Both Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning should be regarded as American heroes.

As a whistle blower, Snowden risked all by exposing the extent to which American rights and freedoms had been attacked by the NSA and other global surveillance programs. For that, he has lived in asylum in Russia now for over 3 and half years. The American government has filed, among others, two counts of violating the Espionage Act, each which carry a possible sentence of 10 years. President-elect Trump has called Snowden a traitor deserving execution. Rep. Mike Pompeo, Trump nominee for CIA Director, called for the death penalty for Snowden. and Sen. Jeff Sessions, Trump's nominee for Attorney General, strongly supports the death penalty as well. Edward Snowden does not deserve to live his life in exile. Pres. Obama should issue a pardon now so that he can come home.

Chelsea Manning also has served the nation well as a whistle blower and . . . .

Antonin Scalia died on February 13. Obama might be able to nominate a justice and have that person confirmed by a Democratic-majority Senate. The Democrats have a reasonably good chance to retake the Senate majority in the November 2016 election (8 seats now held by Dems are up; 17 seats now held by Rs are up). The 2017 session of Congress starts January 3, 2017. Obama does not leave office until January 20, 2017. So he can nominate the next justice during that 17-day period in the 115th Congress and get confirmation from a Democratic-majority Senate, regardless of who wins the 2016 election for President.

Not enough time in January 2017, you say? Obama could nominate much earlier than that, in the 114th Congress, so that all the hearings would be concluded prior to January 2017.

The minority Rs in January 2017 would filibuster, you say? The Democrats could use the "Constitutional option," as they did in 2011 over a bill about Chinese currency manipulation. The filibuster can be eliminated any time a majority in the Senate want to eliminate it. But the Democrats have been exceedingly weak in exercising that authority, when they have had Senate majorities.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/06/harry-reid-senate-precedent_n_9...

Click anywhere for larger image.

Our Oregon Representatives in Congress need to hear from us about Syria.  The Oregon Progressive Party offers this statement against the use of U.S. military force in Syria.

Please contact your representatives in Congress with your views; feel free to send them this statement.  Their contact information is at the bottom of this message.

Please support peaceful diplomatic solutions
and VOTE NO on any authorizations for U.S. military strikes on Syria.

History clearly guides us us to the course of action the United States must take in Syria. Only peaceful diplomacy will rid Syria, and the greater Middle East, of weapons of mass destruction in all its forms.

The use of U.S. military force is no solution for assisting the Syrian people to free themselves from tyranny and begin to build democracy. We are told military strikes will be extremely limited and involve no long term commitments or U.S. ground troops, but "limited wars" often escalate, since the U.S. can never "cut and run."

Obama is negotiating another "Free Trade Agreement" like NAFTA, only bigger and badder. Call your US Representative and Senators and tell them not to give Obama Fast Track Authority to pass it and tell them to demand that the agreement text be released now so we can know what is in the agreement. It is outrageous that 600 corporate lobbyists can read it and we cannot. Read the Alliance for Democracy flyer on this and find the link to contact to your rep and senators. http://www.afd-pdx.org/uploads/1/3/4/0/13403615/flyer_1_c.pdf and learn more on Fast Track Authority here: http://www.afd-pdx.org/no-fast-track-authority.html  And tell your US Representative and Senators to

* release the text so that both the public and congress can read the text prior to President signing it

* not vote for Fast Track Authority for the President.  Fast Track Authority has been used to enact almonst every "free Trade agreement.

We just received a fundraising email signed by "Barack" himself.  He says:

As we count down to another critical fundraising deadline for this campaign, it's important to remember this: We always knew this election would be about two competing economic plans -- whether we get to build on our progress or see it taken away. But we had no idea we'd also be up against a social agenda that would roll back decades of progress, particularly for women's health.

He had no idea that Republicans would advance such a social agenda?  What planet has he been living on?

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

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?

Click on Cartoon for Bigger Image

Click on Cartoon for Bigger Image

Budgetary Deceit and America's Decline

Jeffrey Sachs
Huffington Post
July 23, 2011

. . . Obama's campaign promise to "change Washington" looks like pure bait and switch. There has been no change, but rather more of the same: the Wall-Street-owned Democratic Party as we have come to know it. The idea that the Republicans are for the billionaires and the Democrats are for the common man is quaint but outdated. It's more accurate to say that the Republicans are for Big Oil while the Democrats are for Big Banks. That has been the case since the modern Democratic Party was re-created by Bill Clinton and Robert Rubin.

Thus, at every crucial opportunity, Obama has failed to stand up for the poor and middle class. He refused to tax the banks and hedge funds properly on their outlandish profits; he refused to limit in a serious way the bankers' mega-bonuses even when the bonuses were financed by taxpayer bailouts; and he even refused to stand up against extending the Bush tax cuts for the rich last December, though 60 percent of the electorate repeatedly and consistently demanded that the Bush tax cuts at the top should be ended. It's not hard to understand why. Obama and Democratic Party politicians rely on Wall Street and the super-rich for campaign contributions the same way that the Republicans rely on oil and coal. In America today, only the rich have political power.

Obama could have cut hundreds of billions of dollars in spending that has been wasted on America's disastrous wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Yemen, but here too it's been all bait and switch. Obama is either afraid to stand up to the Pentagon or is part of the same neoconservative outlook as his predecessor. The real cause hardly matters since the outcome is the same: America is more militarily engaged under Obama than even under Bush. Amazing but true. . . .

Who runs America today? The rich and the multinational corporations. Who runs the White House? David Plouffe, whose job it is to make sure that ever word, every action of the president is calculated for electoral gain rather than the country's needs. Who runs the Congress, on both sides of the aisle? The lobbyists, who win in every negotiation. And who loses? The American people, who have said repeatedly that they want a budget that sharply cuts the military, ends the wars, raises taxes on the rich, protects the poor and the middle class, and invests in America's future not just in Obama's speeches but in fact.

America needs a third-party movement to break the hammerlock of the financial elites. Until that happens, the political class and the media conglomerates will continue to spew lies, American militarism will continue to destabilize a growing swath of the world, and the country will continue its economic decline.  Read more ...

The U.S. House of Representatives Democratic Caucus today adopted a resolution by Rep. Peter DeFazio that will stop the Obama tax giveaway bill from going to the floor of the House for a vote. DeFazio appeared on the Oregon ballot this year as the candidate of both the Progressive and Democratic parties. According to The Hill magazine:

"We have tremendous concerns about what was given away by the White House," DeFazio told reporters in the Capitol basement after the vote.

DeFazio said the voice vote was "virtually unanimous," with only one or two members expressing dissent.

"We have given our leadership license to force the Senate and the White House back to the table to get a better deal for the American people," he said.

The full article from The Hill is here: http://thehill.com/homenews/house/132885-house-dems-vote-to-reject-tax-c...