News about national activities of Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) en Tue, 03 Nov 2009 Tue, 03 Nov 2009 60 May use with attribution link to http://pdamerica.org/ http://pdamerica.org/ Call your member of Congress TODAY--Oppose H. Res. 867 Published by Politico. Who is afraid of Richard Goldstone? No one should be. Not even the U.S. Congress—yet it is poised on Tuesday to condemn the United Nations Human Rights Council’s Goldstone report on violations of international law related to the Gaza war of late 2008. [more]]]> http://pdamerica.org/articles/news/2009-11-03-12-06-11-news.php http://pdamerica.org/articles/news/2009-11-03-12-06-11-news.php http://pdamerica.org/articles/news/2009-11-03-11-39-18-news.php http://pdamerica.org/articles/news/2009-11-03-11-39-18-news.php Join PDA's End War and Occupations, Redirect Funding Issue Organizing Team (IOT); learn more here. Published by Foreign Policy in Focus. While President Barack Obama reviews his strategy on Afghanistan, a perfect moment to send a strong unified message to end the war is slipping through our fingers. Whether it's because we seem to have bought into the lies about the goals of this war or because we mistakenly feel that a Democratic president is going to come to the right conclusion on his own, one thing is clear: There's no debate within the Democratic Party or in the White House about whether to end the war. The only thing being debated is how to continue the war. [more]]]> http://pdamerica.org/articles/news/2009-11-03-11-26-26-news.php http://pdamerica.org/articles/news/2009-11-03-11-26-26-news.php Take Action: Tell President Obama "350 ppm is the goal--support direct carbon pricing coupled with revenue recycling" Published by The Washington Post. Supporters of the climate bill passed by the House and the similar bill under consideration in the Senate--including President Obama and Democratic congressional leaders--say that the cap-and-trade approach would guarantee greenhouse-gas reductions. But this claim ignores the flaws inherent in both bills that would undermine even their weak emissions-reduction targets and would lock in climate degradation. [more]]]> http://pdamerica.org/articles/news/2009-11-03-10-52-23-news.php http://pdamerica.org/articles/news/2009-11-03-10-52-23-news.php Take Action: Ask Congress "You bailed out Wall Street, what about Main Street?" Published by Robert Reich's Blog. Presidents tend to overcompensate for the errors of their predecessors in the same party and in so doing sow seeds of their own mistakes. Bill Clinton wanted above all to avoid Jimmy Carter's fate--losing re-election because the economy was heading south on Election Day. So Clinton made a deal with Alan Greenspan to slash the budget deficit and thereby jettison much of his ambitious campaign agenda (that was Greenspan's precondition for lowering interest rates and causing an economic boom in time for the re-election) and then Clinton took direction from Dick Morris, who told him to move to the right. The result: Clinton avoided Carter's failure and won re-election handily. But the Clinton years produced few if any major social reforms. Clinton spent so much of his initial political capital, as well as his time and energy, on deficit reduction that he didn't have enough left to enact health care in 1994. [more]]]> http://pdamerica.org/articles/news/2009-11-03-10-34-38-news.php http://pdamerica.org/articles/news/2009-11-03-10-34-38-news.php Join PDA's Accountability and Justice Issue Organizing Team (IOT); learn more here. Published by the Daily Mail. A U.S. plane that featured in a European Parliament report into the 'extraordinary rendition' of terror suspects was met by two SAS helicopters in a secret operation at one of Britain's biggest airports. The Gulfstream jet landed at Birmingham International Airport on Friday, October 2, having flown in from an undisclosed location, and was seen by a member of staff being met minutes later by the Special Forces regiment aircraft. [more]]]> http://pdamerica.org/articles/news/2009-11-03-10-27-43-news.php http://pdamerica.org/articles/news/2009-11-03-10-27-43-news.php http://pdamerica.org/articles/news/2009-11-03-10-05-33-news.php http://pdamerica.org/articles/news/2009-11-03-10-05-33-news.php http://pdamerica.org/articles/news/2009-11-02-11-06-34-news.php http://pdamerica.org/articles/news/2009-11-02-11-06-34-news.php Join PDA's Israel/Palestine Action Group; learn more here. Published by Examiner.com. Answering the need for a more balanced and future-focused approach concerning US, Israeli and Arab relations, J Street has just completed its inaugural conference in Washington with over 1500 in attendance. (Oct. 25-28) Speaking on behalf of President Obama, National Security Advisor General James Jones addressed the conference and congratulated its success, promising: [more]]]> http://pdamerica.org/articles/news/2009-11-02-10-46-21-news.php http://pdamerica.org/articles/news/2009-11-02-10-46-21-news.php Take Action: Tell Congress "We need an exit strategy for Af/Pak war" Published by The Kansas City Star. I support a phased withdrawal of U.S. and allied troops from Afghanistan, starting Jan. 1 and ending no later than Dec. 31, 2012. The Afghan people have suffered enough and the U.S. government should promote a negotiated settlement to the war. Afghanistan has been at war almost continually since 1979. We’ve been over there since 2001. At the end of 2012 we’ll have been there 11 years. That’s more than long enough to achieve our mission. And 32 years of war is too long for the Afghans. [more]]]> http://pdamerica.org/articles/news/2009-11-02-10-01-32-news.php http://pdamerica.org/articles/news/2009-11-02-10-01-32-news.php URGENT ACTION ITEM: Save the Kucinich Amendment--TODAY! The following alert was issued to PDA members last night: We are all frustrated by the Affordable Health Care for America Act—H.R. 3962--the House’s lamentable healthcare reform bill, if you can call it reform at all. We think of it as tweaking a badly broken system--at best it’s a band-aid on a hemorrhaging system--although, it does appear to be drawing fewer flies than the Senate version. There’s still time to make it better—much better—but not a lot of time. The bill will be finalized by 5:00 PM Monday evening. [more]]]> http://pdamerica.org/articles/news/2009-11-02-09-41-55-news.php http://pdamerica.org/articles/news/2009-11-02-09-41-55-news.php http://pdamerica.org/articles/news/2009-11-02-09-31-26-news.php http://pdamerica.org/articles/news/2009-11-02-09-31-26-news.php http://pdamerica.org/articles/news/2009-11-02-09-18-37-news.php http://pdamerica.org/articles/news/2009-11-02-09-18-37-news.php Call your member of Congress TODAY--Oppose H. Res. 867 Published by Foreign Policy in Focus. On October 1, the Obama administration successfully pressured the Palestinian delegation to the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva to drop its proposal to recommend that the UN Security Council endorse the findings of the Goldstone Commission report. The report, authored by renowned South African jurist Richard Goldstone, detailed the results of the UNHRC's fact-finding mission on the Gaza conflict. These findings included the recommendation that both Hamas and the Israeli government bring to justice those responsible for war crimes during the three weeks of fighting in late December and early January. If they don't, the report urges that the case be referred to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for possible prosecution. [more]]]> http://pdamerica.org/articles/news/2009-11-02-08-59-52-news.php http://pdamerica.org/articles/news/2009-11-02-08-59-52-news.php Take Action: Tell Congress "Help Main Street NOT Wall Street" Published by McClatchy Newspapers. In 2006 and 2007, Goldman Sachs Group peddled more than $40 billion in securities backed by at least 200,000 risky home mortgages, but never told the buyers it was secretly betting that a sharp drop in U.S. housing prices would send the value of those securities plummeting. [more]]]> http://pdamerica.org/articles/news/2009-11-01-14-00-25-news.php http://pdamerica.org/articles/news/2009-11-01-14-00-25-news.php