Demands Related to Election Reform

This wasn't on Bernies list but it is a priority for everyone and should be for any reformers of our party. It should be a multi-partisan, non-partisan issue. But it isn't. The outlines of fair and just elections are visible to anyone who looks at the issue. We should demand of all our political candidates at all levels the following reforms:

Per Article One Section 4 and Article 4 Section 4 of the Constitution, Congress mandates that all elections follow basic rules of balloting as necessary for the proper function of a Republican form of Government:

1. All voting machines must produce a clear readable permanent indelible record that includes an original under the control of a local election judge who cannot be an active participant in any election except as an election judge.
2. The Ballot produced must be uniform, readable and verifiable to the voter who has prepared it as part of voting and to election personnel who must count the ballots.
3. Election places shall ID voters in a reasonable fashion and arbitrary ID rules may not be used to bar a registered voter from casting a vote.
4. The Ballot once cast must be anonymous and any link to the Voters actual ID use a random number to preserve anonymity unless the vote has been contested for cause.
5. No vote may be contested without cause.
6. Purely electronic machines must be scrapped immediately.
7. Electronic tallying may be retained, but all evidence of voting must be hand countable and it should be possible to count the ballots after the election under the guardianship of non-partisan election judges and representatives from each party, if there is any dispute about the outcome of the election or the tally. Moreover records shall be preserved so that they can be recounted or audited if necessary.
8. The same procedure must be used to review ballots before they are prepared and published.
9. Either Election day must be a Holiday or provision be made for workers, persons with odd hours and for all voters to be able to vote with maximum ease and assuredness before the day of the election, preferably up to a week or more and on weekends.
10. Tampering with, altering, or interfering with the ballots or voter access to voting shall be a federal crime with a fine of no less than $5000 dollars or 6 months in jail for each count. Evidence of Election fraud shall be grounds for requiring a new election and candidates convicted of election fraud shall be barred from Federal Office or Federal Contracts.

I don't even have to look these up

Demands related to Jobs, and Job Fairness

Create Jobs!

The goal of creating jobs is directly related to all the other goals and demands we Democrats have and is part of a key positive right that everyone should have the ability to earn an income sufficient to provide a livelihood. In practice we need to make sure we have the resources allocated to ensure that everyone who needs a job can get one and that those jobs are good ones. For that reason "Creating Jobs" is directly related to raising the Wage and Pay Equity. And it is indirectly related to other key goals in Bernie's list.

The goal of 'creating jobs' is regularly cited in RW plots to override pollution controls, seize our public properties and reallocate wealth to the wealthy, but all those programs destroy more jobs than they create, as does unfair trade laws and tax benefits to the already wealthy. On the contrary our demands all tend to create sustainable jobs.

1. Fix our Infrastructure, Build Green Energy, Fight Climate Change

Bernie's #1, #2 and most of the rest of our list, all contribute to creating jobs! A Healthy economy has demand up jobs and invites investment.

In addition we should:

2. Make the Unemployment Program an Employment Program -- Bring Back Hiring Halls

Currently the unemployment office often does good work of helping folks who are unemployed get through to their next job. But thanks to budget cutbacks, when there are severe economic hard times it cuts off unemployment insurance just when a person is finding it hardest to find a job, and there are no provisions for folks with age, disability or other long term unemployment issues to find employment that they can handle. We have a multitude of underfunded welfare offices to help people with these problems, but most of them are inadequate and many veterans, aged people, people with physical or psychological issues get poorly served.

At one time a person who was unemployed could go to a Union or other Hiring hall and get placed with a job. We should bring back something similar. There has to be a public/private partnership to keep people working and provide a source of employment at last resort and Hiring halls that pay people a minimum wage for being on call and pay them better if someone needs day labor or a permanent hire would fill that bill.

The Unemployment program should become an "Employment Program" and pay people a minimum until they get a job -- and also provide employment services. It should be run at State, County, Municipal and neighborhood level and not treat unemployment as if they are criminals. Local government must be the employer of last resort both from the Worker's point of view and private employers point of view.

The enabling Legislation would include model bills for adoption at the State and local Level. Every person attending a hiring hall would be paid the minimum living wage for 8 hours of work, and additional if actually hired.

3. Use Hiring Halls to access Free Education, Training and Apprenticeships

In addition to providing or sponsoring local hiring halls with Large Employers, local Government or Unions sponsoring them, the Government should ensure that people are properly educated and trained for work. This means that not only should there be hiring halls for workers, but those places should provide training, apprenticeship opportunities, volunteer work and education opportunities to folks in the hiring hall while being paid a minimum wage. They should be free to the laborer and the student. A college campus would not only be free to the students attending there, but the government would pay students to attend school as long as their Grade Point and performance justified it. And of course workers would be available to perform University related work while attending.

4. Make the Minimum wage = a Living Wage. And raise that to a threshold of 10$ an hour.

The minimum wage should equal the wage necessary for a person to not be poor anymore if they work 40 hours a week 50 weeks a year. It should be defined the poverty level (yearly) for a family of four divided by 2000 hours. And when there is inflation the minimum wage should change as the poverty level changes.

An even higher "standard" wage should apply and equal the average wage for a working person. This should apply to those who have a full time or part time job in any industry. If businesses can't afford to pay their employees they should have to explain why.

Even more important, taxes should be on income that is higher than that needed to compensate labor for their work. If a businessman has expenses; food, energy, drive time, input expenses, the businessman can deduct them from his/her business earnings. Employees should not be taxed on that part of their compensation that is necessary for them to eat, get to work, clothe themselves and educate themselves and their children. That is why it is called "wage compensation." It shouldn't be taxed.

5. Democrats may support Corporate Welfare to help struggling employers

If employers can't afford to pay the minimum wage or a standard wage, then the hiring halls should have the authority to pay hirees a living wage and run a tab of the difference for employers to be paid out of eventual profits if the employer can stay in business. It should be on businessmen to justify why they can't stay in business unless they pay oppressive wages.

6. All Democratic candidates shall support Fair Trade Provisions

If an employer hires employees outside the country at less than what the exchange rate would calculate as a fair minimum wage for a US worker in the same job in the USA than the employer shall pay a duty on the difference in value added from those employees when the goods are imported or the services are rendered. If they can't afford the duty then the Government shall remove their import license.

An employer cannot export capital goods if it means terminating local employees. No export license shall be granted for any employer exporting capital goods if that export means termination of the local employees.

7. All Democratic candidates shall support the letter and spirit of the Lily Ledbetter Act.

The Lily Ledbetter Act already talks about Pay equity.

8. All Persons Employed by any employer doing business in interstate commerce, with more than 50 employees or doing business with the Government shall have the right to assemble at such times convenient to them, to discuss any issue freely during such assembly, to select representatives and to petition the government of such employer with grievances or demands.

9. Workplace Democracy as a Right

   All Persons employed by any employer whatsoever shall have the right to be consulted by that employer when major decisions are made and to be informed of changes in compensation, employment term, or benefits.

   This list is a "threshold" list. The last two items may sound radical but they are basic to principles of republicanism and good function.

   This list is a strawman and a draft. I hope that others will like the idea and run with it.

   This list relates to Demand #3 on Bernie's list "Create Jobs". Read: http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-common-plank.html

More Reading (and this list will get longer):

http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2014/12/demanding-infrastructure-spending.html

Support Dodd Frank at minimum or not get our vote in primaries

We demand that Congressmen either stop or block efforts to protect the gambling of megabanks. Obama should be ashamed for himself in supporting Dimon's corrupt efforts to buy protection for Wall Street from their reckless speculation and conversion while paying for it with cuts to worker pensions. Any one who is trying gut Dodd Frank may not call him or herself a Democrat. As Elizabeth Warren said last night.

"Dodd Frank isn't perfect. It should have broken you to pieces."

Our essential problem with Wall Street is their concentrated corrupt power and influence over our congress, senators and corrupt SCOTUS. We demand that our candidates and representative support reform of Wall Street, reigning in of their ability to convert people's savings and retirement set asides to personal fortunes, and their impunity. The MegaBanks either must be nationalized into a National System or broken up into manageable sized outfits. This is a demand not a plank item. The Threshold is to not gut Dodd Frank and anyone voting for last night's corrupt Funding bill will not get our support in the next election. And We will find a replacement for you and primary you.

Elizabeth Warren on Dodd Frank

“Who does Congress work for?” Warren said in a speech on the Senate floor Wednesday afternoon. “Does it work for the millionaires, the billionaires, the giant companies with their armies of lobbyists and lawyers, or does it work for all the people?” [...]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/12/10/1350800/-Elizabeth-Warren-blasts-Wall-Street-sweetheart-deal-in-spending-bill#

“Now, the House of Representatives is about to show us the worst of government for the rich and powerful,” she continued. “The House is about to vote on a budget deal, a deal negotiated behind closed doors that slips in a provision that would let derivatives traders on Wall Street gamble with taxpayer money and get bailed out by the government when their risky bets threaten to blow up our financial system.”

It may seem a small thing but it is a really big thing.

Source: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-12-11/house-votes-11-trillion-cromnibus-bill-live-webcast

When Wall Street can get consumers to cover their bad bets, they can literally steal (technical word is convert) people's wealth twice. Once by stealing it and the second time by getting the taxpayer to make good their theft.

This demand relates to Bernie Sander's plank # 9

Demand supporting goal #6 for Pay equity

We demand that any Democratic candidate continue and reaffirm support for the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. We will only support for primary positions candidates who commit to it and will withdraw our support from anyone who votes to infringe this right, defund the law, or doesn't support it. This is Bernie Sanders core goal #6

http://www.nwlc.org/resource/lilly-ledbetter-fair-pay-act-0

We Demand that Congress raise the National Minimum wage and peg the rate to inflation

We demand that any Representative wishing to represent our district, or Senator wishing to represent our State Commit to raising the minimum wage. He/she will not receive our vote if he/she does not support a vote on raising the minimum wage, push to get that vote on the floor and not ever vote against it. If he/she does not support this demand we will find another representative who will and will not vote for this representative in the primary. We will support the candidate who agrees to support this demand. We will not support any candidate who does not sign an agreement to work for the majority of Americans who benefit from people making a living wage.

This is one of Bernie Sanders 12 plank items. It's the Second easiest one to quantify. The National Minimum wage should be as a threshold value the value that brings people above the poverty level for a family of four, and as an objective it should raise people to a fully living wage. To achieve this in a single election cycle requires that Congress pass a minimum wage increase. To sustain it, we should require that the minimum wage be indexed for inflation and be automatically increased when the cost of living demands that this happen. This should be on a list of Democratic demands for any candidate who wants to call him or herself a Democrat.

It should have a high priority as it contributes to the other core goals of pay equity and making trade work for workers.

Bernies list (reminder)

Reprising Bernies list with priorities (note I upped priority of #5) This is #5:

1. Rebuilding Our Roads H
2. Reversing Climate Change M
3. Creating Jobs M
4. Protecting Unions M
5. Raising the Wage H
6. Pay Equity M
7. Making Trade Work for Workers M
8. Cutting College Costs M
9. Breaking Up Big Banks M
10. Bringing Health Care to All M
11. Ending Poverty M
12. Stopping Tax Dodging Corporations M

Source: http://crooksandliars.com/2014/12/bernie-sanders-unveils-12-point-economic

http://www.sanders.senate.gov/about

A'Had Haam Asher Zvi Hirsch Ginsberg, Zionism & the Holocaust

My Friend William Boyle shared on Facebook this comment and associated article on Ahad Ha'am (Hebrew: אחד העם‎, lit. one of the people, Genesis 26:10):

Ahad Ha'am (Hebrew: אחד העם‎, lit. one of the people, Genesis 26:10)
(18 August 1856 – 2 January 1927)

"An act of folly that turns out well is still an act of folly."
--Ancient Yiddish proverb.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahad_Ha%27am

Wikipedia notes that:

Ahad "was a Hebrew essayist, and one of the foremost pre-state Zionist thinkers. He is known as the founder of cultural Zionism. With his secular vision of a Jewish "spiritual center" in Israel, he confronted Theodor Herzl. Unlike Herzl, the founder of political Zionism, Ha'am strived for "a Jewish state and not merely a state of Jews" [Wikipedia article]

Jews wanted a state after what happened in France to Dreyfuss and to Jews living in France as the RW there used the Franco Prussian War to justify a coup. The French Military Officers were pro-German and had imbibed racist ideas from the Brits that "Germans" were a superior race. And agents of the Prussians not only betrayed the French from within but put the blame on an obscure Jewish Officer named Dreyfus. They then used the trial to stoke up anti-semitism. It was that that led to the Zionist movement and Jews might have picked some place in the USA but most already had ties with Palestine and wanted to go back there to their ancestral home. The various leaders of the new Zionist organizations had different ideas of what Zionism was about. Some wanted Jews to form mini-states in countries like Argentina or USA, but others like Ahad focused on Israel from the beginning.

"Ginsberg was born in Skvyra near Kiev in Imperial Russia, to pious well-to-do Hasidic parents. As early as eight years old, he began to secretly teach himself to read Russian. His father, Isaiah, sent him to heder until the age of 12. When Isaiah became the administrator of a large estate in a village in the Kiev district, he moved the family there and took private tutors for his son, who excelled at his studies. Ginsberg was critical of the dogmatic nature of Orthodox Judaism but remained loyal to his cultural heritage, and especially the ethical ideals of Judaism"

The issue was that Europeans, Arabs and other ethnicities had visions of Nationalism that weren't going to accept Israel as a "State of Jews". If that had been possible than big settlements like Moiseville in Argentina (Jewish Gauchos of the Pampas -- Gerchenov) or in the USA would have been more feasible, or even possible in Russia where there were millions of Jews living on either side of the borders between Russia and what had been Poland. Ha'am was a "Russian Jew, born on the Russian side of that border (like my late Wife's father):

Even so he was a Zionist before the Dreyfus Affair:

"After unsuccessfully attempting to study in Vienna and Germany, he returned in his early thirties to Odessa where he was influenced by Leon Pinsker, a leader of the Hovevei Zion (Lovers of Zion) movement. Hovevei Zion began as independent study circles in the late 19th century, and formed a philanthropic confederation called Hibbat Zion (love for Zion). Their practical aim was settlement of Jews in Palestine, and they produced the settlements of the first Aliyah (immigration wave). The Zionist settlement program was beset by practical difficulties, and many settlements failed or were failing." [Wikipedia article]

I've met folks who had been in Israel since before the first Aliyah. Jews, especially orthodox, hasidic or Esoteric (Donmei or followers of Shabbetai Tsvi) had been emigrating to "The land of Israel" (Eretz Israel) as Palestine was known in Hebrew/Aramaic, for centuries. Many went to Safed in what is now the West Bank. Others would go to Jerusalem. The Turks restricted numbers so many Jews would wind up in ghettos or towns in cities scattered around what is now Israel, Palestine and Jordan. They often struggled in their new homes. And some would return to "Galut" (exile) in frustration, or wind up in other places. Most of these people were not interested in politics. And

"Unlike Pinsker, Ginsberg did not believe in political Zionism, which he fought, 'with a vehemence and austerity which embittered that whole period'. Instead, from his very first article, he hailed the spiritual value of the Hebrew renaissance within the Zionist movement. To counter the debilitating fragmention for the Jewish folk-soul of life throughout the diaspora, the idea of assuring unity through an ingathering of Jews into Palestine was not an answer. That is, kibbutz galuyoth was a messianic ideal rather than a feasible contemporary project. The real answer lay in achieving a spiritual centre, or 'central domicile', within Palestine, that of Eretz Israel, which would form an exemplary model for the dispersed world of Jewry in exile to imitate, a spiritual focus for the circumferential world of the Jewish diaspora. He split from the Zionist movement after the First Zionist Congress, because he felt that Theodor Herzl's program was impractical." [Wikipedia article]

"Lo ze haderekh" (This is not the way)

For the religious Jew the purpose of return to Zion is partly to eventually return the "Shekhina" or spirit of God back to Israel where it would heal both Israel and itself. In Kaballist literature "Galut" is a spiritual state as well as a literal state. God and the Jew are both in exile. And as long as God is in exile, the entire of humanity is also in spiritual exile. Thus returning the spirit of God "Shekhina" to Israel is a spiritual journey. And as he noted one, it would be an arduous one unless Jews were willing to work harder and would reform a kind of "inward zionism" "Hibat Zion":

"He wrote that the Land of Israel will not be capable of absorbing all of the Jewish Diaspora, not even a majority of them. Ahad Ha'am also argued that establishing a "national home" in Zion will not solve the "Jewish problem"; furthermore, the physical conditions in Eretz Yisrael will discourage Aliyah, and thus Hibat Zion must educate and strengthen the Zionist values among the Jewish people enough that they will want to settle the land despite the great difficulties. The ideas in this article became the platform for Bnai Moshe (sons of Moses), a group he founded that year. B'nai Moshe, active until 1897, worked to improve Hebrew education, build up a wider audience for Hebrew literature, and assist the Jewish settlements."

But of course, Jews in Europe didn't really have the time and space to learn how to dig stoney fields to plant or learn to endure the harsh conditions of this land alongside the great deserts of North Africa and Arabia. When Hannah Arendt centered her "Origins of Totalitarianism" on a study of the Dreyfus affair and it's impact on the escalation of anti-semitism in Europe. Prior to the Dreyfus affair most Jewish folks had hope that they could assimilate into French and other European Countries and remain Jewish, the way we've hoped to do in the United States.

Europeans & Arabs Choose vicious Nationalism over Civitas

But the Dreyfus affair showed that in the European mind there was a tug of war between nationalism as "Volk"/Folk/tribe and nationalism as citizenship in a particular location and that for many Europeans citizenship was a pipe dream. Seeing the same kinds of nationalism and tribalism/chauvinism rise in other countries convinced about a third of Jews that Zionism as a country of their own was the only viable option for survival. This has proved true at least for European Jews. Though they have been allowed to live in the Americas, their citizenship has always had a provisional character even for FDR and until Truman both recognized Israel and relaxed Wilsonian/FDR anti-semitic restrictions on Jewish immigration. Prior to 1947 emigrating to Israel, legally or illegally was the only survival option for many Jews and that was closed BY FORCE by the British even as they fought off Rommel and Hitler.

So Hibat Zion proved to be a journey by fire for those who survived the ministrations of Hitler.

Europe is too mixed, has too many ethnicities to sanely be both nationalistic on a tribal basis and embrace the concept of civitas (the roots of our separation of Church and State, birth citizenship etc....) They should have embraced the power of civitas and civilizations and Europeans, including Jews, focus on spiritual renaissance and not start killing each other. A'Had Haam died in Tel Aviv with part of his vision in operation, but before the horrors of WWII and the Nazis.

Demanding Infrastructure spending.

Bernie Sanders has 12 points for his plank. They are (I've added priority marks, High=H, M=Medium, L=Low):

1. Rebuilding Our Roads H
2. Reversing Climate Change M
3. Creating Jobs M
4. Protecting Unions M
5. Raising the Wage M
6. Pay Equity M
7. Making Trade Work for Workers M
8. Cutting College Costs M
9. Breaking Up Big Banks M
10. Bringing Health Care to All M
11. Ending Poverty M
12. Stopping Tax Dodging Corporations M

I think that his list makes a good starting point for some concrete demands. The difference between a plank and a demand is that a plank is usually general and nobody cares if one makes it in a particular year. A set of demands is something that is specific and meeting it can be measured. What is needed now are demands that all Democrats can agree on and that we can make part of the Democratic plank and hold our candidates to pursuing. For that reason they have to be converted to numbers.

A few months ago, I remember, I think it was Obama, floated the following ideas covering point 1. He was immediately shot down, not only by Cons but by our own party. Yet this is and should be the first demand of Democrats over the next 20 years.

Demand Highway and Infrastructure Repair

We must repair our infrastructure. This is a critical capability that has to be fixed. According to the Society of Engineers We must spend 3.6 Trillion dollars by 2020 to fix our infrastruture to the point where it is minimally servicable. [http://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/] http://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/a/documents/2013-Report-Card.pdf addressed needs that haven't been met. This is a security issue more important than Al Qaeda or ISIS as they have nothing to attack if we let our bridges collapse from neglect.

Infrastructure Demands:

Demand 1: Must have 50 billion per year and 250 billion total for infrastucture investment over next 5 years.

Demand 2: Must create an Infrastructure Finance Authority to Fund and regulate Infrastructure projects

Demand 3: Must make Membership in that Finance Authority mandatory to give States access to match funds with private activity bonds.

Demand 4: Must create a Infrastructure Trust fund to manage SuperFund monies and other investments in cooperation with EPA and State Branch authorities.

Demand 5: Must make all existing Infrastructure Authorities and states automatic members of the Infrastructure Finance Authority unless they opt out. They shall have representation in a Requirements Board and oversight body on legislative & Budget matters and on a Governors Board for executive matters.

We should take money out of DoD and put it into these projects. DoD spends too much money, wastes too much money and risks our country in the process by stirring up hatred and insurrection around the world while serving local Caliph wannabes and Kings. The USA Cannot afford to be an empire. It will destroy our Republic.

 

Infrastructure investment Demand details:

 

Component 1; Dams: 21 billion Total needed, 4.2 billion per year over 5 years needed.

Component 2: Water Safety requires a minimum of 1.25 billion per year total of 7.5 billion $ over 5 years for Water Infrastructure:

Component 3: We must Reinvigorate State Revolving Loan Fund (SRF) program under the Safe Drinking Water Act

Component 5: Eliminate the state cap on private activity bonds for infrastructure projects allowing states to match Federal spending. And put Federal matching activity bonds under control of the Federal Infrastructure Finance Authority or local subdivisions of the Authority.

Component 6: Infrastructure Finance Authority:

Create a Infrastructure Finance Innovations Authority (IFIA), essentially an infrastructure Bank

This would access funds from the U.S. Treasury at Treasury rates and use those funds to support loans and other credit mechanisms for water and other Infrastructure projects. The loans would be repaid to the Authority and then to the U.S. Treasury with interest

Component 7: Infrastructure Trust Fund:

Establish a federal Infrastructure Trust Fund to finance shortfalls in water and other infrastructure and ultimately make these programs self funding. Can also be used to manage the Environmental Superfund.

This is needed because "At the dawn of the 21st century, much of our drinking water infrastructure is nearing the end of its useful life. There are an estimated 240,000 water main breaks per year in the United States. Assuming every pipe would need to be replaced (or at the minimum relined), the cost over the coming decades could reach more than $1 trillion, according to the American Water Works Association (AWWA).

Component 8: 500 Million one time outlay to Trust Fund to replenish Superfund:

We must replenish the Superfund Trust Fund by a minimum of 500 Million Dollars to deal with Hazardous Waste:

Annual funding for Superfund site cleanup is estimated to be as much as $500 million short of what is needed, and 1,280 sites remain on the National Priorities List with an unknown number of potential sites yet to be identified. More than 400,000 brownfields sites await cleanup and redevelopment.

Component 9: Levies: 20 Billion per year (100 Billion total) to repair and improve levies

Public safety remains at risk from these aging structures, and the cost to repair or rehabilitate these levees is roughly estimated to be $100 billion by the National Committee on Levee Safety. However, the return on investment is clear – as levees helped in the prevention of more than $141 billion in flood damages in 2011.[http://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/a/documents/2013-Report-Card.pdf]

Component 10: Bridges 20.5 billion$ annually.

Component 11: Remaining infrastructure, ports, rails, waterways, and other infrastructure all need investment too.

But these investments can be self funding and the role of the Federal Government can and should be to provide the banking and investment needs of States, Counties, Cities and Towns, all of which can be funded through an infrastructure Finance Authority and through cooperation across the country.