta, who co-founded United Farmworkers with Cesar Chavez and who is an Honorary Chair of Democratic Sociali...

Dan Bacher Recognized by Project Censored

Dan's pieces often appear here on the Sacramento Progressive Alliance. 

EGN Contributor Dan Bacher's Reporting on Illegal Dumping of Fracking Wastewater is Project Censored's #2 Story of 2015

 

Written By EGN on Sunday, October 18, 2015 | 10:00  

 

If being censored by corporate mainstream media were a badge of honor, Elk Grove News contributor and Fish Sniffer managing editor Dan Bacher would be highly decorated.

 

According to ProjectCensored.org, Bacher's 2014 story on the oil industry's illegal dumping of waste water into Central California's aquifers was the second most significant story not covered by mainstream media outlets. In their summary Project Censored noted "In May 2015, the Los Angeles Times ran a front-page feature on Central Valley crops irrigated with treated oil field water; however, the Los Angeles Times report made no mention of the Center for Biological Diversity’s findings regarding fracking wastewater contamination."

 

In addition, months earlier Bacher also reported on the cozy relationship between big oil and California state legislatures who received over $63 million to persuade them to continue fracking in the state. Connecting the dots, Bacher and Danny Shaw of Maplight.org documented that California state "senators who voted against the moratorium [SB 1132] received fourteen times more money in campaign contributions from the oil industry than those who voted for it.

Fraud Allegations Fly as Haitian Presidential Election Heads to Runoff

Housing, Wages, and the Sacramento City Council

Sacramento City Council chambers

High rent and low wages are squeezing poor and low-income families across California, including those living in its capital. But the Sacramento City Council’s actions on both economic issues are weak, some progressive critics say.

“The city caters to the continued gentrification of downtown,” Bob Erlenbusch, executive director of the Sacramento Regional Coalition to End Homelessness, said in an email to Capital & Main. “That is underpinned by market-rate housing surrounding the new arena.”

The vast majority of Sacramento’s low-income residents live outside the revitalized central city.

CLICK TO TWEET

In 2014 the Sacramento City Council threw its political weight (without a public referendum) behind Golden 1 Center, the new $507 million downtown arena that is the future home of the Sacramento Kings basketball team. This September the council approved a plan for the city to issue $272.9 million in bonds, using city parking revenue to pay the arena’s construction bond debt.

Meanwhile, Sacramento’s apartment rentals “are well above the rest of the nation,” the California Legislative Analyst’s Office reports. “The average rent in Sacramento is $950 a month versus $840 nationally.” Sacramento’s City Council oversees the rate of developer fees to fund affordable housing. On September 1 it approved a new $2.58-per-square-foot construction fee that would go into a housing trust fund to help both the poor and low-wage workers.

10/29/2015 BERNİE SANDERS’ strength? Millennials back socialism

Join the Movement

Paul Ryan and the Tea Party

The Paradox of Paul Ryan: Why the Tea Party’s Right to be Wary

There’s a paradox to all this. Despite his ideological kinship with the anti-government crowd, Paul Ryan is the embodiment of the troika of money, power, and politics that corrupts and controls the capital, the very thing the tea partiers detest. 

Bill Moyers, Michael Winship

Common Dreams

October 27, 2015

AP/Steve Helber

Only in a world where Cosmopolitan magazine can declare the Kardashians “America’s First Family” and the multi-billionaire loose cannon Donald Trump is perceived by millions as the potential steward of our nuclear arsenal could about-to-be Speaker of the House Paul Ryan be savaged as insufficiently right-wing.

This is after all a man who made his bones in Congress and the Republican Party as an Ayn Rand-spouting, body building budget-buster slashing away at the body politic like a mad vivisectionist, as well as an anti-choice, pro-gun zealot who never met a government program he liked (except the military, whose swollen budget he would increase until we are all left naked living in a national security state).