Local Democrats vote agains Farm Workers

AB 1313, by Assemblymember Michael Allen (D-Santa Rosa), is United Farm Workers-sponsored bill to grant overtime pay for farm workers after eight hours a day or 40 hours a week just like any other California workers. AB 1313 needs a few more votes to make it off the state Assembly floor and go to Governor Jerry Brown's desk.

Both local Assemblyman Richard Pan, and Assemblywoman Alyson Huber voted against the bill.  We have endorsed these Democrats in the past.

It has been 74 years since farm workers and domestic workers were left out of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, the landmark federal law setting minimum wages and overtime for nearly all American workers.

To win votes from Southern lawmakers back in 1938, President Franklin D. Roosevelt was forced to exempt farm and domestic workers. Nearly all of those workers in the Southern U.S. then were African Americans. Today in California and across the country, most farm workers are Latinos.

The exclusion of farm workers from overtime after eight hours was wrong in 1938. It is wrong now. The time has come for it to end. California provides 80 percent of the nation's fresh produce and as a result its agricultural laws set the standard for the nation.  Tell your Assemblymember to end this shameful legacy of racism in California by voting in favor of AB 1313.

Yes on Prop 30

Ryan’s VP Spin

Ryan’s VP Spin

Paul Ryan blames Obama for GM plant closed under Bush

Ryan Speech Fact Checked

BRIAN BEUTLER AUGUST 30, 2012, 12:12 AM 94833

Vice Presidential nominee Paul Ryan’s headlining speech at the GOP convention in Tampa Wednesday night touched on many of the election’s defining issues. But it was also filled with prevarications — not just recitations of the conventions “you didn’t build that” theme, but on the very policy matters that have endeared him to the political establishment in Washington.

The speech effectively rallied his supporters in the audience. But on the merits it was chock full of misstatements of fact that undermine his reputation for brave, big ideas — which has hastened his rise through the ranks of the GOP.

Here are the top five examples:

 Medicare

 Ryan forged his reputation in large part by drafting and advancing an unpopular plan to dramatically cut and privatize Medicare. Though he didn’t mention that plan once on Wednesday, he included it in his last two budgets, both of which preserved the Affordable Care Acts cuts to Medicare — taken mostly from overpayments to private insurers and hospitals.

Instead, Ryan once again dubiously accused President Obama of being the true threat to Medicare.

Workers at Bain-Owned Illinois Factory Bring Fight to Save Outsourced Jo...

How the Right’s Building a ‘Poll Watcher’ Network for November - COLORLINES

How the Right’s Building a ‘Poll Watcher’ Network for November - COLORLINES

From Tijuana, Ex-Dreamer Calls for Immigration Reform | California Progress Report

From Tijuana, Ex-Dreamer Calls for Immigration Reform | California Progress Report

The Romney-Ryan Economic Plan

The Paul Ryan Plan: Bernie Sanders

Prop 32 is Citizens United on Steroids.

Prop 32 Is Citizens United on Steroids
The truth about who dominates California elections and why
Proposition 32 would make it even worse.

by John Logan

In a recent op-ed in the Sacramento Bee, conservative
columnist Margaret Bengs revealed the true motivation behind
Proposition 32, this year's most deceptive ballot initiative
- a desire to eliminate entirely organized labor's voice in
California politics.

Bengs railed against political spending by the California
Teachers Association, and was particularly offended that, in
addition to protecting public education, the teachers union
opposed Prop 8, the state's anti-same-sex-marriage measure.
"It is well known," Bengs proclaimed, that the CTA and other
public sector unions "have an inordinate control over
California government."

The problem with Bengs' column is that, like Prop 32 itself,
it provides a fundamentally misleading message. In reality,
our elections are dominated by wealthy business interests
and by billionaires, not by unions, and Prop 32 would make
that situation much worse.

AFL-CIO Super PAC and MoveOn join to get out the vote for Obama

AFL-CIO Super PAC and MoveOn join to get out the vote for Obama

The Romney-Ryan Economic Plan

This election is about Democracy

The November election is about voting to defend Democracy 

 Monday, August 20, 2012.

DSAmediacontact@gmail.com                      

In a statement [see below] issued by its national political committee, the Democratic Socialists of America calls upon the nation and DSA members to defend democracy by participating in the critical 2012 elections. The statement says, “The Left confronts a Republican Party thoroughly controlled by right-wing forces that are determined to cement a long-term control of the federal government and a majority of the states.”  The statement notes that after the 2010 Congressional elections, “A newly established Republican political control over several Midwestern states turned into a sweeping assault on public sector unions and on the social safety net.”

The statement says “A major weapon of the Radical Right is an unprecedented flood of money from super-wealthy individuals and corporations into the political arena, buying influence and votes on a massive scale.”

Joe Schwartz, chair of DSA’s national political committee, criticizes the Democratic Party for its past tepid response to the Right Wing resurgence saying, “when the country cried out for a vigorous defense against the ravages created by Wall Street greed, Obama’s economic advisors (largely drawn from Wall Street) extended the Bush administration’s bailout of the banks and financial elite without extracting a return in restored, strict financial regulation.”

The statement calls upon DSA members to work with labor unions, campus groups, the NAACP and others to “work against all forms of voter suppression. “ They note, “The first task of a movement to defend democracy is to work for maximum voter turnout in the 2012 election.”

Julian Assange addresses the U.S. people

CNN's Peter Bergen calls BS on attempts to swiftboat Obama

CNN's Peter Bergen calls BS on attempts to swiftboat Obama

This Video MIGHT Stop Romney From Becoming President

This Video MIGHT Stop Romney From Becoming President

The posts on this blog are selected by members of the Progressive Alliance Board to reflect the perspectives of the Sacramento Progressive Alliance. No authors of original material receive contributions from campaigns or political committees as defined by the California Fair Political Practices Commission.

At times we post videos from a variety of sources.  We follow the guidelines of Fair Use for these posts. We receive no contributions for these postings.

The posts on this blog are expressions of our Freedom of Speech as protected by the U.S. Constitution and our right to participate in political debate. 

The Great Tax Heist

The Great Tax Heist.

In 1995 the richest Americans- the four hundred households with the highest incomes- paid 51.2 percent of their income in federal taxes.

In 2007, on the eve of the global financial meltdown, the four hundred richest Americans paid 16.6 percent of their income in federal taxes….

When Ronald Reagan took office in 1981, the top tax rate on salaries and wages was 50 per cent; today it is 35 percent.  The tax rate on unearned income- dividends and interest for example- was 70 percent.  In 2012 it was 15 percent.  The maximum tax rate on income from capital gains was 28 percent in 1980; in 2012 it was 15 percent….

Beyond the top 400, a whopping 18,783 individuals and families with incomes of more than $200,000 paid not one cent in federal income tax for 2008.  “

Barlett and Steele, The Betrayal of the American Dream.  2012. 

Executive Excess 2012: The CEO Hands in Uncle Sam's Pocket - IPS

Executive Excess 2012: The CEO Hands in Uncle Sam's Pocket - IPS
Major corporations gave more $$ to their CEO's than they paid in Taxes.

Ecuador grants asylum to Julian Assange

Julian Assange Asylum - Ecuador is Right to Stand Up to the US

   The United States would paint itself as a promoter of
   human rights, but any right to make that claim is long
   gone

By Mark Weisbrot Guardian (UK) August 16, 2012

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/16/julian-assange-asylum-ecuador

Ecuador has now made its decision: to grant political asylum
to Julian Assange. This comes in the wake of an incident that
should dispel remaining doubts about the motives behind the
UK/Swedish attempts to extradite WikiLeaks founder Julian
Assange. On Wednesday, the UK government made an unprecedented
threat to invade Ecuador's embassy if Assange is not handed
over. Such an assault would be so extreme in violating
international law and diplomatic conventions that it is
difficult to even find an example of a democratic government
even making such a threat, let alone carrying it out.

When Ecuadorian foreign minister Ricardo Patiño, in an angry
and defiant response, released the written threats to the
public, the UK government tried to backtrack and say it wasn't
a threat to invade the embassy (which is another country's
sovereign territory). But what else can we possibly make of
this wording from a letter delivered by a British official?

Nuns On a Bus Trying to Protect Our Poor From the Ravages of Paul Ryan's Budget Cuts

Nuns On a Bus Trying to Protect Our Poor From the Ravages of Paul Ryan's Budget Cuts

Paul Ryan, Really ?

Duane Campbell

We have often argued here that the election of 2012 is critical.  As voters  we have a  major choice. Do we follow the Republican model of  continuing the current Depression, cut taxes for the rich, and cut programs for the working families?  Do we follow the lead of Bain Capital and Casino Capitalism ?  Or, do we invest in working America and put people to work ?  Do we insist that the government hire teachers, police officers, and invest in the future.

That choice has become even clearer with the selection of Paul Ryan as the Vice President candidate on the Republican ticket.

John Nichols, a progressive journalists , was the keynote speaker at an event we conducted on the media in 2002, writes from Ryan’s home state of Wisconsin. 

He says of Ryan, “ The hyper-ambitious political careerist—who has spent his entire adult life as a Congressional aide, think-tank hanger-on and House member. Or, to be more precise, a hypocritical big spender—at least when Wall Street, the insurance industry and the military-industrial complex call.

Ryan has been a steady voter for unwise bailouts of big banks, unfunded mandates and unnecessary wars. Few members of Congress have run up such very big tabs while doing so little to figure out how to pay the piper. How has Ryan gotten away with his fool-most-of-the-people-most-of-the-time politics?”

Most of all, Paul Ryan is the author and primary advocate of the Ryan Budget, the Republican plan to cut the government.  We should judge he and Mitt Romney from this plan.

What happens to Medicare under the Romney/Ryan Plan

Robert Reich

The Media and Politics of Offshore Tax Havens

The Media and Politics of Offshore Tax Havens

Why We are Voting for Obama

By Bill Fletcher, Jr. and Carl Davidson 

The 2012 Elections Have Little To Do With Obama's Record … Which Is Why We Are Voting For Him

August 9, 2012

Let’s cut to the chase. The November 2012 elections will be unlike anything that any of us can remember.  It is not just that this will be a close election.  It is also not just that the direction of Congress hangs in the balance.   Rather, this will be one of the most polarized and critical elections in recent history.

Unfortunately what too few leftists and progressives have been prepared to accept is that the polarization is to a great extent centered on a revenge-seeking white supremacy; on race and the racial implications of the moves to the right in the US political system. It is also focused on a re-subjugation of women, harsh burdens on youth and the elderly, increased war dangers, and reaction all along the line for labor and the working class. No one on the left with any good sense should remain indifferent or stand idly by in the critical need to defeat Republicans this year.

U.S. Presidential elections are not what progressives want them to be

A large segment  of what we will call the ‘progressive forces’ in US politics approach US elections generally, and Presidential elections in particular, as if: (1) we have more power on the ground than we actually possess, and (2) the elections are about expressing our political outrage at the system. Both get us off on the wrong foot.

Mr. Ryan's Budget plans

Mr. Ryan’s Cramped Vision.  NY Times Editorial.  Aug.12, 2012.

Mitt Romney’s safe and squishy campaign just took on a much harder edge. A candidate of no details — I’ll cut the budget but no need to explain just how — has named a vice-presidential running mate, Paul Ryan, whose vision is filled with endless columns of minus signs. Voters will now be able to see with painful clarity just what the Republican Party has in store for them.

As House Budget Committee chairman, Mr. Ryan has drawn a blueprint of a government that will be absent when people need it the most. It will not be there when the unemployed need job training, or when a struggling student needs help to get into college. It will not be there when a miner needs more than a hardhat for protection, or when a city is unable to replace a crumbling bridge.

And it will be silent when the elderly cannot keep up with the costs of M.R.I.’s or prescription medicines, or when the poor and uninsured become increasingly sick through lack of preventive care.

More than three-fifths of the cuts proposed by Mr. Ryan, and eagerly accepted by the Tea Party-driven House, come from programs for low-income Americans. That means billions of dollars lost for job training for the displaced, Pell grants for students and food stamps for the hungry. These cuts are so severe that the nation’s Catholic bishops raised their voices in protest at the shredding of the nation’s moral obligations.

Mr. Ryan’s budget “will hurt hungry children, poor families, vulnerable seniors and workers who cannot find employment,” the bishops wrote in an April letter to the House. “These cuts are unjustified and wrong.”

Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan: Back to the Failed Top-Down Policies

Paul Ryan.  Really ?

The posts on this blog are selected by members of the Progressive Alliance Board to reflect the perspectives of the Sacramento Progressive Alliance. No authors of original material receive contributions from campaigns or political committees as defined by the California Fair Political Practices Commission.

At times we post videos from a variety of sources.  We follow the guidelines of Fair Use for these posts. We receive no contributions for these postings.

The posts on this blog are expressions of our Freedom of Speech as protected by the U.S. Constitution and our right to participate in political debate. 

Workers Stand for America rally

Here is the call for today's Workers Stand for America rally. You can watch it live on the WSFA website at 11 am ET.

Workers Stand for America

A cross section of working Americans are gathering in Philadelphia Aug. 11 because it's time to change the conversation in America -- to counter those forces preaching austerity for the vast majority of citizens and focus national attention on jobs, economic opportunity and restoring the American dream for all.
We are gathering to call public and media attention to how our politics, society and economy have been skewed beyond recognition -– geared almost entirely to the well-being of the richest while everyone else is left behind.
This is not acceptable in a nation that was built on generations of labor.

The event is timed to precede both the Republican and Democratic national conventions to make it clear we are broadcasting our message to both parties. A strong and prosperous America can’t be measured by the stock market or gross domestic product, but by economic opportunity and hope –- hope that our children and grandchildren will have the same shot at the American dream that we did.
We choose to assemble in Philadelphia because it is there that the words “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” changed the world. It is in Philadelphia that the Bill of Rights, the most practical enumeration of fundamental human values, was adopted. We choose Philadelphia because it is time for a second Bill of Rights, inspired by President Franklin Roosevelt’s 1944 proposed economic Bill of Rights.

"How to Launch a Mass Movement for Economic Justice"

by William Greider

The Nation, August 8, 2012

The billionaires may be trying to hijack the presidential election, but they have failed to stifle the creative ambitions of progressive leaders. Amid the toxic fumes of big-money politics, the people Paul Wellstone once identified as the "Democratic wing of the Democratic Party" are pursuing an audacious goal with characteristic optimism: to re-elect Barack Obama, then reset his priorities. 

The challenge is forbidding and doubtless sounds naïve to establishment politicians. But the risks of failure are huge. Faced with the growing fear that Obama will pursue a "grand bargain" with conservatives after the election, further compromising core principles, leading liberal-labor forces are toughening up their tactics. They see the prospect of re-election as a great opportunity to coax or push the president toward the fundamental economic reforms he ducked in his first term - ?a source of great disappointment on the left.

Cynics may sneer at part of the strategy for renewal, but it's a novel approach, and I think it may represent a meaningful turn in the road. Instead of bombing voters with hyped-up TV messages, progressive leaders are going for big ideas. They are rolling out a meaty agenda of economic reforms, giving voters a firm grasp of the issues that affect their lives and charting a path toward a prosperous, more secure future. The ultimate goal is long-term and larger than Obama: reviving small-d democracy and rebuilding the left by helping ordinary people regain their power as citizens. Is that still possible in our dysfunctional system? We are going to find out.

Will the candidates please speak up ?

Robert Borosage

Everyone agrees that there is only one question on voters' minds: who has a plausible plan to put this economy on the right track? Yet in the most expensive election in recorded history, candidates up and down the ticket aren't offering much of an answer. The presidential campaigns are running through their first billion on attack ads. And both congressional delegations are fixated on how best to inflict austerity on an economy that is barely moving. (We've seen how well that works in Europe where austerity has produced both increasing misery and increasing debt burdens.)

Democrats are tongue-tied because polls show Americans increasingly worried about deficits and skeptical about spending or anything labeled "stimulus." This is nuts, but it's an election year, and when polls speak, politicians listen. Democrats seem dangerously close to repeating the mistake of 2010 and going into the election without a jobs plan.

Mitt Romney

See post below.

Laid-Off Steelworker: Mitt Romney and Bain Capital Profited by Shutting Down Kansas Steel Plant

Laid-Off Steelworker: Mitt Romney and Bain Capital Profited by Shutting Down Kansas Steel Plant
 The posts on this blog are selected by members of the Progressive Alliance Board to reflect the perspectives of the Sacramento Progressive Alliance. No authors of original material receive contributions from campaigns or political committees as defined by the California Fair Political Practices Commission.

At times we post videos from a variety of sources.  We follow the guidelines of Fair Use for these posts. We receive no contributions for these postings.

The posts on this blog are expressions of our Freedom of Speech as protected by the U.S. Constitution and our right to participate in political debate

Take A Stand - Yes On Prop 30

The posts on this blog are selected by members of the Progressive Alliance Board to reflect the perspectives of the Sacramento Progressive Alliance. No authors of original material receive contributions from campaigns or political committees as defined by the California Fair Political Practices Commission.

At times we post videos from a variety of sources.  We follow the guidelines of Fair Use for these posts. We receive no contributions for these postings.

The posts on this blog are expressions of our Freedom of Speech as protected by the U.S. Constitution and our right to participate in political debate

Exhaustive Study Finds Global Elite Hiding Up to $32 Trillion in Offshor...