Progressive Democrats Sonoma County

Published by YES! Magazine. There’s simply no room for waste in a carbon neutral city. Seattle has a plan to cut its contribution to landfills—and it’s working. A key strategy that contributes to Seattle's carbon neutrality work was approved by the Council in 2007, when my Zero Waste Initiative was adopted as City policy. The things we throw away not only generate carbon as they decompose—they also carry the embedded carbon that was used in creating them. Zero Waste is a strategy that addresses both of those aspects. And the evidence is now in: We are succeeding in making real change happen. [more]

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Published by The New York Times. WASHINGTON — The private security company formerly called Blackwater Worldwide, long plagued by accusations of impropriety, has reached an agreement with the State Department for the company to pay $42 million in fines for hundreds of violations of United States export control regulations. [more]

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Published by On Top Magazine. See related: Backbone Campaign's "Target Ain't People" Institutional shareholders are demanding Target overhaul its campaign donation policies as a boycott over an anti-gay donation gains steam, the Los Angeles Times reported. On Thursday, three management firms announced they have sponsored a resolution demanding the retail giant rethink its donation policies to avoid future potential political hot button issues. [more]

Published by The Huffington Post. When Federal Communications Commissioner (FCC) Michael Copps issued a brief, two-sentence reaction to the news of a policy agreement between Verizon and Google over Net Neutrality, he deliberately emphasized one word. In bold face and italics, Copps said that a Commission "decision" had to be made, to guarantee an open Internet. [more]

Published by The Huffington Post. The middle class is getting whacked by the Great Recession. Fifteen million people are out of work, another 9 million workers can only find part-time jobs, and millions more have given up looking for work altogether. Those lucky enough to be employed are unlikely to see any substantial wage gains for years to come. Millions of homeowners are facing the loss of their home and more than ten million are underwater in their mortgage. Most of the huge baby boom cohort is approaching retirement with little other than Social Security to support them, now that the collapse of the housing bubble has destroyed their home equity and much of the rest of their savings. [more]

Take Action: Tell Congress "Tax Dirty Energy—Carbon Tax Now!"

Published by EarthJustice.org. EPA prepares move against those who pollute at our expense Too often in the last two decades, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has gnawed big polluters like a toothless tiger. But 20 years after Congress endowed the agency with new tools to protect people from dangerous air pollution, the EPA is finally preparing to bite down hard. [more]

Join PDA's End War and Occupations, Redirect Funding Issue Organizing Team (IOT); learn more here.

Published by Star Telegram. See related: Opposition to Afghanistan conflict not just a liberal issue anymore. Lawrence, Mass.—A majority of Americans see no end in sight in Afghanistan, and nearly six in 10 oppose the nine-year-old war as President Barack Obama sends tens of thousands more troops to the fight, according to a new Associated Press-GfK poll. [more]

Published by Guardian.UK. See related: Markey Says Report That Most Oil Is Gone Has Led To 'False Confidence' A 22-mile plume of droplets from BP's Deepwater Horizon well in the Gulf of Mexico undermines claim that oil has degraded Scientists have mapped a 22-mile plume of oil droplets from BP's rogue well in the depths of the Gulf of Mexico, providing the strongest evidence yet of the fate of the crude that spewed into the sea for months. The report offers the most authoritative challenge to date to White House assertions that most of the 5m barrels of oil that spewed into the Gulf is gone. [more]

Published by Associated Press. The company that owned the oil rig that exploded in the Gulf of Mexico is accusing BP of withholding critical evidence needed to investigate the cause of the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history, according to a confidential document obtained by The Associated Press. BP called the claims a publicity stunt. The new complaint by Transocean follows similar complaints by U.S. lawmakers about difficulties obtaining necessary information from BP in their investigations. [more]

Published by The New York Times. WASHINGTON — People and businesses seeking a lump-sum settlement from BP’s $20 billion oil spill compensation fund will most likely have to waive their right to sue not only BP, but also all the other major defendants involved with the spill, according to internal documents from the lawyers handling the fund. [more]

Published by RTE News. After Iceland's near-economic collapse laid bare deep-seated corruption, the country aims to become a safe haven for journalists and whistleblowers from around the globe by creating the world's most far-reaching freedom of information legislation. The project is being developed with the help of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. It flies in the face of a growing tendency of governments trying to stifle a barrage of secret and sometimes embarrassing information made readily available by the internet. [more]

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Published by McClatchy Newspapers. In June, the Supreme Court refused to hear the case of a Canadian man who contends that U.S. authorities mistook him for an al Qaida operative in 2002 and shipped him to a secret prison in Syria, where he was beaten with electrical cables and held in a grave-like cell for 10 months. Four years earlier, however, the Canadian government had concluded an exhaustive inquiry and found that the former prisoner, Maher Arar, was telling the truth. Canada cleared Arar of all ties to terrorism and paid him $10 million in damages, and his lawyers say he's cooperating with an investigation into the role of U.S. and Syrian officials in his imprisonment and reported torture. [more]

Published by Reuters. The United States supports forming an international commission to probe possible war crimes and crimes against humanity by Myanmar's military rulers, a senior administration official said on Wednesday. The decision comes after months of fruitless diplomacy by President Barack Obama's administration, which had offered greater engagement in an effort to win democratic concessions from Myanmar, formerly known as Burma. [more]

Published by Common Dreams. Seems hard for elected folks and think tankers and others in the upper crust to imagine or recall, but most Americans aren't spending a lot of time thinking about the subtleties of political gamesmanship or strategy for the mid-term elections. Most Americans are thinking about paying the bills. The insistent bills that never stop--the mortgage or rent, the food, the gas or transport to get to and from work or looking for work, the utilities, the medical insurance or costs. It's about the bills and staying alive. [more]

Published by The Progressive. The folks around Barack Obama are scratching their heads, wondering why his poll numbers are autumnal, hanging there in the low to mid-40s. John Podesta, Clinton’s old chief of staff who headed up Obama’s transition team, recently offered his own view that the President got bogged down in the legislative details, for one, and as a result, he couldn’t deliver on his pledge to transcend partisanship. And for two, the economy didn’t recover quickly enough. [more]

Published by The Nation. SYDNEY--Australia will in short order hold national elections and, in my capacity as a commentator of media coverage of politics, I've been making the rounds of Australian radio and television programs and media forums. What’s been striking about the experience is the extent to which it has made me miss the American phenomenon of the moderate Republican. Moderate Republicans have been hunted to the brink of extinction in the US. Australia still has a local version of the breed and the country is better for it. [more]

Join PDA's End War and Occupations, Redirect Funding Issue Organizing Team (IOT); learn more here.

Published by Agence France Presse. WASHINGTON (AFP) – The last US combat brigade pulled out of Iraq and crossed into Kuwait almost seven and a half years after the US-led invasion to oust Saddam Hussein, US media reported. [more]

Published by Associated Press. See related: By US Deaths, Afghanistan Is Obama's War Hundreds of demonstrators blocked a main highway between Kabul and the eastern city of Jalalabad on Wednesday to protest two deaths in a night raid. The protesters said the two men killed were innocent civilians, while NATO said its forces killed two insurgents. Ghafor Khan, chief of the district of Surkh Rod, said a father and his son were killed and three others were wounded in the Tuesday night operation in his district. He said police were trying to control the crowd to keep the demonstration peaceful. NATO said Afghan and coalition troops killed two insurgents and detained several others while pursuing a bomb-making expert who was making sophisticated explosives for the Taliban. The coalition said the joint force took enemy fire before fatally shooting two men. [more]

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Published by AFL-CIOblog. While more and more working Americans can’t afford health care, big insurance CEOs are getting fat pay increases—and raising health insurance premiums. Between 2007 and 2009, more than 25 percent of Americans reduced their use of health care—two to five times the rate than in Britain, Canada, France and Germany, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research. Here’s one big reason why: Nearly 15 percent of Americans are uninsured, while the other countries have near-universal coverage. Read the report, “The Economic Crisis and Medical Care Usage,” here. [more]

Published by Truthdig. Are the Republicans terminally stupid or are they just playing the dangerous fool? In either case, the irrational attack on Muslims everywhere by the GOP’s leadership is not only deeply subversive with regard to the American ideal of religious tolerance but also poses a profound threat to our national security. Nor does it help that some top Democrats like Harry Reid are willing to demean Muslims even as we fight two wars in which victory depends on our ability to convey a respect for their religion. Just ask Gen. David Petraeus, who is leading the war without end to win the hearts and minds of Muslims in Afghanistan, how helpful it is to the Taliban for American politicians to identify all Muslims with terrorism. Or to the theocratic leaders of Iran who justify their hard line with the insistence that the U.S. is obsessively anti-Muslim. [more]