Is this the Democratic Party you know?

          I am asking because this list of action items does not seem to be consistent with what I know of the Nebraska Democratic Party.


Priority Legislative Action Items

  1. Significantly increase investment and reinvestment in local, state, and national
    infrastructure to further commerce and provide consistent, safe means of
    transportation, including disaster and earthquake preparedness. Support
    Oregon’s Democratic congressional delegation and the Legislature in their efforts
    to invest in infrastructure and transportation projects with strong provisions to
    create American union jobs.
  2. Prohibit privatization and support full funding of the Social Security Trust Fund.
    Retain and enhance full benefits. Base the Social Security COLA on a separate
    index that considers what seniors are facing in terms of cost of living. Eliminate
    the income cap on social security taxation.
  3. Amend the U.S. and Oregon constitutions to clarify corporations are not persons.
    The rights extended by the U.S. Constitution are rights of natural persons only,
    and money is not political speech.
  4. International trade agreements, including, but not limited to the TPP, shall have
    enforceable labor, environmental, and human rights standards, prioritizing
    enforcement. No trade agreement shall give up America's sovereignty or allow
    any foreign tribunal, government, or international corporation the power to
    change our laws and/or regulations.
  5. Reverse or prevent the privatization of functions that are appropriately public,
    such as, but not limited to, streets, roads, bridges, public health, military, schools,
    prisons, water, libraries, and public spaces.
  6. Eliminate mandatory minimum prison sentences.
  7. Respond to global climate change -- the greatest threat to the survival of humanity
    -- by instituting requirements to locate and contain the release of greenhouse
    gases into the atmosphere in accordance with the Pacific Coast Collaborative
    Agreement by establishing a carbon tax to fund transitioning to renewable energy
    production and energy efficiency programs.
  8. Establish a transparent public process in Oregon to publicly fund and implement
    a universal, publicly funded comprehensive health care system. The system would
    be funded by progressive taxes and allow patients to choose their providers.
  9. Recognize the adverse impacts of exporting fossil fuels, including LNG, on
    climate change, property rights, fishing, tourism, and domestic natural gas prices.
    Fully utilize Oregon environmental, land use, and safety laws to prevent
    construction of terminals and pipelines such as the proposed Jordan Cove
    Terminal and Pacific Connector Pipeline.
  10. Ensure the right of people to organize a union and oppose any "right to work"
    legislation and anti-worker ballot measures which deny unions the "right to
    negotiate" fair-share contributions from covered non-union employees.
  11. Reduce student debt for all. Allow student loan debt to be discharged through
    bankruptcy. Strictly regulate the student loan industry to end abusive and
    predatory practices. Allow student loans to be publically financed/refinanced to
    the lowest federal funds rate.
  12. Reinstate a modernized Glass-Steagall Act in order to separate commercial and
    investment banks and regulate derivatives.
  13. Reform immigration policies to include a "path to citizenship."
  14. Ensure that people in the United States get safe and secure access to education,
    social services, and health care regardless of immigration status. Recognize that
    requiring immigration documentation for these benefits creates a disenfranchised
    underclass that degrades our community.
  15. Fully fund the Free Community College program. Lower or eliminate college
    tuition. Adequately fund and expand federal and state scholarships, grants, and
    low-interest loan programs and extend them to all public post-secondary
    education.
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Comments

Steven D's picture

speak louder than words.

Somebody said that once.

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"You can't just leave those who created the problem in charge of the solution."---Tyree Scott

PriceRip's picture

@Steven D

          So, maybe you can infer what I will be doing as soon as I get the last of my stuff moved to Medford. I will let you know what I learn.

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detroitmechworks's picture

As the Democrats are so fond of telling us even ONE of these would alienate allies.

See, since Oregon didn't fulfill the laundry list of checkboxes on Identity items, they'd also point out this list is racist and sexist, as well as homophobic and islamophobic. Or rather, that's the excuse they'd use for ignoring every single one of these if we get suckered into giving them "Just ONE more chance..."

When they actually do something other than make a nice pretty list, I'll believe it. Till then...

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KJjVMqNIgA]

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I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

PriceRip's picture

@detroitmechworks

          "When they actually do something other than make a nice pretty list, I'll believe it. Till then..."

          Kicking ass and taking names ... that's my plan, sir!, yes sir!

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thanatokephaloides's picture

@detroitmechworks

Rework that list as a National Dem Platform (proposed) and post it at TOP.

You'll feel the smack of the banhammer before you finish typing.

The reason was stated better than I could:

See, since Oregon didn't fulfill the laundry list of checkboxes on Identity items, they'd also point out this list is racist and sexist, as well as homophobic and islamophobic.

And as for "I will survive", give this one a try for size:

[video:https://youtu.be/ZeWPT2d43zI width:500 height:350]

Smile

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

PriceRip's picture

@thanatokephaloides

          or maybe insights ... as for "I Will Survive", I fell in love a long while ago:

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBR2G-iI3-I]
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@detroitmechworks Justice Democrats found a progressive candidate to primary the Coalicrat Senator, and the usual suspects (and Bernie haters--even though Bernie had nothing to do with this) rush to defend the Coalicrat who voted for Jeff Sessions and Neil Gorsuch. I might ask how supporting a white male conservative over a female progressive fits into the idol of "Identity Politics," but I would face the inevitable screaming flag storm, as most day care centers have more decorum than that site these days.

On the other hand, more free press:

Well, someone else did. Good. Take that shit back to C99.
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lotlizard's picture

@SancheLlewellyn Anyone else reminded of “Sunnyside” in the movie Toy Story 3 ?

There’s also the way Woody the sheriff runs things in an early internal mockup version of the original Toy Story movie.
http://pixar.wikia.com/wiki/Black_Friday_reel

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@SancheLlewellyn It's hilarious how they keep talking about us.

I thought they were the savvy political experts.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Pricknick's picture

in hell.

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Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.

PriceRip's picture

@Pricknick

          ... think the Republicans of Oregon are liberals. While that doesn't say too much, a college friend of mine is an Oregon Legislator sitting on that side of the House. I intend to re-connect and see what is what. If he is even remotely recognizable, it will be a nice reunion. As I have no preconceptions (it has been four decades) I will provide details as they become available.

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@PriceRip Tom McCall, Mark Hatfield, Norma Paulus, Dave Frohnmayer (sort of), even Bob Packwood--provided all females watch for his groping hands. Even Sen. Gordon Smith developed a liberal streak every six years. (Thank you Jeff Merkley for winning that seat!)

We also have our right-wing loony bin, with Bill Sizemore, Lon Mabon, Scott Lively, Art Robinson ... but we (so far) don't elect them to office.

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@SancheLlewellyn I remember Mark Hatfield. Good man.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

alternative is the Putin backed Trump Admin. Right?

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"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies." - Groucho

PriceRip's picture

@the_poorly_educated

Mosking

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Alligator Ed's picture

@PriceRip TPE is serious. He thinks all of us c99ers who don't worship the teachings of the Evil Queen are Putin stooges.

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PriceRip's picture

@Alligator Ed

          I compared TPE to my most recalcitrant student of all time. TPE was not pleased with what I had to say, and got excessively snippy.

          I grew up in a Sagebrush Steppe teasing Rattlesnakes.

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SnappleBC's picture

@Alligator Ed

That way, when the commies under my bed sneak out at night they'll know not to hurt me because I'm on their team.

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A lot of wanderers in the U.S. political desert recognize that all the duopoly has to offer is a choice of mirages. Come, let us trudge towards empty expanse of sand #1, littered with the bleached bones of Deaniacs and Hope and Changers.
-- lotlizard

@SnappleBC

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Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@SnappleBC ROTFLMAO.

Well, as you can see, I've already put it into my screen name.

"Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal"

just to let the Macedonian hackers on all those Bernie sites who ruined Hillary's inevitable win by saying mean things about her that I'm still on their team.

Darned Macedonians. Always screwing things up for super-powerful American politicians.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Mark from Queens's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

Thought it might be something like that (the addition to your name).

Makes me think of that fact that where we live there's such an exotic diversity of culture. We seem to have markets of every kind, which is orgasmic for one who likes to cook.

Anyway, for shorthand I refer to them by what ethnicity they are or appear to me. So instead of knowing the actual names that appear on their awnings above, I simply say when we're about to go shopping, "let's go the Macedonians for arugula, then the Balkans for nuts, and then we'll go to the Greeks for olives on our way home."

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"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:

THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"

- Kurt Vonnegut

enhydra lutris's picture

@the_poorly_educated
probably strawman as well. Oh, also an embedded petitio principii. D-

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

thanatokephaloides's picture

@enhydra lutris

The name of that fallacy is false dichotomy, and probably strawman as well. Oh, also an embedded petitio principii. D-

Don't forget "Red Herring", as the whole made-up Putin nonsense exists only to deflect attention from the real reasons Her Heinous lost the election!

Wink

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

earthling1's picture

Welcome to the left coast.
In-n-out beckons.

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Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.

PriceRip's picture

@earthling1

          I will see your In-n-out and raise a Nells-N-Out.

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@earthling1 The whole left coast setting sail and leaving TrumpyTeabaggistan behind . . . I can dream, can't I?

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SnappleBC's picture

@SancheLlewellyn

... much of the West Coast is California. You remember California right? The shining bastion of neoliberalism.

You just gotta love a state that sells all it's water to corporations during a drought.... water sold so that it can be put in a plastic bottle and marked up about a trillion percent.

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A lot of wanderers in the U.S. political desert recognize that all the duopoly has to offer is a choice of mirages. Come, let us trudge towards empty expanse of sand #1, littered with the bleached bones of Deaniacs and Hope and Changers.
-- lotlizard

Alligator Ed's picture

@SnappleBC And he's all-in for fracking.

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Alligator Ed To a scary extent. "We will let no one stop us" he says, after a worker falls into one of their operations and essentially boils to death. Jesus Christ.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

thanatokephaloides's picture

@SnappleBC

The last I looked...much of the West Coast is California. You remember California right? The shining bastion of neoliberalism.

It turned out much as the Holy Prophet Jimmie Haskell foretold:

part 1:

[video:https://youtu.be/3CYvi8qyFnw width:500 height:350]

part 2:

[video:https://youtu.be/nH08g_tMNhE width:500 height:350]

part 3:

[video:https://youtu.be/Jgs9xrNk5A4 width:500 height:350]

(I have no idea why the YouTube poster had to trisect the album, but he did.)

Wink

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

@SnappleBC Still hoping he doesn't choke up on his chain and veto single payer if the CA legislature passes it. The corporate cash will demand it.

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@earthling1 Wow, almost everybody is in Oregon!

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

PriceRip's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

          ... but no! ... nobody listens to me.

          Ah, but sweet revenge: When the Pines pollinate en masse the air turns green, and the gutters fill with rotting pollen from which vile fumes emanate to drive the unworthy from our lands, Ah Ha!

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enhydra lutris's picture

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

Amanda Matthews's picture

do business. It would piss off our corporate overlords who now run this place.

This is a place where your can go through all four seasons in one week, where half our reps are Repubbies and the other half are often ex-Repubbies, and despite all the things we desperately need here in the Big 'O' (the 'O' standing for Orifice) we're going to get a new STREET CAR SYSTEM.

No one uses our public transportation system now except the poor (people like me),and the service has been cut to certain hours and the most well-traveled routes. This is one of the most selfish cities on Earth in one of the most selfish, right-wing states in the nation. And our Governor, Pete Ricketts (aptly named), is the kind of guy who secretly buys execution drugs from a dodgy reseller and now refuses to pay for them because the manufacturer had a shit fit and put a halt to their use. And you watch. The Keystone will be built.

But economically, this new corporate Utopia is the place to be. We make sure that the big guys are well taken care of.

EDIT: deleted a misplaced comma.

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I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa

PriceRip's picture

@Amanda Matthews

          It is not as scary as a Nuclear Waste Dump, but then again we are in the new millennium so maybe we don't care enough. But given the nature of Pete Ricketts it doesn't really matter what we think.

          I am still pissed that jerk got away with funding (primarily) the effort to reinstate the death penalty. If it wasn't illegal and pathological I would suggest how he might use those drugs to make Lincoln and greater Nebraska a much better place ... so I won't suggest any such thing.

          A brand new street car system, shiny, y'all are so lucky. That must mean the repairs on Dodge Street have finally been completed.

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Amanda Matthews's picture

@PriceRip @PriceRip
will NEVER be done. Or on Maple Street, or Blondo, or 72nd, or...

And I have said more than once that it says a lot about this place to elect someone like Ricketts as Gov. But it makes sense. A true corporate CEO governor for what is becoming a corporate haven.

See you on the street car!

EDIT: Blondi/Blondo

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I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa

I like it.

on #6- anything on drug war. private prisons, slave labor, restored civil rights, generally hellish conditions in jails?.

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PriceRip's picture

@irishking

          The Democratic Party of Oregon site is here.

          The 2016 Priority Legislative Action Items document is here.

          I plan to find out if this is real or just smoke and mirrors. I expect to provide extensive commentary in the coming months.

Private Prisons: See #5

          As for your other concerns: I will investigate and report.

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@PriceRip

read over "prisons" in #5. my mistake.

look forward to your observations about oregon dems.
I really don't know what to think or do.

hard to believe in Dems at all.
but some serious people say reform of that party is our only shot.
others say it is hopeless.

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PriceRip's picture

@irishking

hard to believe in Dems at all.
but some serious people say reform of that party is our only shot.
others say it is hopeless.

          On the other hand, I am a compulsive fighter. Quitting, is not my normal exit strategy. The part of Oregon I am moving to is a study in contrasts. It is filling with people like me against a backdrop of "The State of Jefferson".


State of Jefferson Flag
State of Jefferson Flag

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