Survey USA issued poll results on January 4 for the special election for U.S. Congress in Oregon. Our candidate, Steven Reynolds, is pulling 8% of all surveyed voters under the age of 35 and 2% of all voters overall.  This bodes well for the future.  Younger voters are waking up!

In Oregon, #OWS Has a Golden Opportunity to Get a Representative In Congress

by Krist Novoselic
Seattle Weekly
December 22, 2011

Krist Novoselic, seen here with Steven Reynolds, was the founding bassist in Nirvana, and is the chairman of Fair Vote.

Occupy Wall Street has an extraordinary opportunity with next month's special election for Oregon's U.S. House District 1. One of the four candidates on the ballot that voters will receive in the mail is Steven Reynolds, the nominee of the Oregon Progressive Party. This group's platform is a virtual mirror of OWS issues. It's all there: anti-corporate personhood, controls on banking, and an equitable democratic system, among other proposals.    Read more ...

The Portland City Club has refused to allow any minor party candidates to participate in its January 6 noontime "debate" for candidates running to replace David Wu in Congress.

The minor party candidates are Steven Reynolds of the Oregon Progressive Party and James Foster of the Libertarian Party of Oregon.

These candidates present views that are far different from the Democrat or the Republican.  See the Table of Issues on this page.  But the Portland City Club believes that their views should not be shared with its members or the public by means of the broadcast of Friday's noontime program.

Progressive Party members, including Steven Reynolds, protested this decision outside the City Club's meeting at the Governor Hotel on December 17.  Here is a KBOO Interview with Steven Reynolds outside the hotel.
    Read more ...

As published in the New York Times on Novbember 28, 2011:

Lawrence Lessig suggests a $50 federal income tax credit for political campaign contributions. Oregon has had a similar $50 state income tax credit for decades ($100 on a joint return). It has worked well, with about 100,000 Oregon tax returns claiming about $8 million in tax credits annually. So the big-money-addicted Oregon legislators have repealed it, effective at the end of 2013, so they can focus on their main sources of financing — huge contributions from corporations, unions and wealthy individuals.

DAN MEEK
Portland, Ore.
Nov. 17, 2011

The writer is chief attorney for Fair Elections Oregon, the group that promulgated an Oregon statewide campaign finance reform law in 2006.

CD-1 Race Draws Alternative Views

April Baer | November 20, 2011 | Portland, OR

Another candidate for the general election in the first Congressional District has been nominated.

The Oregon Progressive Party nominated Steve Reynolds, an Army veteran who spent a year teaching English in China. This is his first run for office. He says the debt ceiling debate motivated him to think about how he could improve on the way incumbent representatives handled themselves.

"I got angry, you know? They're doing nothing. And I can do nothing better than they can do nothing as far as I'm concerned."

The Progressive platform calls for protecting Medicare and Medicaid, cutting military spending, and providing universal employment, simialr to the WPA programs enacted during the Great Depression.

Reynolds joins Democrat Suzanne Bonamici and Republican Rob Cornilles on ballots that will be mailed starting January 13th.

The Pacific Green Party of Oregon was scheduled to hold its nominating convention Saturday as well. 

© 2011 OPB

Bring Our Money Home!
(what's left of it)

From the organizers of Occupy Portland:

Opening a new account at the local credit union or community owned bank (such as Albina Community Bank in Portland).  Then you can start moving your money when you want.

Oregon Convention Center (outside)
NE Holladay St & MLK Blvd
Wednedsday October 19th, 5:00 pm
(that's the time of the protest)

Condoleezza Rice comes to our city, PSU and the Convention Center, as the honored (and hugely paid) keynote speaker for PSU's Simon Benson Awards.  Individuals for Justice, members of Code Pink, and members of Veterans For Peace will be there outside the Convention Center to greet this proponent of unjust war and torture.

As Willamette Week wrote (Sept 18):

$5,000. That’s the minimum donation necessary to get a personal photo op with former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. She’s scheduled to deliver the keynote speech Oct. 19 at the Simon Benson Awards dinner, which benefits Portland State University. Rice, as you may recall, argued for the 2003 invasion of Iraq and (according to the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee) approved the waterboarding of prisoners in U.S. custody. In a letter to faculty, PSU President Wim Wiewel defended the choice of Rice “largely because of her personal story” and rise from humble beginnings. The private PSU Foundation is organizing the event, and even though public entities are sponsoring it—including PSU Athletics, the Port of Portland and Oregon Health & Science University—Wiewel says Rice’s speaking fee is classified.

Classified!  Does he think PSU is now part of the CIA?  Miami University recently paid Condi $150,000 for a similar speech.  PSU should not be sponsoring a pay-off to this advocate of torture and "preemptive war."  She is featured in War Criminals Watch; http://warcriminalswatch.org/index.php/wcw-events/details/945-protest-condoleezza-rice-in-portland-or

Listen to this 1 minute clip of Franklin Roosevelt, seeking re-election in 1936. Then try to imaging Barack Obama saying anything remotely similar.

OPP member Barbara Ellis has put together a post explaining the purpose of 3rd parties for her political friends who still cling to the Democratic Party as the only hope Americans have for the nation's survival. Read on.

"...when the variety and number of political parties increases, the chance for oppression, factionalism, and nonskeptical acceptance of ideas decreases."-- James Madison

"The old parties are husks, with no real soul within either, divided on artificial lines, boss-ridden and privilege-controlled, each a jumble of incongruous elements, and neither daring to speak out wisely and fearlessly on what should be said on the vital issues of the day."-- Theodore Roosevelt

"How many more decades are we going to give them before we get rid of this least-worst, this lesser-of-two-evils mind set and start breaking this corporate grip . . . and have alternative candidates from alternative parties that stand as if people mattered first and foremost?"--Ralph Nader

Why Third Parties?

They rarely win, but 3rd party candidates are essential.

By ROBERT LONGLEY (About.com/Guide)

While their presidential candidates stand little chance of being elected, members of America's third parties have historically promoted concepts and policies that have been incorporated as important parts of our social and political lives. Here are some major examples:

Women's Right to Vote.  Both the Prohibition and Socialist Parties promoted women's suffrage during the late 1800's. By 1916, both Republicans and Democrats supported it and by 1920 the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote had been ratified.

Child Labor Laws.  The Socialist Party first advocated laws establishing minimum ages and limiting hours of work for American children in 1904. The Keating-Owen Act established such laws in 1916.

Immigration Restrictions.  The Immigration Act of 1924 came about as a result of support by the Populist Party starting as early as the early 1890's.

Reduction of Working Hours.  You can thank the Populist and Socialist Parties for the 40-hour work week. Their support for reduced working hours during the 1890's led to the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.

Income Tax.  In the 1890's, the Populist and Socialist Parties supported a "progressive" tax system that would base a person's tax liability on their amount of income. The idea led to ratification of the 16th Amendment in 1913.

Social Security.  The Socialist Party also supported a fund to provide temporary compensation for the unemployed in the late 1920's. The idea led to the creation of laws establishing unemployment insurance and the Social Security Act of 1935.

Read more ...

Obama yields on smog rule in face of GOP demands
Julie Pace and Dina Cappiello, Associated Press
9/2/2011 WASHINGTON (AP) -- In a dramatic reversal, President Barack Obama on Friday scrubbed a clean-air regulation that aimed to reduce health-threatening smog, yielding to bitterly protesting businesses and congressional Republicans who complained the rule would kill jobs in America's ailing economy. Withdrawal of the proposed regulation marked the latest in a string of retreats by the president in the face of GOP opposition, and it drew quick criticism from liberals. Environmentalists, a key Obama constituency, accused him of caving to corporate polluters, and the American Lung Association threatened to restart the legal action it had begun against rules proposed by President George W. Bush.     Read more at AP

How high?