All Entries in the "Take Action" Category
Motion to Amend
Sign The Petition:
We, the People of the United States of America, reject the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United, and move to amend our Constitution to:
* Firmly establish that money is not speech, and that human beings, not corporations, are persons entitled to constitutional rights.
* Guarantee the right to vote and to participate, and to have our vote and participation count.
* Protect local communities, their economies, and democracies against illegitimate “preemption” actions by global, national, and state governments.
Full Story: Motion to Amend | Move to Amend.
Economic Power: Boycott BP
“Boycott BP into bankruptcy” – said Cindy Sheehan. Amen.
Economic boycotts can be very powerful and change the world for the better. Sadly, too few Americans use their personal spending power to advance worthy goals. An immediate opportunity is for people to stop buying BP gasoline. After all, it is clear that BP acted irresponsibly and likely criminally in using offshore oil drilling technology that posed enormous risks to public and worker safety as well as our natural environment in the Gulf of Mexico and possibly far beyond.
Make BP suffer where it hurts, where it can truly harm them. Send a clear signal that we will get revenge as consumers with an environmental conscience. An immediate boycott of BP could do much to make the company compensate the incredible number of people that will suffer very much because of the humongous oil spill that should have been prevented. We cannot depend on BP acting responsibly; nor can we count on the government or the courts for delivering timely justice.
There is a Boycott BP page on Facebook. Show your support. Over at the Public Citizen Web site you can sign a petition: “Take the Beyond BP Pledge! Drive a car? Like the occasional fountain drink? Send a clear message to BP by boycotting its gas and retail store products. Don't spend a cent of your hard-earned money to feed the bottom line of a corporation that has a sordid history of negligence, willfully violates environmental regulations, and is spewing thousands and thousands of barrels of oil a day into the Gulf of Mexico. I pledge to boycott BP for at least three months.” Public Citizen has also created a Facebook group “1,000,000 Strong to Boycott BP.”
Full Story: Economic Power: Boycott BP | Economy In Crisis.
K Street Protest: Dozens Storm D.C. Bank Branches, Block K Street Intersection
Dozens of noisy purple-shirted SEIU protesters stormed a Bank of America branch near the U.S. Capitol on Monday, forcing the bank to close down as confused customers looked on and tellers retreated to an interior room.
Other groups from SEIU and National People’s Action were set to stage protests at BofA’s and JPMorgan Chase’s lobby shops downtown as part of a daylong anti-K Street extravaganza.
A security guard told HuffPost the branch would be closed only temporarily.
From there, the group blocked an intersection in D.C.’s tiny Chinatown, then stopped by a Citibank branch. “Corporate greed has got to go!”
At 11:00 a.m., hundreds of protesters from SEIU and National People’s Action merged at the offices of Democratic superlobbyist Tony Podesta, who boasts Bank of America among his massive client list. “We’re fired up to take down Wall Street,” they chanted.
Full Story: K Street Protest: Dozens Storm D.C. Bank Branches, Block K Street Intersection.
7 arraigned after foreclosure protest at Stony Ridge
Seven people were arrested during the forced evacuation of a Stony Ridge house early Friday, including the homeowner who spent the week barricaded inside with several protesters in an attempt to resist eviction because of foreclosure.
The defendants appeared via video conference Friday afternoon in Perrysburg Municipal Court, all represented by attorney Terry Lodge. Judge Dwight Osterud released them on their own recognizance. Pretrial hearings will be scheduled later. The judge asked homeowner Keith Sadler if he understood that he could not return to his residence and he answered in the affirmative.
It took nearly two hours for authorities to arrest all in the home, including Mr. Sadler, 53, of Stony Ridge; Connie Smithingell, 20, of Perrysburg; Bryan Baumgartner, of Toledo, 19; Nicholas Botek, 23, of Maumee; Jessica Angelov, 20, of Oregon; Daniel Orange, 25, of Toledo; and Johnny W. Kutsch, Jr., 22, of Oregon.
Full Story: toledoblade.com — The Blade ~ Toledo Ohio.
Ask the Senate to vote on an amendment to audit the Federal Reserve
Sign our letter to the Senate:
“It’s time to end the secrecy surrounding the Federal Reserve and bring greater accountability to our financial system.
I join the bipartisan group of Senators Bernie Sanders, Russ Feingold, Ron Wyden, Chuck Grassley, Jim DeMint and Sam Brownback, as well as Reps. Alan Grayson and Ron Paul, in calling for an audit of the Federal Reserve to make public the recipients of over $2 trillion in bailouts during the financial crisis.”
The Federal Reserve, the central bank for the United States, spent more than $2 trillion in secret bailouts for big banks during the financial crisis.
Problem is, it’s refusing to give any details about how it spent that huge sum of money.
If we can audit the Fed, we can find out how it propped up which big banks, bringing accountability to our financial system.
Auditing the Fed could restore the public’s trust in our financial system, and help us avoid another mismanaged disaster from occurring. With your help, we can end the historic secrecy surrounding the Fed.
Full Story: action.firedoglake.com | Ask the Senate to vote on an amendment to audit the Federal Reserve.
PROTECT NET NEUTRALITY NOW!! — Video
We only have 2 days from now to send in those notes!
URGENT CALL TO ACTION – PLEASE WATCH NOW
Phone: 1-888-CALL-FCC (1-888-225-5322)
TTY: 1-888-TELL-FCC (1-888-835-5322)
Fax: 1-866-418-0232
E-mail: fccinfo@fcc.gov
The Courts Can’t Take Away Our Internet
| Save the Internet -
Today’s ruling for Comcast by the DC Circuit Court could be the biggest blow to our nation’s primary communications platform, or it could be the kick in the pants our leaders need to finally protect it. Either way, the future of the Internet, the fight for Net Neutrality, and the expansion of broadband is hanging in the balance.
The court ruled that the Federal Communications Commission lacks the authority under existing legal framework to enforce rules that keep Internet service providers from blocking and controlling Internet traffic. The decision puts the FCC’s Net Neutrality proceeding and the National Broadband Plan in jeopardy.
The court ruled in favor of ISP Comcast, which was caught blocking BitTorrent Internet traffic in 2007 and contested the FCC’s attempts to stop the company. The decision has made it near impossible for the FCC to follow through with plans to create strong Net Neutrality protections that keep the Internet out of the hands of corporations. Additionally, without authority over broadband, the decision means the FCC will be hamstrung when it comes to implementing portions of its just released broadband plan.
Full Story: The Courts Can’t Take Away Our Internet | Save the Internet.
Taking action for World Water Day
There are still 900 million people who don’t have a safe water supply – and not always in the places you expect
This is a tale of two countries – one landlocked, with two-thirds of its harsh environment given over to desert and where rainfall is thought to be reducing; the other low lying, with millions of inhabitants squeezed onto narrow spits of land prone to severe monsoon flooding.
They may be continents apart, each with their own set of problems, but in both, girls miss out on school because they spend hours fetching water. Mothers give birth with no access to clean water. Children are dying from chronic diarrhoea. Livelihoods are put on hold through illness and hospital beds are full.
Water is life. That might sound hackneyed, but believe me there has never been a more potent truism – especially when today, World Water Day, there are still nearly 900 million people across the world who don’t have access to a safe water supply.
Full Story: Taking action for World Water Day | Barbara Frost | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk.
20 Principles for Successful Community Organizing
Kahn’s new book, “Creative Community Organizing: a Guide for Rabble-Rousers, Activists and Quiet Lovers of Justice,” is a manifesto for the politically active.
I’ve been a rabble-rouser and social activist for 45 of my almost 66 years, and have made my living as a professional civil rights, labor, and community organizer, as well as a performer. In my new political memoir, Creative Community Organizing: A Guide for Rabble-Rousers, Activists, and Quiet Lovers of Justice (Berrett-Koehler, 2010), I relate stories from some of the great social reform campaigns in recent American history, of which I’ve been privileged to play a part–including the Southern Civil Rights Movement, the
Click image to buy it now
Harlan County coal miner’s strike, and the fight to abolish for-profit prisons and immigrant family detention. The book has lessons that I hope will inspire and motivate a new generation of community organizers and young activists–and anyone else who seeks to make an impact in their communities, from musicians and soccer moms, to teachers and politicians.
What follows is a list of take-away lessons and principles, a sort of manifesto for today’s community organizers.
“Freedom, freedom is a hard won thing, and every generation has to win it again.”
Full Story: 20 Principles for Successful Community Organizing | Books | AlterNet.
Antiwar Activists Plan Nationwide Protests to Mark Seventh Anniversary of Iraq Invasion
Antiwar activists are gearing up to commemorate the seventh anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq with a weeklong series of events to protest the ongoing occupation of the country.
The US invaded Iraq on March 20, 2003. Then-President George W. Bush and top administration officials told the American people Saddam Hussein was an imminent threat to the US, had concealed weapons of mass destruction and helped plan the 9/11 attacks.
But that was a lie. Former Bush administration officials have said publicly that the Iraq war was planned weeks after the Bush was sworn into office and that intelligence reports that claimed Iraq was a threat that intelligence reports that claimed Iraq was a threat were cooked up by analysts under pressure by Vice President Dick Cheney and his senior staffers. And government reports have been released since the invasion documenting the nearly 1,000 lies the Bush administration used to sell the war to the American public.
Full Story: t r u t h o u t | Antiwar Activists Plan Nationwide Protests to Mark Seventh Anniversary of Iraq Invasion.
Citizens take on DC Government over Tax Giveaways to Defense Contractor Northrop Grumman
“I originally supported the $25 million offer to Northrop Grumman, but I have since had second thoughts. With the city facing a $200-300 million deficit, I see no reason to subsidize a multi-billion-dollar war machine.”
–DC City Councilman Marion Barry, March 10 in a telephone interview
A major struggle is brewing in the nation’s capitol about the city’s proposal to offer of $25 million in subsidies and grants to the mammoth defense contractor Northrop Grumman. The legislation was originally sponsored by seven of the City Council’s 13 members and supported by Mayor Adrian Fenty, but now that the DC community is mobilizing against the corporate giveaway, council members are having second thoughts.
On January 4 newly-hired CEO Wesley Bush announced that Northrop Grumman would move its headquarters from the Century City area of Los Angeles to the Washington metropolitan area by 2011. Bush wants his executives closer to lawmakers on Capitol Hill and to officials in the military and intelligence communities that make up the vast majority of Northrop’s business. The company has already has been buying influence in Washington through an army of lobbyists, outspending its larger rivals Lockheed Martin and Boeing by more than $25 million between 1998 and 2008, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The move will only increase its ability to land lucrative defense contracts.
Full Story: Citizens take on DC Government over Tax Giveaways to Defense Contractor Northrop Grumman | CommonDreams.org.
15 Reasons Why We Need a Revolt in This Country
Government works quite well for big corporations, banks, insurance companies, military contractors, lobbyists, and for the rich and powerful. But it does not work for people.
It is time for a revolution. Government does not work for regular people. It appears to work quite well for big corporations, banks, insurance companies, military contractors, lobbyists, and for the rich and po
werful. But it does not work for people.
The 1776 Declaration of Independence stated that when a long train of abuses by those in power evidence a design to reduce the rights of people to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, it is the peoples right, in fact their duty to engage in a revolution.
Martin Luther King, Jr., said forty three years ago next month that it was time for a radical revolution of values in the United States. He preached “a true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies.” It is clearer than ever that now is the time for radical change.
Look at what our current system has brought us and ask if it is time for a revolution?
Full Story: 15 Reasons Why We Need a Revolt in This Country | | AlterNet.
WATCH: Colleges Protest Tuition Hikes, Budget Cuts and Racial Discrimination (VIDEOS)
Growing tuition hikes. Increasing budget cuts. Rising racial tension in campuses during the so-called “post-racial” Age of Obama. It's been a very busy month for student activism in America's colleges — and not just on March 4, when thousands of students took the streets, especially in California.
Here are some of the MUST-SEE videos of student protests.
Full Story: WATCH: Colleges Protest Tuition Hikes, Budget Cuts and Racial Discrimination (VIDEOS).
Unions Plan Protests Against Big Banks
In an action it hopes would create jobs and increase economic fairness, the A.F.L.-C.I.O. announced on Wednesday that it will sponsor two “Weeks of Action” against the nation’s major banks.
The A.F.L.-C.I.O., the nation’s main federation of labor unions, said it would hold demonstrations from March 15 through March 30 at banks in 200 cities, with the slogan, “Good Jobs Now, Make Wall Street Pay.”
Speaking at the federation’s winter meeting here, Denise Mitchell, the A.F.L.-C.I.O.’s communications director, said the dozens of demonstrations would have three goals: getting banks to pay their “fair share,” getting banks to stop fighting tougher new banking regulations and getting banks to lend more to “Main Street” and small businesses.
Full Story: Unions Plan Protests Against Big Banks – The Caucus Blog – NYTimes.com.
California Readies For Day Of Action
University of California students are gearing up for Thursday, Mar. 4, the state’s designated Student Day of Action to protest higher education budget cuts. But with the events of last week, including a spate of racial incidents at UC San Diego, UC Irvine, UC Santa Cruz and UC Davis, the day has come to hold a greater significance.
According to the blog StudentActivism.net, Mar. 4 has become a countrywide phenomenon — 100 events are scheduled in 28 states to protest the condition of higher education in America The UC Regent Live(blog) has a full schedule of tomorrow’s events across in California, including film screenings, marches and rallies.
Yesterday, hundreds of UC students traveled to Sacramento to protest the myriad issues afflicting the state school system and what they view as a flimsy response from the system’s administration in response. At UC Berkeley, two hundred students, clad completely in black, gathered for nearly three hours to bring attention to the racial tension on their campus and others in the system. In Sacramento, two Berkeley students were arrested while lobbying Assemblyman Jim Nielsen (R-Yuba City) to sign a letter pledging more support to schools.
Full Story: California Readies For Day Of Action.
Thousands Looking for an Alternative to Frothing Teabagging Crowd Find Refuge in Newly Formed ‘Coffee Party’
Tapping into widespread thirst for a potential alternative to the Tea Party movement, the Coffee Party is launching real life, off-line, on-the-ground activity across the country.
It might have been inevitable that the answer to the movement that calls itself the Tea Party would be labeled the Coffee Party, but it wasn’t exactly by design.
“[L]et’s start a coffee party … smoothie party. red bull party. anything but tea,” activist and filmmaker Annabel Park wrote on her Facebook page one day in January, adding, jokingly, “ooh how about cappuccino party? that would really piss ‘em off bec it sounds elitist … let’s get together and drink cappuccino and have real political dialogue with substance and compassion.”
Little did Park know that the idea would seriously catch on, tapping into widespread thirst for a potential alternative to the Tea Party movement and launching real life, off-line, on-the-ground activity across the country.
This, anyway, is the story as told by the Washington Post last week, in a profile of Park and her fellow “Coffee Party activists,” who are portrayed as the progressive response to the right-wing Tea Partiers. It’s a bit of a false dichotomy and some of the comparisons are dubious (“The Coffee Party believes the middle is consensus. The Tea Party believes the middle is the Constitution”), but it’s more than a little heartening to see a media spotlight on people who are working to push back against the Tea Party right.
Direct Action Time: Stop the insurance companies!
Sometimes it’s not enough to rally for reform. Sometimes it’s not enough to protest your enemies. Sometimes, you have to take direct action
And so, the street movement for health reform escalates on March 9th.
On March 9th at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Washington, DC, America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), the insurance industry’s main lobbyist group, is holding a conference on health reform. The topics for the conference comprise a virtual playbook on how to kill or maim health reform. Some of the planned sessions include:
- Health Care Reform: What Role Does the Media Play? (translation: How can insurance companies work the press to kill reform?)
- Addressing Health Care Market Reform through an Insurance Exchange: Essential Policy Components (led in part by a fellow from the right-wing Heritage Foundation)
- American Public Opinion on Health Reform: Implications for Mid-term Elections (translation: How can we dupe the public by lying about reform and beat politicians who are standing up for the popular parts of reform)
AHIP recommends health insurance company CEOs, executives, lawyers, and others attend
Full Story: Direct Action Time: Stop the insurance companies! | The Seminal.
Arianna Discusses The Move Your Money Campaign On CBS Sunday Morning (VIDEO)
The “Move Your Money” campaign was featured on CBS Sunday Morning this week. Arianna appeared on the show to talk about why moving money out of big banks and into smaller banks is important:
“JP Morgan, Citi, Bank of America, Wells Fargo — these banks, that have received taxpayer money, that have been bailed out by the taxpayer, have not done their job at helping small businesses, at lending, so that the economy can start again, and start producing jobs.”
WATCH:
Full Story: Huff TV: Arianna Discusses The Move Your Money Campaign On CBS Sunday Morning (VIDEO).
Robert Greenwald discusses Stop the Kennedy Smears on CNN’s Reliable Sources
Robert Greenwald discusses Stop the Kennedy Smears on CNN’s Reliable Sources
It’s time to end the filibuster
The American people are sick of process blocking progress. They’re fed up with an arbitrary tradition that allows a minority of Senators to prevent popular, much-needed legislation from even coming to a vote.
Frankly, so am I.
Please sign this petition to my colleagues in the Senate, supporting the Harkin-Shaheen proposal or other similar proposals to eliminate the crippling 60-vote requirement to overcome a filibuster.
Thank you,
Dick Durbin
U.S. Senator
Full Petition Text:
Dear United States Senators,
I urge you to support the Harkin-Shaheen proposal or similar proposals to eliminate the crippling 60-vote cloture requirement. These challenging times call for more progress, not more process. And that means we need to revisit the filibuster, which has allowed a minority in Congress to prevent popular, much-needed legislation from even coming to a vote…..
Full Story: Take Action: It’s time to end the filibuster.
Berkeley RIOT: Fire, Destruction (video)
Overnight, an impromptu riot to protest budget cuts and tuition increases at the University of California-Berkeley snowballed to include more than 200 students and resulted in flaming dumpsters, broken windows and dancing in the streets.
The Daily Californian reports that the riot emerged from a campus dance party and metastasized into an all-out fiery clash between students and police.
Officers physically pushed the crowd back so that Berkeley fire personnel could extinguish the flames. Sporadic fights broke out within the crowd, causing police to advance their line on the growing mob and use batons to push it back.
Members of the crowd hurled glass bottles, plastic buckets, pizza and other objects at the police line. The crowd's size and intensity fluctuated as the police and protesters clashed and multiple members of the crowd were detained by police.
Full Story: Berkeley RIOT: Fire, Destruction (WATCH) (UPDATED).
OPS: In the 60′s this sort of thing began in Berkley also
Heather Graham and MoveOn Team Up for Huge Push on Congress to Pass the Public Option
Progressive Change’s Adam Green accuses the White House of having a ‘loser mentality’ on the public option despite public support, and MoveOn unleashes Heather Graham
If you followed the cues sent by the White House, you’d think the public option was dead. But on the heels of polls showing strong public support for a government health care plan, activists are pushing back hard — and getting results.
Just days ahead of President Obama’s bipartisan health care summit, scheduled for Thursday, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee announced that it, together with CREDO Action and Democracy for America, has succeeded in getting the signatures of 120 House members and 23 senators on letters pledging their support for passing a public option through the reconciliation process, a parliamentary maneuver that cannot be blocked by a Senate filibuster. And MoveOn.org Political Action, declaring, “THE PUBLIC OPTION IS BACK,” released a new version of its ad featuring actress Heather Graham (of Austin Powers fame) personifying the public option in a race against older, unattractive and out-of-shape insurance company executives. (Video at the bottom of this story.)
Full Story: Heather Graham and MoveOn Team Up for Huge Push on Congress to Pass the Public Option | News & Politics | AlterNet.
Frustrated Owner Bulldozes Home Ahead Of Foreclosure
Like many people, Terry Hoskins has had troubles with his bank. But his solution to foreclosure might be unique.
Hoskins said he’s been in a struggle with RiverHills Bank over his Clermont County home for nearly a decade, a struggle that was coming to an end as the bank began foreclosure proceedings on his $350,000 home.
“When I see I owe $160,000 on a home valued at $350,000, and someone decides they want to take it – no, I wasn’t going to stand for that, so I took it down,” Hoskins said.
Full Story: Frustrated Owner Bulldozes Home Ahead Of Foreclosure – Cincinnati News Story – WLWT Cincinnati.
Diane Sawyer Talks About Move Your Money On ABC ‘World News’ (VIDEO)
Diane Sawyer updated ABC World News’ viewers about Move Your Money on Wednesday night, noting that the campaign could lead to $5 billion in New Mexico state funds being transferred from big banks to local banks.
According to Sawyer, one local lawmaker said, “The funds would be safer in institutions that don’t harvest profits from greed and recklessness.”
As Arianna pointed out on the broadcast, “People are really eager to move beyond anger and frustration into action.” The grassroots movement has spurred roughly 3 million people to research how they can take action on MoveYourMoney.info.
WATCH:
Full Story Huff TV: Diane Sawyer Talks About Move Your Money On ABC ‘World News’ (VIDEO).
Credit Card Protester Takes Campaign To MSNBC (VIDEO)
John Clinton Tuttle took his campaign against credit cards to the airwaves on Wednesday.
(video at link)
“What has gone on for the last 30 years has been outrageous and it’s surprising to me there isn’t more outrage,” said Tuttle on MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan Show. “I just felt somebody’s gotta do something and I’m gonna take a crack at it.”
How’s he doing that? By sticking bank-bashing fliers on ATM machines throughout Seattle, and encouraging people across the country to do the same. He’s started a group called Credit Card Holders United and launched a website: www.creditcardrevolt.com. Don’t miss the YouTube videos.
The Huffington Post first reported Tuttle’s sticker campaign on Monday. His goal is “ethical reform” of the credit card industry — he wants a 15 percent interest rate cap and better disclosure of fees and rates.
WATCH Tuttle on MSNBC:
Full Story Credit Card Protester Takes Campaign To MSNBC (VIDEO).
How to Maintain a Democratic “Activist” Base
As the military surges into Afghanistan and Pakistan and Xe Services LLC (formerly known as Blackwater) and the CIA eke into Pakistan and Yemen, the appetites of toadyish liberal analysts demand their daily diet of Republican bogeys. The changeling base must be kept in line, despite the lack of any change at all. Change you can believe must continually slide seamlessly into belief you can change.
Barack Obama is a soporific for liberals, but such a pill, the affected change rhetoric that is, has to wear off after awhile, especially as reality piles up like record dead soldiers in Afghanistan. So how do the Obamapologists keep the righteous liberal indignation at a fever pitch?
Not to worry, for a ready corps of reactionaries will rise to the occasion, such that the wars, the bailouts, the foreclosures, and stagnant unemployment go on without too much Democratic complaint. A right-wing nut like Ollie North will surely come forth to say something ludicrous: the open acceptance of gays in the military will lead to pedophilia, bestiality, and necrophilia. Inordinate press coverage will be given to a marginal cadre of Tea Partiers, who suggest that a literacy test would have kept Obama out of office. Liberal and reactionary bases will salivate at the prospect of a new culture wars as they beat the dead horse of identity politics. Liberal indignation will be directed it at the insane, and the insane will provide an obscene spectacle to justify the indignation.
Full Story Citizens For Legitimate Government.
How to Get Our Democracy Back: Lawrence Lessig Says “If We Want to Change, We Have to Change Congress”
In a cover story of The Nation magazine, Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig writes, “At the center of our government lies a bankrupt institution: Congress. Not financially bankrupt, at least not yet, but politically bankrupt.” He goes on to argue that, “Congress is the core of the problem with American democracy today. In a single line: There will be no change until we change Congress.”
Fury at Wall St. Banks Fuels Public Action for Move Your Money Campaign
The banking behemoths have used our dollars to destroy our economy. The Move Your Money campaign says we don’t have to wait for financial reform to fight back.
Since the burst of the financial bubble in 2008, and surely before, millions of Americans have watched as their life savings dwindled to fumes. Unemployment has held steady at 10 percent or above (among minority groups, it will likely hit the 20s this year) and one in five Americans went hungry last year. As the human recession has worsened, Congress has been slow to act to quell it, while they’ve rushed to the aid of too-big-to-fail banks.
A new campaign called Move Your Money aims to tackle the frustrations with the Wall Street banks, and the politicians they’ve bought off, head on. The campaign is based on a simple idea: Americans ought to move their money from the big banks — that took billions in taxpayer money and continue to foist outrageous interest rates even as they cut lending – to local financial institutions that actually are a part of their communities. Move the money back home.
Full Story Fury at Wall St. Banks Fuels Public Action for Move Your Money Campaign | Economy | AlterNet.
Senator Sherrod Brown Petition: Stand With Me Against Pay-to-Play Electioneering
Corporations and Big Banks are now allowed UNLIMITED spending to influence political elections.
The recent 5-4 Supreme Court decision lifted campaign spending limits for corporations. Now if the big banks on Wall Street don’t like what Congress proposes, they can DIRECTLY try to buy a legislature more to their liking.
Stand with me to demand no corporation may spend from its treasury without the express approval of its owners. If the Supreme Court is going to treat corporations as persons with full First Amendment rights, then you and I need to make sure real people are making those decisions. Sign the petition!
Full Story Sherrod Brown | U.S. Senator for Ohio | Petition: Stand With Me Against Pay-to-Play Electioneering.
Throw Out Bernanke!
It’s up to progressives to take action around Bernanke, Haiti, anti-choice ads, and the corporate take-over of our democracy. Get involved now!
We find ourselves in a rather curious political moment. In the 2008 election cycle, Americans kicked the neo-cons out of office and landed Barack Obama in the White House — with a filibuster-proof Democratic majority in Congress, to boot.
As President Obama prepares for his first State of the Union tomorrow, his address will likely contain many of the hope-and-change flourishes that won him the presidency, but it will also underscore how many of Democratic and independent voters’ goals — particularly those of liberals and progressives — were not met in this first year. The speech also comes soon after Ted Kennedy’s four-decade Senate seat was turned over to a TeaParty-boosted Republican, highlighting the fact that the sweeping reforms we need may be even harder to come by here on out.
Full Story AlterNet Take Action: Throw Out Bernanke! | News & Politics | AlterNet.
WATCH: Members Of Congress Talk About Moving Their Money To Small Banks
Members of Congress considering moving their money from major financial institutions to community banks have some of the same concerns ordinary customers do, according to interviews progressive video blogger Mike Stark conducted this week on Capitol Hill.
The Huffington Post searched financial disclosure forms filed by members of Congress and found that at least 53 senators use one of the nation’s biggest six banks for their personal accounts. Information wasn’t available for another 17. In the House, at least 104 members use big banks; at least 119 already use only small banks or credit unions. Information wasn’t available for the rest. [Scroll down to find out where your senators and representative bank.]
Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) told Stark that she began looking into moving her money from big banks to small ones when she heard about the campaign and thought it was a “great idea,” but wanted to look into it.
Full Story WATCH: Members Of Congress Talk About Moving Their Money To Small Banks.
Bill Maher On Ending Abusive Relationships – With Your Bank
Author Bill Maher describes a new project developed by Arianna Huffington to end the abuse we’ve received from the big 6 banks.
10 Courageous Things You Can Do to Build Community
We can speed up the realization of good community building ideas if we live our lives consistent with community priorities. The good news: practically every activity and every moment grants us the opportunity to practice community-minded behavior.
Here are 10 ways you can start the courageous work of building community today.
Full Story 10 Courageous Things You Can Do to Build Community by Milenko Matanovic — YES! Magazine.
Move Your Money Campaign Helps Trustco Bank
Aside from taking the media world by storm, the Move Your Money campaign is having a real-world effect.
Albany’s WTEN reports that Glenville-based Trustco Bank has seen a surge in business ever since the Move Your Money campaign began calling for consumers to stop lining the pockets of the too-big-to-fail banks and to support their local community banks. Trustco saw 30 new accounts opened in one day, including one worth seven-figures.
Bank officials say that other branches of the bank are seeing similar results.
Watch the report below:
Full Story Move Your Money Campaign Helps Trustco Bank.
The Religious Case for Moving Your Money Where Your Heart Is
In my sermon at the Princeton University Chapel this Christmas, I brought in good, old George Bailey from It’s a Wonderful Life. My reference to It’s a Wonderful Life was to pose the troubling question of which portrait looked more familiar: the bucolic final scene of Bedford Falls, or George’s nightmare of the brutal and callous Pottersville? Which depiction of America was a closer representation of the economic reality as we enter the second decade of the 21st century? One of the questions I asked my congregation to consider was the moral agency each of us possess to do good in this world by fulfilling God’s desire for the economic well being of all humanity.
A week later I heard about the Move Your Money movement, went to the website moveyourmoney.info and coincidentally saw a video that featured George Bailey vs. Potter. The video uses these archetypes to set up the distinction between big banks and community banks. The site encourages us to shift at least part of our money out of the banks that were too big to fail, and are now too big to loan money, and into community banks which are more likely to serve the needs of local people.
Full Story Paul Raushenbush: The Religious Case for Moving Your Money Where Your Heart Is.
Jonathon Slack, Second Grader, Organizes Community Effort To Help Homeless
A Chicagoland second grader proved that you don’t have to be big to be a big help to the homeless, NBC reports.
After seeing a homeless woman during a holiday trip to Chicago, Jonathon Slack, a seven-year-old boy from Orland Park, led a 10-day donation drive, collecting over four truckloads of food and toys for a Chicago shelter.
The boy, after brainstorming ways to help a homeless woman he saw in front of a Macy’s store, decided to write a letter to his community asking them to pitch in. He dropped photocopies around his neighborhood and the collective response was massive: In just over a week, four truckloads of food and toys were sent to the Su Casa Catholic Worker homeless shelter in Chicago.
WATCH THE VIDEO:
Full Story Jonathon Slack, Second Grader, Organizes Community Effort To Help Homeless.
Consumers Are Moving Their Money to Credit Unions, Rising Membership Shows
Make a New Year’s resolution to move your money out of big banks? To that I say: Right on! Without question, financial consumers are angry at — and have lost their loyalty to — big banks. Late-night comics routinely make fun of the banks; there’s even a new iPhone app in which players try to stop “cash-hungry” bankers from wheedling more bailout money from the U.S. Treasury, according to a recent report in American Banker newspaper.
But if consumers do indeed move their money out of big banks, they would be well advised to look not only at community banks, but at the nation’s credit unions. In fact, consumers are already voting with their wallets in favor of credit unions. The data collected by my organization, (the Credit Union National Association — the industry’s trade group) shows that credit unions are on pace to post 2% membership growth in 2009. This is the fastest rate we have seen since 2001 and double the rate of U.S. population growth, bringing total credit union membership to nearly 93 million Americans. We think disenchantment with banks explains at least part — and probably a large part — of that growth in new members.
For consumers, the move makes perfect sense. Credit unions are not-for-profit cooperatives, and they’re owned by their members. They offer the same products and services banks do, but unlike banks, credit unions exist only to serve their members — not to generate profits for outside investors. Members typically experience that difference in the form of better rates and lower fees. In 2008 (the latest data we have available), consumers saved $9.2 billion by using credit unions rather than banks, or the equivalent of $104 per member and $198 per family. And that’s just on average. Loyal members — those who use credit unions extensively — often receive total financial benefits that are much greater than the average.
Full Story Daniel Mica: Consumers Are Moving Their Money to Credit Unions, Rising Membership Shows.
Move Your Money Success Stories
Nearly a week ago, Arianna Huffington and Rob Johnson launched the Move Your Money campaign urging Americans to send a message to big, bailed-out national banks by joining smaller, more stable community banks. Huffington Post readers responded almost immediately.
With the help of the IRA (Institutional Risk Analytics) database, readers moved their money to local banks and shared their stories with the rest of the HuffPost community. Through thousands of comments, banking consumers from San Diego, California to Bar Harbor, Maine and everywhere in between recounted both stories of frustration about their dealings with national banks and histories of supportive relationships with their local banks.
At a national level, a large number of readers criticized big banks for unexplained hikes in interest rates and unruly fees charged, sometimes, for no apparent reason.
One reader described a rate hike on her credit card with Citibank after years of loyalty:
Full Story Move Your Money Success Stories.
Campaign to Amend US Constitution and revoke corporate “rights” – Personhood
National coordinated campaign unites to revoke corporate “constitutional rights”
ReclaimDemocracy.org and a broad alliance of grassroots pro-democracy groups are preparing to make 2010 a breakthrough year for the Democracy Movement. To accomplish this, we’re building the broadest coalition yet to confront and revoke runaway corporate power. The focus: amending the U.S. Constitution to overturn the Court-created notion of applying constitutional rights to corporations.
While we have been calling for this action for almost the entire decade of our existence, we now find the idea reaching a “tipping point” among many other organizations.
A Teachable Moment
The Campaign to Legalize Democracy will debut publicly the day the U.S. Supreme Court announces a ruling in the potential landmark case, Citizens United v Federal Election Commission. Despite enormous anger over public subsidies, systematic credit card rip-offs, and more, it’s widely expected the Court will give corporations even greater power over our government by allowing company funds to be spent in efforts to elect or defeat political candidates. If this happens, we will work quickly to channel anger where it needs to go: overruling the Court.
And after campaigning to bring “change” to Americans that included public health insurance and taking on Wall Street, President Obama and Congress have demonstrated they either are unwilling or unable to challenge the power of pharmaceutical, insurance, and financial corporations to correct our nation’s most urgent problems
Full Story Campaign to Amend US Constitution and revoke corporate “rights”.
MOVE YOUR MONEY
The Move Your Money Project
A 4 min video worth your time
For more, go to http://moveyourmoney.info
What It Takes to Build a Movement
Successful political movements do not spring fully formed. They require long-term, nuts-and-bolts organizing.
By MARK RUDD -
When Spontaneity Fails …
Since the summer of 2003, I’ve crisscrossed the country speaking at colleges and theaters and bookstores, first with The Weather Underground documentary and, starting in March of this year, with my book, Underground: My Life with SDS and the Weathermen (William Morrow, 2009). In discussions with young people, they often tell me, “Nothing anyone does can ever make a difference.”
The words still sound strange: it’s a phrase I never once heard forty years ago, a sentiment obviously false on its surface. Growing up in the Fifties and Sixties, I – and the rest of the country – knew about the civil rights movement in the South, and what was most evident was that individuals, joining with others, actually were making a difference. The labor movement of the Thirties to the Sixties had improved the lives of millions; the anti-war movement had brought down a sitting president – LBJ, March 1968 – and was actively engaged in stopping the Vietnam War. In the forty years since, the women’s movement, gay rights, disability rights, animal rights, and environmental movements have all registered enormous social and political gains. To old new lefties, such as myself, this is all self-evident.
So, why the defeatism? In the absence of knowledge of how these historical movements were built, young people assume that they arose spontaneously, or, perhaps, charismatic leaders suddenly called them into existence. On the third Monday of every January we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. having had a dream; knowledge of the movement itself is lost.
Full Story Mark Rudd: What It Takes to Build a Movement.
Chris Hedges: “We Live in a Time of Radical Evil!”
On Sat., Dec. 12, 2009, Chris Hedges, journalist/author, was one of the speakers at the emergency “End-the-U.S.-Wars” rally. See, for background: http://www.enduswars.org/ The event was held in Lafayette Park, opposite the White House.
Full Story YouTube – Chris Hedges: “We Live in a Time of Radical Evil!”.
Dick Durbin U.S. Senator Illinois – Take Action
Public Option Poll
Virtually every poll now shows most people support a robust public option to expand health insurance choice and offer coverage to more Americans. But there are several interpretations of what a public option should look like, and the American people should not settle for a “public option” in name only.
Please rank your preferences for each form of the public option currently under consideration.
Full Story Dick Durbin U.S. Senator Illinois – Take Action – DickDurbin.com :: Public Option Poll.
Protesters Return To Lieberman’s D.C. Office, Six Arrested
Protesters returned to the office of Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) on Tuesday, staging a theatrical demonstration and urging the senator to stop taking money from health insurance corporations. Six demonstrators were arrested after spreading fake dollar bills throughout the building showing Lieberman’s face and the words “Insurance Money Kills Democracy.”
Lieberman has stated that he would help to filibuster any bill that included a government-run public option.
About a dozen demonstrators came to the Senate’s Hart office building in the morning and asked Lieberman’s aides to bring him out to pledge to stop accepting campaign contributions from insurance companies. Lieberman had left his office a matter of minutes before the protesters arrived, on his way to a Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee hearing.
After being denied a meeting with the senator, one protester pulled out a cardboard cutout of Lieberman’s face and marched throughout the building, pretending to return insurance company contributions. She scattered fake money in the hallways and into the building’s large foyer. “I’ve had a change of heart,” she yelled, “Senator Lieberman’s giving the money back; he doesn’t need it anymore!”
Full Story Protesters Return To Lieberman’s D.C. Office, Six Arrested.
A Petition Establishing Health Care as a Civil Right
Dennis Kucinich
Whereas, Universal Health Care was proposed by President Teddy Roosevelt in 1912; and
Whereas today, nearly 100 years later, 47 million Americans are uninsured and another 50 million are underinsured bringing great social and economic harm to the American family; and
Whereas, HR 676, authored by Congressmen John Conyers and Dennis Kucinich provides for Medicare for All, a universal, single payer, not-for-profit health care system which means the end of premiums, copays and deductibles; and
Whereas we are already paying for a universal standard of care but are not getting it because one of every three dollars in the health care system goes to the activities of the for-profit insurance system; and
Whereas HR676 firmly establishes health care as a Civil Right, consistent with the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States and Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution which defines a purpose of government “to promote the General Welfare,” now therefore,
I HEREBY EXPRESS MY STRONG SUPPORT FOR HR676, SINGLE PAYER HEALTH CARE, AND THE PRINCIPLES OF ECONOMIC JUSTICE FOR WHICH IT STANDS:
Full Story kucinich.us – A Petition Establishing Health Care as a Civil Right.
Want Obama To Be Bolder? Take To The Streets!
Arianna Huffington and Drew Westen earlier this week posted persuasive arguments that Barack Obama, as president, should govern the way he campaigned for the job: Fired up, with an unswerving focus on changing the status quo and standing up for the people against the vested interests that thrive on politics as usual. Compared to Obama the campaigner, Obama the president has been remarkably timid and conciliatory.
One theory is that what we’re seeing is Obama’s background as a community organizer coming to the foreground. And as many critics have pointed out, with plenty of justification, the community organizer tendency to seek consensus can look pretty darn naïve and ineffective when one of the parties simply has no interest in compromise — and indeed sees obstruction as its primary goal.
But there’s another part of the community organizing analogy that’s been widely overlooked.
Community organizers take strength from the community.
Full Story Want Obama To Be Bolder? Take To The Streets!.
Civil unrest has a role in stopping climate change, says Gore
Ahead of Copenhagen summit, former US vice-president says ‘non-violent lawbreaking’ is legitimate in persuading governments to cut emissions
Al Gore has sought to inject fresh momentum into the Copenhagen build-up, saying he is certain Barack Obama will attend and predicting a rise in civil disobedience against fossil-fuel polluters unless drastic action is taken over global warming.
Amid increasing incidents of climate protesters disrupting the operations of fossil-fuel industries and airports in Britain and elsewhere, Gore suggests the scale of the emergency means non-violent lawbreaking is justified. “Civil disobedience has an honourable history, and when the urgency and moral clarity cross a certain threshold, then I think that civil disobedience is quite understandable, and it has a role to play,” he says. “And I expect that it will increase, no question about it.”
In his only UK newspaper interview to mark the publication of his new book, entitled Our Choice, Gore says it is crucial for Obama to attend Copenhagen in person, adding: “I feel certain that he will.”
Full Story Civil unrest has a role in stopping climate change, says Gore | Environment | guardian.co.uk.
TYT Army: Join Us 11/5/09 For The Public Option!
We’re going to CNN headquarters in NY, LA and Atlanta on Thursday, Nov. 5, 2009 at 12pm local time* to show that there are people willing to stand up for the public option (Why CNN? See Cenk’s blog at the bottom of this post). Votes are coming up in the Senate and the House and the fate of healthcare reform hangs in the balance right now. If you want the public option, this is the time to fight! Here is the link to the Facebook Events where you can see who else is coming and coordinate in your area.
And here are the addresses of the three locations (*Note: 12pm local time is 12pm PST in LA and 12pm EST in ATL and NY):
CNN Los Angeles (Cenk, Ana and the rest of the Turks will be there!)
6430 W Sunset Blvd Ste 300
Los Angeles, CA 90028
CNN Atlanta
190 Marietta St, NW
Atlanta, GA 30303
CNN New York
10 Columbus Circle
New York, NY 10019
For more details on the demonstrations including why CNN has been targeted, read Cenk’s blog. And be sure to invite your friends, family, classmates and coworkers to join you or take your place if you can’t make it!
DeFOX America
SEND A MESSAGE TO CONGRESS
Dear Congress member,
I am writing to urge you to join me in “Defoxing America.”
Fox “News” personalities are pushing an agenda that is dangerous to ordinary Americans. Using tactics such as placing individuals singled out for censure on a blackboard and linking them to murderous dictators like Josef Stalin, Fox News has deliberately created an atmosphere of hysteria that they have used to attack organizations and individuals fighting for the issues that matter most to working families. I urge you to stand up to these new McCarthy-ite tactics by voting against any unconstitutional legislation that singles out specific organizations. This includes the Continuing Resolution that cuts off Federal support to the national anti-poverty group ACORN.
Don’t let Glenn Beck’s blackboard dictate the people’s agenda. Stand up and “Defox America”.
Full Story DeFOX America.
Thousands March in 3-Day Showdown with Banking Industry
Workers gave pink slips to the country’s top bankers Tuesday morning to culminate three days of protests, billed as the Showdown in Chicago, during the American Bankers’ Association’s annual meeting.
Bbefore a jeering and cheering crowd of 5,000 union members and activists, Armando Robles, president of UE Local 1110 and a leader of the Republic Windows factory occupation last year, attached big, fluorescent pink slips to larger-than-life cutouts of retiring Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis, Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf and JP Morgan Chase CEO James Dimon.
The three CEOs were probably among the bank officials meeting in the Sheraton behind the stage that featured speeches by AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, Change to Win Chairwoman Anna Burger, the Rev. Jesse Jackson and workers and community leaders.
“Showdown In Chicago”: Thousands Of Protesters Gather At Bankers’ Convention, Jesse Jackson, Labor Leaders Speak (VIDEO)
Thousands of people gathered in Chicago today in front of the American Bankers Association annual convention to protest what they consider to be the group’s long history of resistance to financial reform.
On the final day of a three-day protest directed at the banking industry’s top trade group, civil rights leader Jesse Jackson addressed a crowd of what is reported to be more 5,000 people, along with did AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka, SEIU President Andy Stern and Secretary-Treasurer Anna Burger.
WATCH a video excerpt of of Stern’s speech:
How to get your letter in the paper
Stay within the word limit, think locally and don’t call names.
Every month, the typical small-town newspaper editor receives hundreds or even thousands of letters from readers.
Still, many are unprintable either because they are too long, too confusing or just plain offensive.
That means it’s not that hard to get your letter published, provided you follow a few simple rules.
Here are a few tips to better your chances:
What to Do:
* Stay within the word limit. Each newspaper has a set limit on how long published letters are allowed to be, so check the limit before you start writing. The Beaverton Valley Times in Oregon, for example, asks for 300 words or fewer, while The Citizen in Auburn, New York, has a limit of 400 words.
via Congress.org – News : How to get your letter in the paper.
Anger, At Last
Esther Kaplan, The Nation [video at link]
In a brightly lit basement room at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Chicago tonight, Angel Seda was leading seven hundred people in a chant. “Tell me what you want, what you really want,” he called. Hundreds of voices shouted back, “Our homes back!” “Tell me what you need, what you really need.” “CFPA!”
CFPA?
Yep, you heard right, hundreds of people were chanting for a Consumer Financial Protection Agency, a new oversight body Barack Obama has proposed that could ban such disastrous practices as no-doc mortgages, payday loans, and no-warning overdraft fees on checking accounts. (A bill to create the agency made it through the House Financial Services Committee last week). Wonky, sure, but vital, too, and it was both hilarious and inspiring to see a roomful of Iowa farmers and Kansas retirees and preachers and teachers and utility workers jumping to their feet at the sound of those magic letters. One woman from Wichita, Arnetta Jefferson, told me she herself was facing the loss of her home and described “house after house after house empty” in her community, all from foreclosures. “I’m tired of it,” she said. CFPA! CFPA! CFPA!
via Anger, At Last.
BuzzFlash Reports From the ‘Showdown in Chicago’ as Protesters Rally Against Big Banks’ Anti-Reform Lobbying
Though the stretch of South Wacker Drive is more Wall Street than it is Wild West, this week it is the scene of showdown in chicagowhat is billed as a “Showdown in Chicago.” Monday morning, a large group of protesters crowded the block surrounding the downtown Chicago headquarters of Goldman Sachs.
“Bust up big banks! Bailout? No thanks!” they screamed in unison. Their target was the American Bankers Association (ABA), the largest lobby group for financial institutions, holding their annual convention in Chicago this week.
The protest was organized by National People’s Action, a Chicago-based network of metropolitan, regional, and statewide organizations working to “build grassroots power.” Despite their recruitment of local heavy-hitters including the Service Employees International Union and Action Now, with cross-promotion from national groups such as MoveOn.org to the Center for Economic and Policy Research, there was a genuine grassroots feel to the event.
As businessmen and women in suits skirting the crowd had to walk in front of a cordon of Chicago cops in the street in order to get by, protesters young and old held a combination of signs registering their disgust with financial institutions. One grandmotherly-looking woman held a sign that said “Kidz say Goldman sux.” Another sign reached back to the language of Reaganomics, complaining of being “pissed” after “being trickled down on” for so long.
“Showdown In Chicago”: Protesters Crash Bankers Convention, (VIDEO, IMAGES)
Via National People’s Action, here is some footage from the protesters at the ABA conference. From the footage, it’s clear there are some strong emotions from the protesters.
At one point a protester grabs a megaphone and says:
“The American Bankers Association has helped loosen the rules that protect us, allowing the unfettered greed that has brought us to the brink of a recession. And for those bankers who are members and support the ABA’s war against the working and middle class, shame on you!”
The crowd soon begins chanting “Shame On You!” in unison.
WATCH:
Full Story: “Showdown In Chicago”: Protesters Crash Bankers Convention, (VIDEO, IMAGES).
Donor Strike for Public Option
After months of debate, an overwhelming majority of Americans support a “robust public option” similar to Medicare.
And thanks to the heroic efforts of progressive activists, we have almost enough votes in the Senate and House to pass it.
The Democratic majorities in the Senate (60/40) and the House (258/177) are large enough to pass a “public option” even with no Republican support. But a handful of conservative “Democrats” are blocking the will of the Democratic majority.
These conservative “Democrats” refuse to listen to the Democratic voters who elected them. That means it’s up to our Democratic leaders – Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and President Obama – to persuade them.
We will not accept a weak public option or worse, a “trigger.” We want a robust public option (based on Medicare rates, not negotiated rates) that is nation-wide (with no state opt-outs), administered by Medicare (not a for-profit insurance company) and available immediately.
That is why we are joining together in a Democratic donor strike against the DNC, DSCC, and DCCC until the Democratic Congress passes – and President Obama signs – healthcare reform with a robust public option. Until then, we will only donate to individual Democrats who will truly fight for us.
Petition
To: Gov. Tim Kaine, Chair, Democratic National Committee (DNC)
Sen. Bob Menendez, Chair, Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC)
Rep. Chris Van Hollen, Chair, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC)
I write to inform you that I am joining the Democratic Donor Strike against the DNC, DSCC and DCCC, which will last until the Democratic Congress passes – and President Obama signs – healthcare reform with a robust public option:
* based on Medicare rates, not negotiated rates
* nation-wide, with no state opt-outs
* administered by Medicare, not a for-profit insurance company
* available immediately
Until then, I will only support individual Democrats who support single-payer Medicare for All (the 88 sponsors of HR 676), or (at a minimum) pledge to vote against a bill without a strong public option. I will also support challengers who support Healthcare Not Warfare.
We elected solid Democratic majorities in Congress and a Democratic President to fulfill Democratic promises of progressive change. We did not elect Republican Senator Olympia Snowe to break those promises.
And if a small number of corporate-funded Democrats in the Senate and House stand in the way, it is the job of our leaders – Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and President Obama – to persuade those Democrats to stand with the party that elected them. Even “fiscally conservative” Democrats have absolutely no excuse for voting against a robust public option, because CBO says it will save $110 billion.
So if I receive a fundraising email from the DNC, DSCC or DCCC, I will reply with a link to this petition. If I receive a fundraising call, I will tell the caller about this petition. If I receive a fundraising letter, I will return the envelope with a link to this petition:
http://www.democrats.com/donor-strike-for-public-option
We desperately need real health reform, starting with a robust public option. Until you deliver on your promises of change, I will reserve my contributions for individual Democrats who will truly fight for what we all believe.
Sincerely,
Full Story: Donor Strike for Public Option | Democrats.com.
Showdown In Chicago VS. Wall St. Banksters
Be in Chicago, IL October 25th-27th for the “Showdown In Chicago”. Regular American people VS. the ABA, American Backers Association who are holding their convention.
Full Story: YouTube – Showdown In Chicago VS. Wall St. Banksters.
Take Action on Oct. 24: Join One of the Largest Global Protests in the Fight Against Climate Change
On Oct. 24, tens of thousands of people will be in the streets and on mountains, rivers and glaciers around the world demanding action to reduce CO2 emissions.
What started out a couple of years ago as a idea promoted by author/climate-change activist Bill McKibben and a few students at Vermont’s Middlebury College has morphed into the biggest environmental, and possibly the most extensive worldwide protest, ever.
On Oct. 24, tens of thousands of people will be in the streets and on mountains, rivers and glaciers around the world demanding action to reduce CO2 emissions to 350 parts per million (ppm).
Full Story: Take Action on Oct. 24: Join One of the Largest Global Protests in the Fight Against Climate Change
15 Things Every American Can Do Right Now”
Michael Moore’s Action Plan:
Friends,
It’s the #1 question I’m constantly asked after people see my movie: “OK — so NOW what can I DO?!”
You want something to do? Well, you’ve come to the right place! ‘Cause I got 15 things you and I can do right now to fight back and try to fix this very broken system.
Here they are:
FIVE THINGS WE DEMAND THE PRESIDENT AND CONGRESS DO IMMEDIATELY:
1. Declare a moratorium on all home evictions. Not one more family should be thrown out of their home. The banks must adjust their monthly mortgage payments to be in line with what people’s homes are now truly worth — and what they can afford. Also, it must be stated by law: If you lose your job, you cannot be tossed out of your home.
2. Congress must join the civilized world and expand Medicare For All Americans. A single, nonprofit source must run a universal health care system that covers everyone. Medical bills are now the #1 cause of bankruptcies and evictions in this country. Medicare For All will end this misery. The bill to make this happen is called H.R. 3200. You must call AND write your members of Congress and demand its passage, no compromises allowed.
3. Demand publicly-funded elections and a prohibition on elected officials leaving office and becoming lobbyists. Yes, those very members of Congress who solicit and receive millions of dollars from wealthy interests must vote to remove ALL money from our electoral and legislative process. Tell your members of Congress they must support campaign finance bill H.R.1826.
Full Story: “Michael Moore’s Action Plan: 15 Things Every American Can Do Right Now” | MichaelMoore.com.
The Big Banks Post Record Profits and Pay Out Obscene Bonuses
Danny Schechter, || What should We The People do: Stand up or roll over?
On February 1, 1960, four students sat down at a lunch counter at the former Woolworth’s store in Greensboro North Carolina.
4 students! Just four!
They were protesting racial segregation. They were denied, service, harassed and arrested.
Greensboro was and still is a backwater, yet their courage and
commitment sparked and helped drive a national movement that would, within a few years, transform this country.
Martin Luther King may have had the dream but they had a scheme—a way of getting attention, a way of showing that if you want to make change, you have to be willing to act.
Few of us remember their names. I knew one, Joseph McNeil, because he went to my high school in the Bronx before heading to AT&T, a traditionally black college, later famous as the school at which Jesse Jackson played football.
National Strike Oct 29th
THURSDAY, OCT 29th
NATIONAL STRIKE FOR THE AMERICAN MIDDLE AND WORKING CLASSES!!!
TELL OUR GOVERNMENT, THE MEDIA, THE CORPORATIONS THAT HAVE BEEN ALLOWED TO TAKE OVER OUR COUNTRY THAT THE MIDDLE CLASS AND WORKING PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES HAVE HAD IT!
Bank CEOS and other executives have bankrupted their companies—and then come running to us for help.
Insurance and pharmaceutical corporations play games with our health and the well-being of our loved ones and focus only on their bottom line.
OUR treasury is run by former Goldman Sachs executives with an open door to Wall St which is allowed to write their own regulation and STEAL billions of our money—-after depleting our pensions. They are not required to account for the money—and are continuing to pay HUGE bonuses to the THIEVES who broke our economy. And no one is prosecuted.
This is economic treason.
Lobbyists and corporations buy our congress and senators to vote for THEIR interests, not OURS.
Our new administration is, sadly, allowing lobbyists and corporations to dictate our legislation and our future.
Full Story: National Strike Oct 29th.
Millions to Rally Against Poverty This Weekend
Well over 100 million people around the world are expected to “stand up” this weekend to call governments to action on poverty, hunger, and gender inequalities — a set of global issues that most Americans say they would like their government to fund much more than it has.
[http://standagainstpoverty.org/]http://standagainstpoverty.org/
What’s the Story?
Last year, some 116 million people worldwide took part in the weekend-long events to “Stand Up, Take Action, End Poverty Now!” That set a new Guinness World Record for largest mobilization of human beings in recorded history. Organizers are aiming to break that record this year.
Participants are calling on their governments to take concrete steps to achieve the so-called Millennium Development Goals, a set of eight targets to cut extreme poverty and hunger in half, reduce HIV/AIDS and child and maternal mortality, get children into school, and ensure women’s equality in society, all while protecting the environment. World leaders agreed at a summit in 2000 to commit the funding and implement the programs necessary to achieve the goals by 2015.
“With just six years left until the deadline … ‘Stand Up’ will be a stark reminder that citizens will not accept excuses for governments breaking promises to the world’s poorest and most vulnerable citizens,” said Salil Shetty, Director of the United Nations Millennium Campaign, in a statement this week.
Full Story: Millions to Rally Against Poverty This Weekend | CommonDreams.org.
Organizing The Biggest Day Of Action The World Has Ever Seen
Even two years ago, I was in complete despair about our chances of fighting climate change. But something’s changed. It’s not the science, which has gotten steadily worse. It’s the first signs that the planet’s immune system–conscious citizens ready to make a difference–is finally kicking in. Bloggers, in this metaphor, are key antibodies–they recognize threats, and rally people to take the steps needed. So this year’s Blogger Action Day is, in a sense, a test: is the planet now wired together in a way that will let it act swiftly, nimbly, decisively against the great trouble we’ve ever faced?
In particular, we at 350.org need your help spreading the word about what’s quickly turned into the biggest day of global action on climate ever–and perhaps the most geographically widespread day of political action the planet has ever seen. On October 24–a week from Saturday–citizens will hold thousands of rallies and events and demonstrations in almost 170 nations to demand that our leaders take tougher action heading to Copenhagen.
It’s the first day like it ever devoted to a scientific data point, the number 350. As in 350 parts per million carbon dioxide, which scientists began telling us two years ago was the most we could safely have in the atmosphere. It’s a tough number, because we’re already past it, at 390 parts per million and rising. And it’s tough because to get back to it we’d need much stronger and quicker action than most of our leaders–and even some of our old-line environmental groups–support.
Full Story: Bill McKibben: Organizing The Biggest Day Of Action The World Has Ever Seen.
End the War in Afghanistan
The Nation - Within a matter of months a majority of Americans have shifted from supporting to opposing the Afghanistan war as we approach the eighth anniversary of the start of the conflict. According to recent polls, a solid 57 percent of Americans now object to the military effort.
At the same time, Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s request for additional troops to prosecute the war is being studied by the White House, which will soon make a decision that could define the Obama presidency, as The Nation’s editorial laying out the case against escalation, notes.
Meanwhile, just like the administration, antiwar activists are reallocating their attention from Iraq towards Afghanistan, determined to preempt McChrystal’s proposed troop surge. A broad coalition of groups is co-ordinating protests and demonstrations for the coming weeks, hoping to emulate the successes of the Vietnam protests in ways that the anti-Iraq war movement never managed. There will be vigils, rallies, memorials, teach-ins, film festivals, demonstrations, direct action and marches. The activities will range from a few individuals to events where many thousands of people are expected to turn up.
Full Story: End the War in Afghanistan.
End the War
The Nation - Eight Years Is Long Enough: What You Can Do to End the War in Afghanistan. Antiwar activists are reallocating their attention from Iraq towards Afghanistan, organizing protests and demonstrations for the coming weeks.
(Click here to skip to a guide to antiwar protest activities this week.)
The 9th year of the war in Afghanistan begins today with fears that it could be even more deadly than the previous eight–despite public opinion polls showing a majority of Americans opposing the conflict.
Popular opposition to escalation is fueling a spate of national protests today and for the rest of this week calling for an exit plan and imploring President Obama and leaders in Congress to reject a request from Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the commander of troops in Afghanistan, for as many as 40,000 new troops to bolster the app. 68,000 US soldiers currently serving in the region.
Congresswoman Barbara Lee, joined by 21 lawmakers, presented an alternative direction with the recent introduction of H.R. 3699 in Congress — a bill that prohibits funding for any increase in the number of members of the US Armed Forces in Afghanistan.
Full Story: End the War.
Tell the White House: Fire Rove’s Prosecutors!
For eight long years, the Bush-Cheney Administration politicized the Department of Justice and pursued politically-motivated prosecutions all across the country.
It infused the Justice Department with Rove-anointed, Bush-appointed officials who put politics ahead of the law — including many of the 93 U.S. Attorneys — like Leura Canary, the wife of Karl Rove’s best friend and business partner who said he got Rove to get the DOJ to come after me.
When President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder took office, we expected real change. That means ending the Bush-Rove politically motivated prosecutions with no basis in fact and restoring the integrity of the Department of Justice.
Still, after seven months, only a handful of the hundreds of Bush-Rove DOJ appointees have been replaced. That’s unacceptable. It’s time to clean house of all the Bush-Rove appointees in the Justice Department, including all 93 U.S. Attorneys, and ensure justice for all.
Please email White House Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett below: Urge President Obama to do the right thing and Fire Rove’s Prosecutors!
Full Story: Support Governor Don Siegelman : Learn, Give, Act.
PETITION ESTABLISHING HEALTH CARE AS A CIVIL RIGHT
Whereas, Universal Health Care was proposed by President Teddy Roosevelt in 1912; and
Whereas today, nearly 100 years later, 47 million Americans are uninsured and another 50 million are
underinsured bringing great social and economic harm to the American family; and
Whereas, HR 676, authored by Congressmen John Conyers and Dennis Kucinich provides for Medicare for
All, a universal, single payer, not-for-profit health care system which means the end of premiums,
copays and deductibles; and
Whereas we are already paying for a universal standard of care but are not getting it because one of every three
dollars in the health care system goes to the activities of the for-profit insurance system; and
Whereas HR676 firmly establishes health care as a Civil Right, consistent with the Preamble to the
Constitution of the United States and Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution which defines a
purpose of government “to promote the General Welfare,” now therefore,
….snip……
INSTRUCTIONS FOR CIRCULATORS OF HEALTH CARE FOR ALL PETITIONS
1. Please observe each person placing their signature on the petition.
2. Signatures must be in cursive handwriting and each person who signs the petition must also
print their name, their e‐mail address, the street address at which he/she resides, their City,
State, Zip.
3. The date of the signing must be provided, including the year.
4. The circulator, rather than the signer, may fill in all information other than the signature on the
petition.
5. When done circulating a petition, the circulator should fill in his/her name, e‐mail address
street address on the petition.
6. The petitions should be sent to:
Congressman Kucinich
Health Care for All
P.O. Box 110475
Cleveland, OH 44111.
If you have any questions, please e‐mail healthcareforall@kucinich.us
7. Petitions will be separated by Congressional District and delivered personally to your
Congressional Representative by Congressman Kucinich.
Please know that your effort now will impact the future health care of all Americans in years to come.
Thank You!
Dennis
Climate rally on Capitol Hill led by Senators Boxer and Kerry this Wed.
Here’s a chance to get close up and personal with other like-minded citizens and leaders in the effort to fight climate change:
Senators Barbara Boxer (D-Calif) and John Kerry (D-Mass), authors of the Senate’s version of a climate bill, will lead a rally on Wed., Sept. 30 at 11:30 a.m. at the Upper Senate Park (200 New Jersey Ave., NW) on Capitol Hill to gain support for legislation to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
Veterans, active duty personnel, and all people committed to building a clean energy economy and rally for jobs and national security are invited.
Wednesday is the long-awaited day that the senators, who co-authored the bill, will introduce it in the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
The Senate version may require a 20 percent cut in greenhouse gases by 2020, more than the Waxman-Markey bill, passed in by the U.S. House of Representatives passed in June (The American Clean Energy and Security Act), according to Reuters. The House’s historic legislation would put the United States on the path to slash the carbon emissions 80 percent by 2050, and 17 percent by 2020.
RSVP:
http://action.sierraclub.org/site/SPageNavigator/adv_aces_BillDrop_Event
Keep the momentum from NYC’s Climate Week going!
Full Story: Climate rally on Capitol Hill led by Senators Boxer and Kerry this Wed..
You. At a Town Hall Meeting. 5 Questions You Should Ask
You. At a Town Hall Meeting. 5 Questions You Should Ask – By Adele M. Stan and Joshua Holland, AlterNet.
Those raucous health-care town halls aren’t over yet. That’s where you come in.
If you lived nowhere but in front of your television set, you’d never know that a majority of the American people favor substantial health-care reforms — and you’d certainly never know that most want to see a public health-care plan offered as part of a mix of options in any overhaul of the system.
In fact, were you a truly dedicated couch potato, you just might think that most of the “regular people” in this country just hate, hate the idea of health-care reform. And then you just might start thinking that maybe you should, too.
Thankfully, you, oh well-informed reader, are not that kind of tuber. No, you are ready for action, ready to show another face of regular America to the media — and to your fellow citizens. And what better place to do that than at a town-hall meeting dedicated to the topic of health-care reform?
via You. At a Town Hall Meeting. 5 Questions You Should Ask | Politics | AlterNet.
Howard Zinn – come to G20 protests Pittsburgh
Howard Zinn makes a call to attend the Peoples Summit in Pittsburgh and protest the G20 Sept 20-25 2009
Filmed by Paul Hubbard
via YouTube – Howard Zinn – come to G20 protests Pittsburgh.
A Real Reason to Boycott Whole Foods?
A Real Reason to Boycott Whole Foods? - by Mike Adams the Health Ranger
(NaturalNews) Whole Foods is in a public relations crisis. After its CEO John Mackey posted a widely-read opinion piece that insisted Americans have no intrinsic right to health care, it was slammed with angry liberal customers who picketed stores and organized a national Whole Foods boycott at a Facebook page now numbering over 26,000 members (http://www.facebook.com/group.php?g…).
Whole Foods customers are angry at the upscale retailer over the position of its CEO on health care reform, but I can think of a much better reason to avoid shopping at Whole Foods: The store sells a whole lot of junk products.
Those aren’t my words; they’re the words of CEO John Mackey, who admitted this during a discussion about how Whole Foods might improve its product offerings ((http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/…)).
The last time I was in the U.S., I shopped at Whole Foods because it was the best option for convenient health food. But even then, I noticed a whole lot of “junk” being sold by the store: Foods made with yeast extract (a hidden form of MSG), loads of processed pastries, fried snack chips and all sorts of other products I wouldn’t dare let touch my lips. Let’s face it: If you walk around Whole Foods and read the ingredients, you’ll be more than a little shocked to find out how much unhealthy stuff the store actually offers.
via A Real Reason to Boycott Whole Foods? by Mike Adams the Health Ranger.
How Whole Foods boycott groups are using social media to organize
How Whole Foods boycott groups are using social media to organize 
When Mark Rosenthal launched a Facebook group recently supporting a boycott of Whole Foods, he did virtually nothing to promote it. He left his computer for a few hours and when he came back he found that between 50 and 100 people had already joined.
“I was just starting it as a place to get the word out to my friends who I know shop at Whole Foods,” Rosenthal, 39, told me in a phone interview. “I have friends who spend hundreds of dollars a month at Whole Foods in Los Angeles and New York.”
The activist decided to create the group after reading a now widely-circulated Wall Street Journal op-ed from Whole Foods CEO John Mackey. The op-ed argued against a public option and in favor of deregulation of the current health insurance system in the US, and it blasted universal health care systems in other countries like Canada and the UK.
via Bloggasm » How Whole Foods boycott groups are using social media to organize.
Customers call for Whole Foods boycott
Customers call for Whole Foods boycott - BBC NEWS
It’s the shop where wealthy American liberals buy their groceries.
But the American supermarket chain Whole Foods Market has found itself at the centre of a storm of controversy after its chief executive, John Mackey, wrote an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal presenting a free market alternative to President Obama’s proposed healthcare reforms.
Mr Mackey began his article with a quote from Margaret Thatcher and went on to add that Americans do not have an intrinsic right to healthcare – an idea strongly at odds with the views of a large proportion of Whole Foods’ customer base.
The company, which has 270 stores in North America and the UK, sells organic vegetables, biodegradable washing powder and sustainable seafood to a well-heeled clientele and champions its liberal credentials.
via BBC NEWS | Business | Customers call for Whole Foods boycott.
Tell Your Rep in Congress to Support Single Payer
Single Payer Committee Whip – | Democrats.com
The crucial battle for single-payer healthcare is in the House Energy & Commerce Committee (E&C). On Monday, Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) tried to offer a single-payer amendment but chairman Henry Waxman ended the meeting early to avoid a vote.
On Monday we asked our 600,000 subscribers to call E&C Democrats and below are the results you reported. Keep calling everyone who isn’t in the “support” column! Hill staffers tell us your calls are “very helpful.” And send our single-payer petition to your own Representatives.
more……
Picket Whole Foods Friday
Picket Whole Foods Friday - « Single Payer Action
Last week, Single Payer Action called for a nationwide boycott of Whole Foods.
Why?
Because with 60 Americans dying every day from lack of health insurance, the CEO of the company, John Mackey penned a diatribe against a single payer health insurance reform — the only health insurance reform that will both control costs and insure everyone.
Mackey took to the pages of the Wall Street Journal and insulted not only many of his customers, but many of his own employees.
The response to that call for a boycott was remarkable.
Keep Up Pressure for a Public Option
Keep Up Pressure for a Public Option - By Byard Duncan, AlterNet
As the debate continues to heat up, pressure from you will make all the difference. Stand up for a public option today.
In an extremely disappointing move, President Barack Obama on Saturday indicated that he would consider jettisoning a public option from his proposed health care overhaul. Addressing a town-hall-style meeting in Colorado, Obama called the public option just “one sliver” of his larger initiative.
“Whether we have it or we don’t have it is not the entirety of health care reform,” he said.
Then on Sunday, Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius told CNN’s John King that the Senate Finance Committee is more likely to favor nonprofit co-ops than a public option. These co-ops, Sebelius argued, would constitute an affordable middle ground between public and private control of health options.
“I think what’s important is choice and competition,” Sebelius said. “And I’m convinced at the end of the day, the plan will have both of those. But [the public plan] is not the essential element.”
via Keep Up Pressure for a Public Option | Take Action | AlterNet.
It’s Now or Never for a Public Option: Why We Need to Take a Stand Against to the Insurance Industry’s Greed
It’s Now or Never for a Public Option: Why We Need to Take a Stand Against to the Insurance Industry’s Greed – By Joshua Holland, AlterNet.
We are at a crucial moment in the health care debate — Obama needs pressure from all of us to keep the public option as part of his agenda.
Editor’s note: It’s now or never for the public option. Campaign for America’s Future has put together 4 key actions you can take to win back the health care debate. “We absolutely cannot let the far right fringe do the bidding of the insurance and drug lobbies and hijack the debate,” they write. “The battle for health care reform has moved to town halls during the August congressional recess. But the wild mobs disrupting events, intimidating lawmakers, and shouting down reform are not just expressing their views, they are doing the dirty work for corporate interests that want to cut the heart out of the Obama health plan.”As Joshua Holland explained in a recent article, this fight is about making your health care more affordable, giving you better coverage and helping people who have no coverage under the current system.
Now or never — Push for the public option:
1. Call your representative and senators to find out when and where August town halls will be in your area, using the main congressional switchboard number: (202) 224-3121. You can also check this calendar.
2. Go to the Congress.org congressional directory to get the direct phone lines of your representatives’ offices.
3. Find out when and where citizen groups will be meeting and organizing throughout August, and find out what’s happening in your area at Health Care for America Now.
4. When you’re at a town hall, communicate a simple message for your representatives to understand what their constituents want:
- I support health care reform with a strong public plan option—and most people I know do, too.
- We sent you to Washington to get health care for all—and we will support you if you work to get that done.
- Please ignore the right-wing extremists who are attacking health reform—and do what a majority of your constituents want: Vote for health care for all.
****
Comcast favors Fox News, charges $204 more for MSNBC package. ACTION NEEDED
Comcast favors Fox News, charges $204 more for MSNBC package. ACTION NEEDED
A fellow progressive alerted me today about a highly discriminatory new practice being implemented by Comcast. I told him I would post something on Kos since he is not currently active here. From what I can tell, this applies to all Comcast customers, not just those in my (quite red) area of Jacksonville, Florida.
As of 8.12.09, Comcast has moved MSNBC from its Digital Starter Package to its Digital Classic Lineup while leaving Fox News on the Starter package. What this means is that one now has to pay an additional $17 per month ($204 per year) to view anything progressive enough to even remotely balance out FNC’s right wing extremism (although, let’s be honest, MSNBC could install Castro himself in Tweety’s time slot and still not provide sufficient balance for the far-right insanity that is Beck/Billo/Hannity).
So they are calling this a “channel realignment,” which I guess is like the broadcasting equivalent of gerrymandering. Apparently it’s done with electronic switching from the Comcast HQ. The neighbor who alerted me to the situation is an attorney, and he thinks this appears to be to be an FCC/Fairness Doctrine violation. He has suggested to our Senator, Bill Nelson, that congress should enforce a “Menu Based” or “Cafeteria Style” subscription contract on the cable industry since it costs them nothing to make the switches.
via OpEdNews – Comcast favors Fox News, charges $204 more for MSNBC package. ACTION NEEDED.
Why You Should Boycott Whole Foods
Boycott Whole Foods
The company’s CEO has just launched a major campaign to defeat a single payer national health insurance system. 
By RUSSELL MOKHIBER
John Mackey is a right wing libertarian.
He’s a union buster.
He believes that corporations should not be criminally prosecuted for their crimes.
He has just launched a campaign to defeat a single payer national health insurance system.
And he’s the CEO of Whole Foods.
Primo hangout of liberal Democratic yuppies.
“We are all responsible for our own lives and our own health,” Mackey wrote yesterday in the Wall Street Journal. “We should take that responsibility very seriously and use our freedom to make wise lifestyle choices that will protect our health. Doing so will enrich our lives and will help create a vibrant and sustainable American society.”
Yes it will, John Mackey.
Yes it will.
I do take that responsibility very seriously.
I try to eat well.
And exercise regularly.
I also take my responsibility as a citizen seriously.
Stop Complaining About Right-Wing Protests! The Left Should Be (Re)Learning How It’s Done
Stop Complaining About Right-Wing Protests! The Left Should Be (Re)Learning How It’s Done – | CommonDreams.org
by Dave Lindorff
OMG! Those protesters showing up at Democratic “town meetings” to promote the president’s health care “reform” program are being bused in from out of town?
Scandal! Que horrible! (Gasp!)
But wait! That’s exactly what we on the left always did when we held demonstrations–at least if we could. Who in the trade union movement hasn’t called on fellow workers in other unions to join them in rallies during struggles with an employer, or asked them to join sparse picket-lines? Who hasn’t pulled out the stops trying to get people from other cities to attend a local protest?
Crucial vote on single-payer Medicare for All Happening Today- Call Right Now!
Crucial vote on single-payer Medicare for All Happening Today- Call Right Now!
One week ago, we eagerly anticipated a crucial vote on single-payer Medicare for All ( H.R.676 ) in the House Energy & Commerce Committee, sponsored by Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY). But then seven BlueDogs waged a highly-publicized war against a “robust public option” and the vote was delayed for a full week.
We just learned the vote will be tomorrow ( Friday ). Based on all of your calls, we have nine single-payer Democrats: Tammy Baldwin, Michael Doyle, Eliot Engel, Anna Eshoo, Gene Green, Edward Markey, Janice Schakowsky, Anthony Weiner, and Peter Welch.
Lean Yes
Diana DeGette CO01 202-225-4431
Jane Harman CA36 202-225-8220
Christopher Murphy CT05 202-225-4476
Frank Pallone NJ06 202-225-4671 @FrankPallone
Bobby Rush IL01 202-225-4372
Five more Democrats are leaning single-payer but still uncommitted. Please call each one and give them one crucial reason to support single-payer from our petition:
http://www.democrats.com/single-payer-petition?cid=ZGVt…
(Be sure to sign our petition and forward it if you haven’t already.)
Be concise and practice in advance so you can speak quickly (or leave a voicemail) because they are getting swamped. Report the results of your calls here:
http://www.democrats.com/single-payer-committee-whip
Public Option Only (or Won’t Say)
Rick Boucher VA09 202-225-3861
Bruce Braley IA01 202-225-2911
G.K. Butterfield NC01 202-225-3101
Lois Capps CA23 202-225-3601
Kathy Castor FL11 202-225-3376
John Dingell MI15 202-225-4071
Charles Gonzalez TX20 202-225-3236
Jay Inslee WA01 202-225-6311 @RepInsleeNews
Doris Matsui CA05 202-225-7163
Jerry McNerney CA11 202-225-1947
John Sarbanes MD03 202-225-4016
Bart Stupak MI01 202-225-4735
Betty Sutton OH13 202-225-3401
Henry Waxman (Chair) CA30 202-225-3976
If you have more time, these 14 Democrats support a “public option” at best. But that “public option” (a new government program to compete with private insurance) was disastrously weakened this week by the BlueDogs. They banned the use of Medicare pricing to reduce costs and thereby expand availability. Try to persuade these 14 to vote for single-payer instead of a worthless BlueDog “public option.”
Don’t let anyone tell you single-payer can’t pass: the Kucinich Amendment for a single-payer “state option” passed by a shocking 25-19 bi-partisan majority in the House Education and Labor Committee on July 17. The Weiner Amendment will pass on Friday if enough Democrats vote for it!
A victory on the Weiner Amendment would make a huge difference. Please call as soon as you get this – night or day.
Citizens Supporting a Public Option
OPS: Sign the Petition
Current Signature Count: 83,523
–>Nearly 50 million Americans — one-in-six of our fellow citizens — lack health insurance. Even those families lucky enough to have health insurance have seen their premiums triple in the past decade. America’s health care system is in a crisis, and it’s time to do something about it.
This month, Congress is working on new reform legislation that will make quality health care available and affordable for all Americans. We support a public health insurance option that would foster greater competition in the marketplace, create more choices for consumers, and lead to lower costs and better quality for all. But we know the forces of the status quo will battle us every step of the way.
Please sign this online petition, showing your support of Congress’ work to reform America’s health care system now.
Thank you,
Senator Chuck Schumer, Senator Patrick Leahy, Senator Dick Durbin
Tell Senators: Now’s Not the Time for a Break on Health Care Reform
Tell Senators: Now’s Not the Time for a Break on Health Care Reform
Making sure senators keep hammering out health care reform is AlterNet’s top Take Action Campaign for the week.
As “Blue Dog” recalcitrance and GOP “kill!” rhetoric continue to stall much-needed health care reform, it’s important for Americans to understand what’s really at stake.
President Barack Obama’s plan is not, as naysayers tend to argue, an attempt to undermine the fundamental tenets of capitalism. Rather, the public option simply represents a commitment to placing human well-being above rabid marketeering. For too long, our nation’s health care system has based its profit model on denying, rather than providing, adequate care.
Nowhere is this clearer than in a report filed on July 27 by a cluster of industry lobbying groups. The report shows that organizations like the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), Pfizer and Glaxosmithkline spent $127 million on lobbying in the first three months of 2009. PhRMA and Pfizer together spent close to $25 million.
via Tell Senators: Now’s Not the Time for a Break on Health Care Reform | Take Action | AlterNet.
Worker Action in Not-So “Center-Right” America:
Paul Street points out that American is NOT a center-right nation, as we continue to assume. No, the Democratic Party and Obama do NOT have to cater to the right, and we DO NOT HAVE TO LET THEM!!!! The political-corporate-media establishment is (arguably) center-right. They don’t represent us. We do. As soon as we wake up. “I’ve never been comfortable with many pundits’ tendency to describe the United States as a “center-right nation.”[1] This description is appropriate when it comes to the United States’ business class, its dominant corporate media, its two reigning political parties (both firmly dedicated to the combined and interrelated imperatives of empire, inequality, and thought-control. Incorporated) and its political class more broadly. … If dominant media is your concept of “the United States,” then, yes, we are most definitely a “center right nation.” In the real-life workplaces and communities of the country beneath and beyond the official representations in legislatures and on the business-run airwaves, however, things are rather different and more hopeful.
Worker Action in Not-So “Center-Right” America:
I’ve never been comfortable with many pundits’ tendency to describe the United States as a “center-right nation.”[1] This description is appropriate when it comes to the United States’ business class, its dominant corporate media, its two reigning political parties (both firmly dedicated to the combined and interrelated imperatives of empire, inequality, and thought-control. Incorporated) and its political class more broadly. “Center-right” may accurately reflect how many millions of Americans identify themselves on the limited ideological menu offered to them by MSNBC exit pollsters. But it doesn’t fit very well with the interesting facts that:
*Twice as many Americans back more government services and spending (even if this means a tax increase) as the number who support fewer services and reduced spending (National Elections Survey, 2004).
*64 percent of Americans would pay higher taxes to guarantee health care for all U.S. citizens (CNN Opinion Research Poll, May 2007).
*69 percent of Americans think it is the responsibility of the federal government to provide health coverage to all U.S. citizens (Gallup Poll, 2006).
*80 percent of Americans support a government-mandated increase in the minimum wage (Associated Press/AOL Poll, December 2006).
*71 percent of Americans think that taxes on corporations are too low ( Gallup Poll, April 2007).
*66 percent of Americans think taxes on upper-income people are too low(Gallup Poll, April 2007).
*59 percent of Americans are favorable toward unions, with just 29 percent unfavorable ( Gallup Poll, 2006).
*52 percent of Americans generally side with unions in labor disputes. Just 34 percent side with management (Gallup Poll, 2006).
via ZNet – Worker Action.
Press Attorney General Eric Holder to Bring Torture Architects to Justice
Press Attorney General Eric Holder to Bring Torture Architects to Justice
Demand accountability and help topple ugly Bush precedents.
In spite of President Barack Obama’s insistence that the United States “move forward and not backward” on the issue of Bush-era torture policies, Attorney General Eric Holder has recently indicated he may launch an investigation that would call ex-officials to account.
If carried out, Holder’s investigation would rupture some toxic political precedents: The intimate relationship that formed between the White House and the Department of Justice during the Bush years would certainly come into question, as would Obama’s decidedly non-”change”- oriented approach to detention policies. Perhaps most importantly, Holder’s investigation would sanction the criticism and remediation of previous presidents’ crimes.
None of this will be easy. Newsweek‘s Daniel Klaidman notes, launching an investigation “would roil the country, would likely plunge Washington into a new round of partisan warfare, and could even imperil Obama’s domestic priorities, including health care and energy reform.” It would bring Holder face to face with an array of problematic political conundrums.
via Press Attorney General Eric Holder to Bring Torture Architects to Justice | Take Action | AlterNet.
CLG Pandemic Action Alerts
CLG Pandemic Action Alerts
Citizens For Legitimate Government
Sign petition: Refuse and Resist Mandatory Flu Vaccines http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/refuse-and-resist-mandatory-flu-vaccine
Target:
President Obama, US Congress
Sponsored by:
Lori Price, Citizens For Legitimate Government
We petition President Barack Obama, the US Congress, and all US security and health agencies to abort any plans for mandatory influenza vaccines. Also, we pledge to refuse and resist any government laws that require us to submit to forced vaccines and drugs. We recognize that mandatory vaccines are thinly-veiled attempts to grow the pandemic in order to enrich the coffers of US pharmaceutical and security corporations — the actual architects of the flu pandemic.
We will not comply.
We, the undersigned, recognize that the US government and pharmaceutical industries have been conspiring for years to engender a flu pandemic:
Killer flu recreated in the lab 07 Oct 2004 Scientists have shown that tiny changes to modern flu viruses could render them as deadly as the 1918 strain which killed millions. A US team added two genes from a sample of the 1918 virus to a modern strain known to have no effect on mice.
Experimental Infection of Pigs with the Human 1918 Pandemic Influenza Virus By Hana M. Weingartl, et al. 18 Feb 2009 –Received 19 Nov 2008/ Accepted 6 Feb 2009 Swine influenza was first recognized as a disease entity during the 1918 “Spanish flu” pandemic. The aim of this work was to determine the virulence of a plasmid-derived human 1918 pandemic H1N1 influenza virus (reconstructed 1918, or 1918/rec, virus) in swine using a plasmid-derived A/swine/Iowa/15/1930 H1N1 virus (1930/rec virus), representing the first isolated influenza virus, as a reference.
Baxter working on vaccine to stop swine flu, though admitted sending live pandemic flu viruses to subcontractor 26 Apr 2009 Specialty drug maker Baxter International Inc. will work with the World Health Organization to develop a vaccine that could stem an outbreak of a deadly swine flu strain in Mexico. Baxter spokesman Christopher Bona said Saturday that the Deerfield, Ill.-based company has asked the WHO for a sample of the flu strain. He says Baxter has patented technology that allows the company to develop vaccines in half the time it usually takes — about 13 weeks instead of 26.
We also recognize the hazards of an untested, unchecked, unnecessary and possibly deadly vaccine:
Administration readies $350 million for state, local responders to combat flu pandemic –The Obama administration said today that it has billions of dollars available to help pay for a national H1N1 flu vaccine program that could be ready starting in mid-October. 08 Jul 2009 Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius made the announcement at an all-day summit on the outbreak of what is more commonly known as swine flu. Sebelius said the government has “already appropriated about a billion dollars to buy the bulk ingredients” [i.e., influenza viruses, Neomycin, Polymyxin, Gentamycin, Thimerosal (mercury), Betapropiolactone, Nonoxynol, Octoxinol 9, Formaldehyde - yum yum! -LRP]
more…..
Call to Action for Young Progressives
Call to Action for Young Progressives
“This isn’t a wait until we grow up kind of thing. Our country needs our leadership now.”
On July 8, I had the privilege of attending the Campus Progress National Conference in Washington DC. Together with 1,000 young progressives from across the country, I listened to speeches made by some of our nation’s most inspiring leaders and participated in discussions about my generation’s role in our country’s most progressive battles.
Without a doubt, there are two issues that dominated nearly every conversation – climate change and healthcare. For the millennial generation, these issues are very real. We are, or know someone who is, uninsured. We know that the effects of climate change will begin during our lifetime if we don’t act now. We are ready to get involved and our country’s new leadership is ready for us to play a vital role.
As someone with a vested interest in the ongoing fight to pass a comprehensive climate change bill, I was particularly inspired by Van Jones, author of The Green Collar Economy and Special Advisor on Green Jobs to the White House, and Speaker of House Nancy Pelosi. Both gave significant credit to young people for the passage of the American Clean Energy and Security Act in the House and called for our continued action in the Senate debate.
via Call to Action for Young Progressives | Future Majority.
Tell Media: Include Single-Payer in Healthcare Debate
Tell Media: Include Single-Payer in Healthcare Debate
Add your name below to FAIR’s petition
Reforming the dysfunctional U.S. healthcare system is a major issue in the news these days. The goal of the reform efforts, we’re told, is to expand coverage to the uninsured and to reduce costs. But what many experts and citizens see as the most sensible solution to these problems is kept out of the discussion by the corporate media.
Single-payer national health insurance is a model in which healthcare delivery would remain largely private but would be paid for by a single federal health insurance fund (much like Medicare provides for seniors). Single-payer is favored by a majority of Americans and physicians, according to recent polls (New York Times/CBS, 1/11-15/09, Annals of Internal Medicine, 4/1/08).
Yet a recent study by FAIR found that of hundreds of stories about healthcare in major outlets earlier this year, only five stories included the views of advocates of single-payer–none of which appeared on the TV networks. In May, news coverage of the arrests of single-payer advocates showed that practically the only way to get single-payer mentioned in the corporate media is to get thrown out of Senate hearings.
more………
Let ‘em KNOW that we DO want the public option.
This is posted on the Bill Press show website. Please contact these Senators and call the White House to let these people know that we DO want the public option. Better yet, we want a single payer like they have in every other industrialized nation except ours! Please pass this along to your more progressive family members and friends. Thanks, Diane
Health Care: The Public Plan Option
These Democratic Senators have NOT agreed to support it:
Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)
These names are reported by The Hill
Be in a TV ad — and call Senate Democrats out!
Demand a Public Option – NOW!
Click WeWantThePublicOption.com – and add your name.
Be in a TV ad — and call Senate Democrats out!
PCCC co-founder Stephanie Taylor, over at Daily Kos:
Last Friday, over coffee, Adam Green and I started talking about health care reform. And once we started talking, we couldn’t stop. We couldn’t believe that so many Democratic senators have the audacity to oppose the public health insurance option.
Polls show that 76% of Americans support the public option. But many of the same health and insurance interests that oppose the public option have given $80 million to sitting Democratic senators. $80. Million. Dollars.
It’s easy to feel powerless on big issues like this. But we decided to do something about it. We made a TV ad calling them out. And now we’re inviting you (and your friends) to put your name in the ad before we air it in Washington DC!
Click WeWantThePublicOption.com to see the ad — and add your name.
The Progressive Change Campaign Committee will air this ad on CNN, MSNBC, The Daily Show, and other places that these senators and their staffers will be sure to notice. We’ll continually rotate new names in. Please help this idea grow by recommending this post and emailing it on to anyone you think would like to add their name.
Together, we’ll make the Senate listen to the vast majority of Americans who say: “We want the public option!”
via Open Left:: Be in a TV ad — and call Senate Democrats out!.
Should Congress regulate your Internet service plan?
Internet providers who charge customers by how much they use would have to justify their prices to federal regulators under a bill introduced last week.
Do you think federal regulators should review Internet pricing plans?
Sunlight Foundation
Insanely Useful Web Sites 
The following sites and resources are “insanely useful Web sites” for government transparency. They provide a broad range of information available to track government and legislative information, campaign contributions and the role of money in politics.
Many of these resources apply the Web 2.0 ethos to sift, share and combine this information in innovative ways – often times by mashing data together from disparate sources to maximize the usability of that information.
via Sunlight Foundation.
Newspaper Ignites Hope, Announces “Civil Disobedience Database”
Newspaper Ignites Hope, Announces “Civil Disobedience Database”
TOP HEADLINE: WORLD LEADERS SIGN PACT TO AVERT CLIMATE DISASTER
Global – June 18 – In a front-page ad in today’s International Herald Tribune, the leaders of the European Union thank the European public for having engaged in months of civil disobedience leading up to the Copenhagen climate conference that will be held this December. “It was only thanks to your massive pressure over the past six months that we could so dramatically shift our climate-change policies…. To those who were arrested, we thank you.”
There was only one catch: the paper was fake.
Looking exactly like the real thing, but dated December 19th, 2009, a million copies of the fake paper were distributed worldwide by thousands of volunteers in order to show what could be achieved at the Copenhagen climate conference that is scheduled for Dec. 7-18, 2009. (At the moment, the conference is aiming for much more modest cuts, dismissed by leading climate scientists as too little, too late to stave off runaway processes that will lead to millions or even billions of casualties.)
* Civil-disobedience database: http://BeyondTalk.net
* PDF of printed newspaper: http://iht.greenpeace.org/todays-paper/
* Online version: http://www.iht-se.com/
* Video: http://iht.greenpeace.org/video/ (coming soon)
The paper describes in detail a powerful (and entirely possible) new treaty to bring carbon levels down below 350 parts per million – the level climate scientists say we need to achieve to avoid climate catastrophe. One article describes how a website, http://BeyondTalk.net, mobilized thousands of people to put their bodies on the line to confront climate change policies – ever since way back in June, 2009.
via Newspaper Ignites Hope, Announces “Civil Disobedience Database” | CommonDreams.org.
U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders
Video at link
A PETITION TO CONGRESS 
Supporting Single-Payer Health Care
Whereas:
- 46 million Americans are currently without health insurance;
- 60 million Americans, both insured and uninsured, have inadequate access to primary care due to a shortage of physicians and other health service providers in their community;
- 100 million Americans have no insurance to cover dental needs;
- 116 million adults, nearly two-thirds of all non-seniors, struggled to pay medical bills, went without needed care because of cost, were uninsured for a time, or were underinsured in the last year
- The United States spends $2.3 trillion each year on health care, 16 percent of its Gross Domestic Product;
- Americans spend $7,129 per person on health care, 50 percent more than other industrialized countries, including those with universal care;
- The U.S. does not get what it pays for. We rank among the lowest in the health outcome rankings of developed countries, and on several major indices rank below some third-world nations;
- The number of health insurance industry bureaucrats has grown at 25 times the growth of physicians in the past 30 years;
- In 2006, the six largest insurance companies made $11 billion in profits even after paying for direct health care costs, administrative costs and marketing costs.
And, whereas:
- Medicare has administrative costs far lower than any private health insurance plan;
- The potential savings on health insurance paperwork, more than $350 billion per year, is enough to provide comprehensive coverage to every uninsured American;
- Only a single-payer Medicare-for-all plan can realize these enormous savings and provide comprehensive and affordable health care to every citizen.
Now, therefore:
- We, the undersigned, urge the United States Congress to pass a single-payer Medicare-for-all program which will provide quality, comprehensive health care for all Americans.
This Weekend: Urge Congress to Vote “No” on the War Supplemental
Take Action This Weekend: Urge Congress to Vote “No” on the War Supplemental
Want to know what $96.7 billion more in wartime spending will go toward?
Want to know what 21,000 more US troops and $96.7 billion more in wartime spending will go toward? Gen. Petraeus says insurgent attacks in Afghanistan are at their highest level since 2001; there were 400 attacks in the last week alone. Both Generals Petraeus and McChrystal expressed the desire to keep civilian casualties to a minimum, but how can they possibly achieve that lofty goal with more troops on the ground? It stands to reason that more troops will mean more incidents of violence, increasing calls for more US airstrikes, which in turn will mean more civilian casualties.
Fortunately, there’s a chance to defeat the war supplemental and you can even take action this weekend. Here’s what FireDogLake’s Jane Hamsher recommends:
via Take Action This Weekend: Urge Congress to Vote “No” on the War Supplemental | World | AlterNet.
Rules of Disengagement: What You Can Do End Illegal Wars
Rules of Disengagement: What You Can Do End Illegal Wars
By Marjorie Cohn and Kathleen Gilberd,
The authors of a new book share the success stories of war resisters and ways soldiers and citizens can use their rights to end the wars of today.
The continuing occupation of Iraq and the growing war in Afghanistan are leaving permanent physical and emotional scars on a whole generation of soldiers. Not since Vietnam have so many GI’s objected to a war, and never have military families spoken out so strongly for withdrawal. This new book comes to the aid of distressed military personnel and their families. It examines the reasons men and women in the military have disobeyed orders and resisted the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
With a practical as well as theoretical focus, this book discusses what resisters have done, and what readers can do, to help end illegal orders and wars. It also examines race and sex discrimination in the military, including the epidemics of rape, sexual assault, and suicide in the military, as well as inadequate health care for service members. It examines the dehumanization of soldiers and civilians, and the ways in which military training promotes racial and sexual violence.
via Rules of Disengagement: What You Can Do End Illegal Wars | Rights and Liberties | AlterNet.
Take Action This Weekend: Urge Congress to Vote “No” on the War Supplemental
Video at link
Take Action This Weekend: Urge Congress to Vote “No” on the War Supplemental
Want to know what $96.7 billion more in wartime spending will go toward?
Want to know what 21,000 more US troops and $96.7 billion more in wartime spending will go toward? Gen. Petraeus says insurgent attacks in Afghanistan are at their highest level since 2001; there were 400 attacks in the last week alone. Both Generals Petraeus and McChrystal expressed the desire to keep civilian casualties to a minimum, but how can they possibly achieve that lofty goal with more troops on the ground? It stands to reason that more troops will mean more incidents of violence, increasing calls for more US airstrikes, which in turn will mean more civilian casualties.
Fortunately, there’s a chance to defeat the war supplemental and you can even take action this weekend. Here’s what FireDogLake’s Jane Hamsher recommends:
via Take Action This Weekend: Urge Congress to Vote “No” on the War Supplemental | World | AlterNet.
Health Care Reform in the House – Committees & Contacts
Health Care Reform in the House – Committees & Contacts
For several months the apparent public action has been in the Senate, first mostly with the Finance Committee (Baucus) and more recenlty, finally in the Health Committee (Kennedy, with Dodd and Harkin).
Late last week the House became more publicly active wiht Majority Leader Steny Hoyer having a publicized meeting with the leadership of the the three committees (and their subcommittees working to develop health care reform legislation in the House – Energy and Commerce Committee (Henry Waxman; Frank Pallone), Ways and Means (Charles Rangel & Pete Stark), and Education and Labor Committee (George Miller & Robert Andrews).
There is a House Health Care Reform Clearinghouse, being sponsored out of the Majority Leader’s website.
And this Wednesday June 10 there will hearings devoted to single payer with PNHP leaders among those testifying, being held by the Education and Labor Committee.
It is past time to make our voice heard in the House!
Therefore: I have taken the liberty to pull together contact information for all the members of the sub-committees below:
via Health Care Reform in the House – Committees & Contacts | ePluribus Media.
Petition: We Need Single-Payer Hearings in the House
Please consider signing+lettering the petition on Obama’s change.org website calling for Single Payer hearings in the House.
We Need Single-Payer Hearings in the House
To: Rep. Henry Waxman CA-30 and Rep. Charlie Rangel NY-15
Started by: HEALTHCARE-NOW
The House will release healthcare legislation very soon, and the draft bill could even come out next week.
From there the bill will go to Energy and Commerce, Education and Labor, and the Ways and Means committees for debate.
Rep. Miller has already agreed to hold a hearing on single-payer in the Education and Labor Committee.
We need you to contact the two other Chairperson’s offices ASAP to make sure that they hold hearings on single-payer healthcare in their committees too.
1.
This petition ends on Jul 31.
via Change.org – HEALTHCARE-NOW: We Need Single-Payer Hearings in the House.
If We Don’t Stop Wall Street’s Colossal Theft Now, Where Will This Country Be Next Year?
If We Don’t Stop Wall Street’s Colossal Theft Now, Where Will This Country Be Next Year?
Come attend events across the country next week to learn more about how we can stop Wall Street before it bankrupts all of us
We have the most fundamental fight over power ahead of us — either the banks get bigger and richer and more powerful, or we take away some of their political power for ourselves and our businesses.
Why does this fight matter? Because we have trillions of dollars in deficit, and the financial sector is winning policy after policy and will continue to squeeze tax breaks, loose rules and dollars out of government. The financial sector is stopping our country from getting out of the crisis, it is to blame for our troubles. If we don’t stop it, where will our country be by the end of this year?
But do you feel like you don’t understand big finance, while you feel less financially secure? Wall Street has been getting away with taxpayer dollars, corruption and risky practices, and a massive market failure. It’s because it wants us to believe that “ordinary people can’t understand finance and economics.” Let’s get together and understand why the economic crisis happened and what is being done now.
