Blogs

No, no, I never changed, but some folks do, and I particularly enjoyed this post from Mel Harmon in the Multnomah Dems Newslatter, about why he came back into the fold:
Mult Dems News May 08

Walking the neighborhood and talking with people is a great way for me to quickly learn that people's opinions and perspectives are as varied as snowflakes. And, how much I don't know!

I looked for a blog or a forum that has discussions on items of specific interest to PCPs. I didn't find any, so I'm using this blog item to see if there is interest in doing this on a wider scale. A forum would seem to be more appropriate because it's easier to track chains on a given topic.

Are you as a PCP or an NL or an HDL interested in a forum like this? If it does interest you, we can pass our request on to the web folks.

For example, today I heard the following comments from my neighborhood and from people on the street:

1. We should have a fixed-rate tax for everyone. The big companies don't pay taxes, so it's all on the little guy.
2. The May ballot is too legalistic for me to understand so I won't vote for anything that isn't written in plain English.
3. Proposals 51 and 52 are identical.
4. Superdelegates and the Electoral College take away the rights of the voters.
5. All the young people are excited about the Presidential Election but nothing will happen and the kids will be turned off even more.

I have my own questions, primarily where do I go to learn about the candidates and issues, other than their web sites? This is especially true for the judges! Another question, who does the best job of comparing positions among the candidates? Or the opposing sides of a proposition?

In the meantime, if you know of good sources of information for any of the ballot items, please reply.

Thanks,

Bob May

There's a very interesting PDF slide show on the economics of green buildings. Most of the slides, however, are very interesting to those of us who are concerned about global warming but not up to digging into all the numbers. Go through the slides and you will see:

• 30% of CO2 in the atmosphere right now will still be there 100 years from now still capturing heat
• The EU has set standards of 50 MPG by the year 2012.
• Portland is not on the list of the top 10 green cities in the U.S.

The report doesn't give a date but it appears to have been done in late 2007 or early 2008.

http://www.costar.com/partners/costar-green-study.pdf

Most of you already know this but perhaps some don't. The Sundance Channel has an ongoing series on the Green Movement that is very enlightening and very encouraging (at the local level).

Bob May

Part 1 of 3

Bill,

I am a regular viewer and I essentially enjoy and agree with your perspectives. You're the preacher and I'm in your choir.

However, my regard for you just got bumped up to the next level as I listened to your editorial about the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. When the controversy arose, i.e., when the media didn't drop it after Obama's Philadelphia speech to the nation, I viewed a number of Wright's sermons on the Internet, including his "God Damn America."

I completely agree with your comments and I ask the other readers to continue reading to see why. Your analysis of Wright's remarks and Wright's remarks themselves are completely valid when they are viewed in context.

Perhaps Wright's style is "Black;" I don't know but his content is relevant, not only for the the people in United States, but also for a large percentage of the entire world. I knew exactly to what Wright was referring when he said the chickens have come home to roost. The United States, that is our government, not the large majority of the people, has been the big bully of the world for many decades, militarily and economically. When the U.S. doesn't get its way with a country, it often punishes that country economically and when that doesn't work, goes after the leadership of that country, as it is doing right now in Venezuela. The assassination of Allende in Chile, initiated and funded by the CIA, is one of many extreme measures initiated by our government.

Robert May (Part 1 of 3)

barackobama dot com/downloads/

Thanks to our great web crew for posting the article. I looked for a way to comment there but didn't see one.

The recap posted on our web site and on the Clinton web site omits an important item that Hillary mentioned in her Hillsboro speech (My thanks also to KPOJ for giving us the recording). It was a good campaign speech with this one exception.

Hillary continues to push to have the Michigan and Florida primary votes count for delegate numbers at the convention. She also has a petition for this on her web site.

What she in her speech and her web site fail to mention is that Obama and Clinton both signed an agreement (before the primaries) to not count those two states because the state's Democratic parties had moved their primaries into January, which was against the DNC rules. When both states, against the warnings of the DNC, held their Democratic primaries on the premature dates, their delegate votes were nullified by the DNC.

This is text from the AP article about her speech: "The party voted to strip both states of their delegates and all the candidates, including Clinton and rival Barack Obama, signed a pledge not to campaign in either state. Obama and several other Democratic candidates also removed their names from the Michigan primary ballot."

Here's one URL for the full article:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080405/ap_on_el_pr/primary_scramble_clinton

Perhaps now that Mark Penn is gone, she'll start being a little more honest with the public.

This came to me in an email from MoveOn.org, and I thought I would pass it along. Use it as ammunition when talking with McCain supporters.
Disclaimer: The Washington County Democrats do not support or endorse any political blogs or organizations (unless stated specifically) but present information of interest to our readers & members. 

1. John McCain voted against establishing a national holiday in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Now he says his position has "evolved," yet he's continued to oppose key civil rights laws.¹

2. According to Bloomberg News, McCain is more hawkish than Bush on Iraq, Russia and China. Conservative columnist Pat Buchanan says McCain "will make Cheney look like Gandhi."²

4. McCain opposes a woman's right to choose. He said, "I do not support Roe versus Wade. It should be overturned."⁴

5. The Children's Defense Fund rated McCain as the worst senator in Congress for children. He voted against the children's health care bill last year, then defended Bush's veto of the bill.⁵

6. He's one of the richest people in a Senate filled with millionaires. The Associated Press reports he and his wife own at least eight homes! Yet McCain says the solution to the housing crisis is for people facing foreclosure to get a "second job" and skip their vacations.⁶

Expanding the Earned Income Credit

This tax season, Oregon will require a minimum wage worker who was employed full-time, year-round last year and supported one child to pay about $321 in state income taxes. That's equivalent to about a month of food for this hard-working but financially insecure family.

Oregon's Earned Income Credit, enacted in 1997, has certainly helped Oregon's most vulnerable families. Because the credit is so small, though (it's one of the nation's smallest among states with such credits) Oregon income taxes are still taking a month's worth of food off the table of vulnerable families.

By expanding the Earned Income Credit (EIC), Oregon can give a hand up to low-wage working families, rather than leaving them behind.

Read OCPP's fact sheet, Expanding the EIC in 2009, which includes tables and maps showing EIC returns as a share of all returns by state legislative district.

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A Tax System that Matches Oregon Values

Speaking of that minimum wage worker paying $321 in state income taxes, her family's tax bill is especially high compared to the income tax bill that Intel Corporation, with $9 billion in profits, likely paid last year: 10 bucks.

Intel hasn't always paid a pittance in state income taxes. In 1997, the company paid over $50 million in income taxes to Oregon. The company boasted at the time that it was the state's best corporate income taxpayer.
What would it cost to eliminate the income tax on this kind of minimum wage family? A little less than $50 million a year, or roughly the amount that Intel proudly paid in state income taxes a decade ago.

Read the rest of OCPP's CenterPoints column, A Tax System that Matches Oregon Values.

The Department of Defense has announced as of March 23 2008, 4,000 American Service men and women have died in Iraq since the 2003 invasion. This does not include private "security contractors" or other non-military personnel.
By strange coincidence, the Peace symbol is 50 years old this year. 
Click Read More for the full story.