Senator Feingold recorded a special thank you video which I just sent to TrueMajority.org/USAction members for all their work opposing telecom immunity. But this video is actually meant for all of us - a thank you because we won another improbable victory last week and a reminder of what's at stake.
b) Call your Senator – here’s the switchboard - (202) 224-3121
c) Use our online tool to email Senators Dodd, Feingold and Obama calling on them to lead a filibuster
Follow me below for a bit of FISA history and action steps to take right now!
I’m sure many of you have seen the recent spate of stories about KBR on the front page of the NYTimes a couple days ago and the always fantastic coverage over at TPM .
We’ve focused on the contractor accountability side of the War in Iraq and tomorrow are working with Sacramento for Democracy and the Sacramento Coalition to End the War to highlight CalPERS investments in KBR at their monthly board meeting.
About a month ago, we kicked off this campaign with a simple petition calling on pension funds and retirement accounts to hold KBR accountable for fraud waste and abuse.
You can still sign the petition at: http://www.TrueMajority.org/...
CalPERS, the public pension and retirement system in California is one of the biggest investors in KBR, owning over $25,000,000 in shares, so our California members went to work making over 200 calls in one day calling on CalPERS to divest from KBR.
Remember January 2001? Those were the good old days before George Bush and Dick Cheney took office. At the time, gas cost just a dollar fifty-one a gallon. And now? $3? $3.50? Even four dollars for a gallon of gas.
The cost of driving to work and flying to visit family keeps going up. Meanwhile, Exxon-Mobil made more profits last year than any corporation in human history.
The cost of driving to work and flying to visit family keeps going up. It's long past time for real energy independence in America and that starts by making sure oil companies pay their fair share.
That's why we've set up a one stop page where Americans from all walks of life can send their personal story about gas prices to congress.
Thank you to Gov. Paterson for his incredible decision yesterday to recognize same-sex marriages from outside of New York. If you haven't yet, please be sure to read his diary.
As most of you know, on June 17th, California is poised to become only the second state in America to practice full marriage equality. Over the past decade the public has rapidly been embracing equal rights and with this clear ruling, this is our chance to put it over the top.
Now TrueMajority.org is coming out. We support full marriage equality.
With only a few months left in the Bush Presidency, it's tempting to sit back and wait until November. But belligerent rhetoric and fear mongering about Iran is on the rise. In the latest example, George Bush's mouthpiece, General Petreaus, claimed that Iran's involvement is "the greatest long-term threat to the viability of a democratic Iraq."
There was a startling diaryyesterday, that our progressive friend, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, is so worried that he is now circulating a letter to his Congressional colleagues "to register our strong opposition to possible unilateral, preemptive military action against other nations by the Executive Branch without Congressional authorization". Chairman Conyers isn't taking any chances and neither should we.
Wednesday, I wrote about the launch of CondiMustGo.com, the new campaign from TrueMajority.org, Democracy for America, and Brave New Films. My hope was to create a blogswarm to get ABC to pay attention and ask about torture at the debate. Of course, we all know what happened next.
ABC had a chance to ask the Presidential candidates if they thought torture was acceptable in America. In case they didn't think of this idea themselves, we even ran an ad on the local ABC affiliate right after the debate in Philadelphia with quotes from their own story.
Here's part of what John Nichols at The Nation had to say about Clinton, Obama and our campaign:
It would be more than refreshing if they both said, "Yes!" and promised to sign the "Condi Must Go" petition.
But ABC didn't get the hint.
So, its up to us again: to push this story out and make it big enough that the media has to cover it.
Last week, ABC news broke the torture story wide open Since then, the story has picked up steam online, but besides the Daily Show, the Nation, and Keith Olbermann, there has been a virtual media blackout on this issue since the story broke. Torture approved at the highest levels of government. The Secretary of State chairing meetings deciding how many times to punch, slap, or waterboard people in American custody.
Today, TrueMajority.org, Brave New Films, and Democracy for America came together to launch CondiMustGo.com.
Our message is very simple:
America will not stand for a Secretary of State who approved torture and then misled Congress. We call on the Presidential candidates to ask Secretary of State Rice to resign
ABC Broke the Story on Torture
We're running a 30 second version of the torture video on ABC right after the debate in Philly
ABC is hosting the debate tonight.
Please REC this diary so we can create a blog swarm and get ABC to ask this question at tonight's debate.
Yesterday, TrueMajority.org launched our "Condi Must Go" campaign. In response to the latest torture allegations, our message is simple:
"Given new revelations that Condoleezza Rice chaired the meetings approving specific torture techniques, she can not continue as Secretary of State. Secretary of State Rice Must Resign"
Here's what happened in only the first nineteen hours:
Red no more had a great diarythis morning outlining the shocking new torture revelations. But, shock and outrage isn't enough. It's time for Condoleezza Rice to go.
Just when you think it can't get any worse, the Bush Administration finds a new way to shock the conscience. Yesterday, ABC News reported that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice chaired explicit White House discussions about which torture techniques should be used on prisoners.
They "were so detailed" that "some of the interrogation sessions were almost choreographed -- down to the number of times CIA agents could use a specific tactic."1 This is the first time that we have evidence that senior officials, "not only discussed specific plans and specific interrogation methods, but approved them". Given these new revelations, Condoleezza Rice can not continue as Secretary of State.
Yesterday, McJoan postedabout a possible FISA compromise being proposed by the White House.
For months now, we've been talking about the Bush Administration's demands of immunity for phone companies guilty of illegally spying on Americans.
Now, the President is at it again. Just yesterday, the Politico newspaper reported that the administration is, "now in a position where they want to talk about a possible compromise". We've seen this before. Every month or so, the White House floats a new trial-balloon of a possible compromise bill which inevitably includes immunity for phone companies.
We need to step up right now and make sure the House stands strong. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer is the lead negotiator on this issue. Call him right now and tell him to keep telecom immunity off the table.
The fifth anniversary of the Iraq has come and gone. Our Iran Mobile was on the streets of Washington DC yesterday. Check out this great photo on the BBC site.
``No one would argue that this war has not come at a high cost in lives and treasure, but those costs are necessary when we consider the cost of a strategic victory for our enemies in Iraq,'' Bush said.
How long must we wake up to these headlines:
Bush defends Iraq war on fifth anniversary
Bush defends Iraq war in anniversary speech KXAN-TV
Bush Defiantly Defends War in Iraq (AP)
Bush pledges victory will be accomplished in Iraq (CTV.ca)
Bush Defends Iraq War in Speech (New York Times)
Few people knew what to expect when we launched DFA's Voters Decide campaign. We called on super-delegates to confirm the will of the voters, instead of crowning a different winner. Never before had anyone forced the media spotlight to focus on the power of this group of less than 800 party insiders.
And, we were shocked by the results. In only 10 days:
60,000+ Signatures on our Voters Decide petition
Full Page ad in USA Today with MoveOn
Speaker Pelosi, Sen. McCaskill and other leading Democrats came out in support
Yesterday, we took our message to the Democratic leadership with deliveries to Sen. Clinton, Sen. Obama, Majority Leader Reid, Speaker Pelosi, and DNC Chair Gov Dean. Read their stories below.
Today, over 3,000 DFA members across the country are delivering Voters Decide petitions to super-delegates in their communities. It's not too late to sign up. You can join them here
Earlier today, DFA's Political Director Charles Chamberlain posted about our campaign to make sure Democratic voters, and not party insiders, decide the Democratic nomination.
I want to update everyone with the exciting news. In less that 24 hrs, we're already at over 25,000 signatures on our superdelegate call to action!
And, other progressive partners have jumped on board. Our friends at MoveOn just came out with a similar open letter:
"The Democratic Party must be democratic. The superdelegates should let the voters decide between Clinton and Obama, then support the people's choice."
Earlier today, Glenn Greenwald sent the following message to DFA Members about FISA:
Today, there is a genuine opportunity -- the first in a long time -- for Senate Democrats to take a meaningful stand against the lawlessness of the Bush administration. Whether they are willing to take this stand largely depends upon how much citizen demand they hear from Americans like you and me.
The Bush administration has been trying to bully Congress into passing a law that would legalize vast new warrantless eavesdropping powers for the President to spy on Americans. The law also provides full immunity to telecommunications companies which enabled the Bush administration to spy on you without the warrants required by law.
We still have a couple hours left before the 4:30 vote. Already today, DFA members have made 4676 calls to Senators.
Please call your senators RIGHT NOW and demand they filibuster to stop telecom immunity.
I thought you'd get a kick out of this. I know this is unusual, but here are some excerpts of a press release Democracy for America issued today in response to Sen. Lieberman's (DFL-CT) endorsement of John McCain.
Here's an excerpt:
In 2006, Senator Lieberman was reelected to the Senate as the sole candidate of Connecticut for Lieberman; a political party created out of whole cloth after Senator Lieberman was resoundingly defeated by Ned Lamont in the Democratic primary. At the time, Senator Lieberman promised to caucus with the Democratic majority in the Senate and work to elect a Democrat to the White House in 2008.
And what needs to happen:
"At this point, it is clear that Joe Lieberman is done with the taxpayers of Connecticut and we are done with him," said Democracy for America Chairman and Connecticut resident, Jim Dean. "Majority Leader Harry Reid needs to pull Senator Lieberman’s committee assignments. His presence in the Democratic caucus is an insult to Connecticut voters and taxpayers, Democrats, progressives, and activists all over the country."
These past few days have witnessed attacks on the top three progressives from the DFA pulse poll. While these are unrelated incidents, they all represent attacks in some form on the progressive movement we are all building. Regardless of which candidate you support, or would like voters to Unite around, we must stand up in each case to build our movement.
Dennis Kucinich - Banned from the Register Debate
John Edwards - About to be screwed by ActBlue
Barack Obama - Attacked for empowering student activists
More about the implications and problems of this below.
"I understand that some of the political brass do not like the idea of a primary: I see it more as a kitchen table debate within our Democratic family: what do Democrats stand for, what type of country do we want, how do we get there?" - Ned Lamont
Earlier today, DFA's political director Charles Chamberlain, posted at DailyKos to lay out our "Unite for a Progressive President" campaign. In reponse to a lot of the great feedback we've gotten. I wanted to lay out how this campaign fits into the movement of the past few years.
We are a national movement of progressive activists. And, we know that when we focus on something we can succeed.
-Together we elected Governor Dean to DNC Chair
-Together we propelled Ned Lamont to the Democratic Nomination
-Together we elected new representatives like Rep. Jerry McNerney
-Together we changed the 2006 election narrative and made Democrats talk about the war.
And, now, we can come together as a progressive movement and Unite for a Progressive President.
