Category: Action

For the last few weeks, the IGTNT and Mojo Friday  communities have been asking you to help them with Netroots For The Troops — a project planned for  Netroots Nation 2008 in Austin, July 17-20 — that hopes to send 101 troop care packages to American soldioers curently serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, supplying them with everyday sundries — including work gloves, phone cards, underwear and protein bars — that the government refuses to provide them, despite spending billions of dollars a week.

What we realized, however, is that while we’ve been primarily asking for money, there are a number of other free-yet-equally-important and relevant ways that you can support this effort.

For details, join me on the flip side…

Time is running out so we must work together to spread the message and apply pressure.

Robwert Wexler asks for our assistance:

Our effort to hold the Bush/Cheney Administration accountable has taken another dramatic step forward. Last night, Congressman Dennis Kucinich introduced the first Articles of Impeachment ever to be introduced against President Bush.  It includes, in total, thirty-five Articles detailing this Administration’s blatant abuse of power. Today, I enthusiastically co-sponsored this vitally important bill.

I am grateful for Dennis’ leadership on this issue and for the steadfast support that countless Americans have given to both of our efforts to redeem our government and expose the crimes of Bush and Cheney.  

I will now expand my efforts to secure impeachment hearings in the Judiciary Committee for these new Articles of Impeachment against President George W. Bush.

Many of the charges against President Bush are well known – and would shock the conscience of everyday Americans if only the national media would be willing to report on these stark facts.

The Articles present a stunning narrative of offenses that have go well beyond previous crimes committed by any US chief executive.  In fact no President or Vice President in history has done more to undermine our constitution.  

These charges are broad, with 35 separate allegations including the deliberate lies regarding WMDs that led us to war and the approval of illegal wiretapping of American citizens.  The Articles also include new allegations of high crimes – including the explicit approval for high Administration officials to violate treaties and US law banning the use of torture.

The Democratic Party gained a majority in the House and Senate due in large part to our promises to end the corruption of the Republican majority and to hold the Administration accountable to the law. This courageous bill is a crucial step towards fulfilling this promise, but – like the Articles against Cheney – they require your support to convince Democrats and open-minded Republicans to support this bold but necessary action.

Time is running out so we must work together to spread the message and apply pressure.

First, please encourage your friends and family members to sign up at WexlerWantsHearings.com – as it will allow us to keep in touch with you and speak to a wider audience.  If you haven’t yet put in your phone and address, please sign up again, as we will be doing telephone town halls in the near future.

Second, call your representative and urge them to support Impeachment hearings.  

Finally, contact newspapers, news stations, and your favorite bloggers and urge them to report on this movement.  We need to keep Impeachment a significant news story until the Democratic leadership sees the value in it.

McClellan Agrees to Testify:

I was pleased to inform you yesterday that Judiciary Committee Chairman Conyers met my call to have Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan testify under oath.  I am thrilled to inform you that McClellan has agreed to testify on June 20th at 10AM.  This will be the first step in what we hope will be ongoing and deepening examinations of the stark evidence and charges against both President Bush and Vice President Cheney.

Thank you for your continued passion and advocacy.  Your support means so much to me.

Sincerely,

Congressman Robert Wexler

I have nothing to add.  Just go do it!  Look up HOR Judiciary members and use the toll free numbers for Congress:

    1-866-340-9281

    1-866-338-1015

    1-877-851-6437  

Thanks!  Go get ’em!

In the perhaps quixotic quest to Free The Press of some of the worst features of  corporate hegemony over the very information we live and breathe, The Maddow Movement was born. With no illusions of anything but a starting point in fighting the influence of those who would narrow our perceptions through the presentation of Military Analyst Propaganda…or allow themselves to be cowed and complicit stenographers (alternately: “deferential, complicit enablers” ) of and for the lies that led us to Iraq and the death of perhaps a million people…or did NOT choose to investigate torture…or treason….a campaign was launched to throw out the old guard and hail and herald the new.

1229 good souls have signed The Maddow Movement Petition. Untold numbers of E-mails have been sent. Today…you too can help!

Now! (please?)

Not only will you be helping to get a fresh honest perspective inserted into the stale and stilted puditry that has helped to lead our country to ad over the brink of …really bad stuff…you will be flexing your muscle as a news and information consumer! You will be showing the corporate heads and the programmers that there is a demand for better reporting, analysis and just plain  intelligence (Ms Maddow = Rhodes Scholar) in their “industry.”

“People get the government they deserve,” de Tocqueville said…the same goes for information! In our world today, we consumers (formerly know as ‘citizens) will only get what we demand from those who would be our corporate masters…Yell Louder!

And get thee hither to signeth yon petition and send ye your e-mails!

[email protected]

…just let me say this one more thing… start having political cocktail parties and start getting people thinking about our situation and perhaps this will also enlarge their world view

pfiore8

Have we started a list yet of all of the things that have to

be undone beginning next January????

masslass

Refresher paragraphs:

From an essay three weeks ago entitled The Revolution Started Yesterday.  Well YOU Started It!  Political Cocktail Party, I asked all of you enlightened Dharmites to discuss in the comments of that essay the things you feel could and should be addressed beginning Right Now in order to begin the undoing of all of the twisted and underhanded things that have been visited upon our country and the world by our Current Criminal Administration?.

In a follow up essay from two weeks ago entitled “Revolution: First Strike – Political Cocktail Party,” I asked all of you involved Dharmites to answer a poll regarding categories and the related issue items belonging to each category that we have identified as Action Items.

Last week, in Revolution: Next Strike  Political Cocktail Party  we got down to the granular level and actually polled the issues the YOU all decided were the most important for us as a group to get involved with OUTSIDE THE BLOG and here are the top three results from what YOU told us.

As per Keith’s explicit instructions and broad wink indicating that The Maddow Movement had already succeeded before we even started it. (are we powerful or what???)

The Maddow Movement is pretty much over/redundant. I plan on making one last little push in the next few days for signatures on the petition, and then sending it to the PTB at NBC, just to make sure they know how much we support them in giving Rachel her own show. Thanks for all your help, that was fun! And now we can move on to the next steps of the Free The Press campaign.

Which got a big boost today (as brobin posts about here) from none other than former Bush Press Deceiver little Scotty McClellan! The Pillsbury Lie Boy has a new book out and the Politico has excerpts, wherein the star of the Scotty Show comes right out and says what we all know. That the WH Pess Corps was “too easy on the administration during the run-up to the war.” (as Politico phrased it) Greenwald has another devastating semi-quote “deferential, complicit enablers” of Bush administration “propaganda.” Btw, if you haven’t yet, read Greenwald!

In other words…the WH Press Corp are not much more (with the exception of St Helen Of Thomas) than lap dog stenographers without the necessary brains or gumption to really challenge the daily damburst of lies, evasions, and spun half truths spewing forth from the halls of tyranny.

A rambling riff on the oddness of New Orleans as part of this cycle’s NOLA/Gulf Blogathon, organized by Louisiana 1976 over at dkos…

If you haven’t sent an e-mail or signed the petition for the Maddow Movement yet….well….I’ll let this guy say it!

Whereas; The Press, the Fourth Estate, is the gatekeeper of Truth in our country. If the Press does not report it, it effectively never happened as far as the all important reaction of the citizenry is concerned. Where the Press shines it’s light, freedom follows.

Whereas; The Press during the Bush Administration has not only blinded its own light in regards to scandalous crimes, it has on far too many occasions, such as the lead up to the Iraq Occupation and on Domestic Spying, and in the latest instance of the Military Analysts scandal, actually aided and abetted in the criminal acts and despicable propaganda activities of the Bush Administration.

We have determined that in order to take our country back from those who have usurped our democracy, in order to bring to light their crimes, in order to expose their methods, and most importantly..in order to make sure that these crimes and outrages can never occur again, the first necessary step on the log road back to America is to reform and retake the Fourth Estate, to Free The Press.

Realizing that this monumental task cannot be accomplished in one fell swoop, but must be approached incrementally, in a series of small but achievable steps, we have determined that the first step is getting a fresh, objective  progressive voice that has not been tainted by the past eight years on the air.

Rachel Maddow.

To this end we are starting an E-mail and Petition drive to urge MSNBC to give Ms. Maddow her own show…we have named this effort, The Maddow Movement

Last Friday night, Rachel Maddow guest hosted for KO on Countdown. Not only did she do a great job….she won the time slot in the key 25-54 year old demographic! The one that advertisers value most. You can watch the whole show on Youtube (click on the vid to take you to the Youtube page) and below is the Dkos diary with the numbers. For such a bare diary, it spent a very long time on the reclist, showing Rachel’s popularity by yet another metric.

Home Run for Rachel Maddow, by Tod

Below the fold: We have found an online petition site, now all we have to do is write the petition! Below is a draft for you to give input on. Once we have the petition set and in place…the next step is to start publishing the link to it wherever we can. That will be the official kick off of the Maddow Movment, Yeehaw! Suggestions are more than welcome!

…just let me say this one more thing… start having political cocktail parties and start getting people thinking about our situation and perhaps this will also enlarge their world view

pfiore8

Have we started a list yet of all of the things that have to

be undone beginning next January????

masslass

Refresher paragraph:

From an essay two weeks ago entitled “The Revolution Started Yesterday.  Well YOU Started It!  Political Cocktail Party,” I asked all of you enlightened Dharmites to discuss in the comments of that essay the things you feel could and should be addressed beginning Right Now in order to begin the undoing of all of the twisted and underhanded things that have been visited upon our country and the world by our “Current Criminal Administration“.

In a follow up essay last week entitled “Revolution: First Strike – Political Cocktail Party,” I asked all of you involved Dharmites to answer a poll regarding categories and the related issue items belonging to each category that we have identified as Action Items.

Over at Standing Firm you can read the terrible story of how our federal government is dealing with the problems of immigration — by coming into small towns and raiding them, tearing families apart, and terrorizing an entire community.

On Monday, May 12, federal immigration authorities raided the Agriprocessors, Inc. meat packing plant in Postville, Iowa. This massive raid led to the arrest of more than 300 workers and quickly threw this small town of less than 3,000 people into chaos.

Throughout the last week family members have been desperate to get information about their loved ones, children are staying away from school for fear of leaving their homes, attorneys have been attempting with limited success to gain access to workers being detained by federal authorities, and the entire town faces an uncertain future. Fears are growing that the detained workers will soon be shipped across the country to be prepared for deportation without being able to speak with attorneys or family members.

Before I go any further into this story, there’s something we call can do to help:

The community of Postville is also organizing a humanitarian response to the raid. Please spread the word to individuals or institutions that would be willing to send donations to support families impacted by the raid. Donations should be sent to:

St. Bridget’s Hispanic Ministry Fund

c/o Sister Mary McCauley

PO Box 369

Postville, IA 52162

(mark “Postville Raid” in the memo)

For further information about providing material or monetary support, please call Sister Mary McCauley at (563) 537-0002.

An action alert from Physicians for Human Rights:

We urge you to write your Senators and Representative today to support the Detainee Basic Medical Care Act of 2008.

Shocking exposés this week by the New York Times, Washington Post, and 60 Minutes have confirmed the alarming breakdown in health care for detained asylum seekers and other immigrants in custody of the office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), resulting in needless suffering and, in the most tragic cases, avoidable death.