Take Meaninful Action to Help Katrina Refugees!
Donate to ACORN, Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, the fantastic human rights organization whose national headquarters is in New Orleans. Acorn is the nation's largest community organization of low- and
moderate-income families, working together for social justice and
stronger communities. Since 1970,
ACORN has grown to more than 175,000 member families, organized in 850
neighborhood chapters in 75 cities across the U.S. and in cities in
Canada, the Dominican Republic and Peru.
Many of their members have been displaced and need your help, as does ACORN itself.
Karl Rove: "the most insidious of traitors"
George
Bush Sr. said those who reveal the names of covert CIA sources are "the
most insidious of traitors." And as it turns out his son's senior
advisor and chief political strategist, Karl
Rove, is one of those insidious traitors. Rove's attorney admits he
spoke to reporters about CIA operative Valerie Plame, who was working
to halt the proliferation of WMDs.
The President said that whoever was responsible for the leak would be fired. So, let's hold him to his word. Join Working Asset's call to George Bush to fire Rove. Anything less would be hypocrisy at its very worst.
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One of the Biggest Issues in Your Lifetime: The Next Supreme Court Justice Appointment
That's
because whether your cause is women's rights, gay marriage, affirmative
action, worker's rights, environmental safeguards - you name it - the
next Supreme Court justice will decide cases that impact each and every
one of us. And s/he is appointed for life.
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor just
resigned. She was a moderate, and was often the swing vote on key
issues like reproductive rights. President
Bush wants to appoint an ultra-conservative to the bench, as he has
already done with lower court appointments. His appointment could
spell disaster for women - it could overturn the hard fought Roe v.
Wade, a backslide in women's rights that was once unimaginable.
There is no more broadsweeping, long-term meaningful action you can currently take than to help ensure a moderate is appointed to the bench.
Wow, this is huge! What can I do? Because
this is such a momentous appointment, many organizations are pledging
to follow the nomination/appointment process. Sign up for action
alerts with your favorite organization, or to get you going, check out NOW's site, for more info and to sign up for their action alerts.
Viva Big Bird!
But his life continues to be in jeopardy if you don't take action!
Yesterday, the House voted to restore the $100 million dollars the Bush administration proposed to cut from Public Broadcasting. But you can be sure Ken Tomlinson, Bush's recess apppointment as President of PBS, along with his close friend, Karl Rove, have many more plans to turn PBS into a Republican mouthpiece. (For example, as you read this, Tomlinson is working hard to get a former Republican National Committee Co-Chair to be named as president and CEO of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the governing arm of PBS.) Such a partisan appointment has no place in public television. Were this a former Democratic National Convention chair, the Republicans would be in an uproar.
The legislation now goes to the Senate. Contact your Senators and demand they save Public Television. (See "rousing congress" on right side bar for contact link.)
While you're at it, sign PFAW's petition demanding Bush fire Tomlinson.
PBS is far from perfect, but it's the best we have in mainstream media. After all, the home of Bert and Ernie can't be all bad.
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It's Time to Abolish Nuclear Weapons Once and for All! 
The
60th anniversary of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is coming up. And as the
Bush administration touts "mini nukes," it refuses to rule out the
possibility of using first strike nuclear weapons. We know the first
strike will also be the last strike. You can do something! Call on
your mayor to join the mayors of these two cities and take a stand to
end nuclear proliferation now! Click here for more information about the Mayors for Peace Campaign and to find out what more you can do.
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I ♥ the filibuster!
Whether your cause is the environment, Social Security, media reform, or Tom Delay reform, the filibuster affects them all. The 200 year old filibuster is one of our sacrosanct Congressional tools that ensures checks and balances. The Radical Right knows it is currently the most important tool Democrats in Congress have, so they are trying to blast it out of existence with the "nuclear option," so named because of the devastating impact getting rid of the filibuster would have. Using the nuclear option would be one of the most radical, anti-Democratic moves the Right has made to date - and that is saying a lot. There is no more broadsweeping, long-term meaningful action you can currently take than to help save the filibuster.
Holy crap, this is huge. What can I do? To start, sign the People for the American Way's petition to your Congress members, demanding they vote to save the filibuster.
If you are in one of these key states below, contact your Congress members and demand they preserve the filibuster (To see how to contact your congress member, go to rousing the rabble homepage and click on the right sidebar's 'rousing congress.' To read more about the filibuster and more you can do, go to People for the American Way's site:
Alaska
Arizona
Indiana
Iowa
Kansas
Kentucky
Maine
Mississippi
Nebraska
New Hampshire
New Mexico
Ohio
Oregon
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
South Carolina
Tennessee
Virginia
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Speak Out Against Two Years of Death, Chaos and a Blank Check for Endless War and Occupation!
March 19th & 20th
(Find out what's happening in your area.)
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My blog is a Free Speech Zone. Their's should be, too.
(Then they came for the bloggers... Two Iranian bloggers were arrested for views expressed on their blogs. Click here to find out what you can do.)
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Contact your Congress member and demand s/he say no to another $82 billion for an endless Iraq occupation.
Recently, Bush asked for another $82 billion to continue the chaos in Iraq in the form of an emergency supplemental funding request to Congress. $61 billion of the total is for the Iraq war, which would bring total spending on the war to almost $210 billion! This money is in addition to the $2.5 trillion budget request Bush made to Congress last week, which proposed to slash critical social programs and increase military spending.
Call the congressional switchboard right now, and ask to be connected with your representative, 202-224-3121 (9-5 EST). Or, go to sidebar "rousing congress" and email 'em.
Tell her/him to:
1) Oppose new funds: Congress
should halt new funds for U.S. military operations in Iraq. Any new
funds should be allocated solely for troop withdrawal and interim troop
protection.
2) Support amendments to the appropriations bill that call for an end to the occupation and support Iraqi sovereignty.
3) Provide real support for our troops by ending the “stop loss” policy that’s the equivalent of a back-door draft and insisting on adequate health care and other benefits for Iraq war veterans and their families.
More info:
*
While Bush is claiming that this money is needed to “support the
troops”, his budget would slash veterans’ access to healthcare by
increasing fees for prescription drugs and access to VA facilities,
even as thousands of injured soldiers streaming back from Iraq and
Afghanistan.
*The
amount of money that’s being spent on endless war could easily pay for
the community programs – from public libraries to hospitals to train
service – that are about to be eliminated because of state and local
budget shortfalls. For concrete examples of what these war funds could
pay for in your state or city, see www.nationalpriorities.org.
*There
seems to be no accountability whatsoever for the $153 billion already
appropriated for the Iraq war. That money didn’t go toward purchasing
sufficient body armor and equipment for the U.S. troops, but it did go
to line the pockets of Halliburton and its subsidiary KBR. The U.S.
also can’t account for how it spent Iraq’s money – the Coalition
Provisional Authority (the occupation authority in Iraq) “lost” $9
billion during its tenure.
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Join the National Lawyer's Guild in speaking out against the very frightening
Lynne Stewart verdict. (I could make with the lawyer jokes, but she's one of the many good ones, and this ain't so funny):
From Lynne Stewart's site: Who is Lynne Stewart?
Radical human rights attorney Lynne Stewart has been falsely accused of
helping terrorists. On Tuesday, April 9, 2002, she was arrested and agents
searched her Manhattan office for documents. She was arraigned before Manhattan
federal Judge John Koetl. This is an obvious attempt by the U.S. government to
silence dissent and install fear in those who would fight against the U.S.
government's racism, seek to help Arabs and Muslims being prosecuted for free
speech and defend the rights of all oppressed people.
Lynne has just been convicted. Go to the National Lawyer's Guild's site to see how you can take action. Come up with your own ideas and email what you're doing to me and I'll post it.
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Ongoing call: Email PBS Kids' "Postcards from Buster" (click below to find out more) and let them know caving to pressure from the Bush
administration, via Education Secretary Margaret Spelling, to pull
an episode of the show because it had two women on it who happened to
be - gasp - lesbian is completely unacceptable.
Spelling said the federal government, who provides subsidies to the show, did not mean for the money to be used "to introduce this kind of subject matter to children." That the two women are lesbians was not the topic of the show, nor was it mentioned.
Email 'em.
Bonus
factoid: This is a terrific example of how advertisers/funders/government subsiders
potentially control the content of all TV shows - with the ever-looming
threat of withdrawing advertising or funding if they don't like the
content. Happens more than you think; yes, even on PBS.
Read related article about advertising deregulation. (Once there, don't forget to scroll down.)
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