Sept 23, 2008 -- NO Blank Check to Wall Street!

** Working Families e-Activist Network **

George Bush, Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke came to Congress last weekend with a request for a $700 billion blank check to bail out Wall Street. Thankfully, our allies in Congress are pushing back against this dangerous and ill-conceived bill.

Our nation is facing a real financial crisis, brought on by seven years of Bush-McCain financial policies, that calls for action that is thoughtful and swift—but not hasty. The actions we take at this perilous time must set the stage for a real recovery that benefits Main Street as well as Wall Street.

The last thing we should do is compound the enormous imbalances in our economy with an enormously imbalanced rescue package.

Contact your member of Congress and their leaders today and tell them "no blank checks" for Wall Street.

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** SEIU **

When you mess up on the job, you get a pink slip.

When you're a corporate CEO running a multi-billion dollar enterprise into the ground, you get a golden parachute.

This week, the Bush Administration is seeking legislation that would grant the very people who got us into this mess a blank check to get us out.

No deal.

Sign the petition telling your representatives to vote NO on any blank check bailout for the Bush Administration.

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** Public Campaign Action Fund **

The New York Stock Exchange's opening bell sends shivers down the spines of all Americans as we consider the fate of the nation's largest banks and brokerages.

Years of easy credit, sub-prime lending, and market deregulation have led us to what may be the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. What is Congress doing? Debating a taxpayer-financed bailout for the people who got us into this mess.

You can be sure that they are remembering the well over $5 billion the finance, insurance, and real estate firms have poured into campaign contributions and lobbying since 1990. What can we do?

Tell Congress in no uncertain terms: no blank checks for Wall Street donors. The American people can't afford a special interest bailout.

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** Democrats.com **

George Bush wants taxpayers to give Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson a $700 billion blank check - $2,333 for every man, woman, and child -to bail out Wall Street for its reckless speculation and greed. That's on top of $1.1 trillion for other recent bailouts, including A.I.G., Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Bear Stearns.

The Paulson Plan is a total outrage with no restrictions, no accountability, and no repair of the underlying problem of foreclosures on fraudulent mortgages. Each of Bush's previous bailouts was sold as a cure for the financial crisis, but each had little effect. The Paulson Plan achieves only one goal with certainty: stealing from the middle class to protect the rich.

The current financial crisis is the direct result of 28 years of rightwing Republican deregulation, corruption, and greed, which became fatally toxic under Bush-Cheney and the Republican Congress.

Congress must reject Paulson's Plunder

Aug 01, 2008: Your Fight the Right-Wackos Links

** American Rights at Work **
Wal-Mart has been threatening employees to not vote for pro-worker candidates like Barack Obama in November because they support the Employee Free Choice Act. If passed, the bill would make it easier to form unions in stores like Wal-Mart.

Telling employees how to vote in a U.S. election is not only morally reprehensible, it's potentially illegal.

So we’re starting a petition to the Federal Election Commission (FEC), asking for an investigation into Wal-Mart’s electioneering. Can you sign on?

Ask the Federal Election Committee to investigate Wal-Mart’s potentially illegal intimidation.
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** Working Families **
Wal-Mart is so intimidated by the very possibility of a unionized workforce that its supervisors have been holding mandatory meetings essentially telling employees to vote against Democrats and Sen. Barack Obama this November.

Wal-Mart is taking this outrageous step because the Democrats and Barack Obama have committed to pass the Employee Free Choice Act to restore workers’ freedom to form unions and bargain for fair wages, health care, decent working conditions and a real voice on the job. All of America’s workers have the right to freely decide whom to vote for independent of employer pressure and intimidation.

Tell Wal-Mart to stop intimidating workers TODAY
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** Natural Resources Defense Council **
Contaminated beachwater can cause infections, rashes, diarrhea, vomiting and other harmful and uncomfortable symptoms in swimmers. To ensure that our beaches are safe for all, beach monitoring programs must be strengthened and the sources of beach pollution, most often stormwater and sewage, must be identified and addressed.

Congress has the opportunity to help clean up contaminated beaches and to make sure sources of beach pollution are identified and addressed. Urge your senators to pass the Beach Protection Act.

Send a message urging your senators to push for passage of the Beach Protection Act (S. 2844).
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** Public Citizen **
We trust nursing homes to make sure our loved ones are in a safe environment where they eat their meals on time, receive their prescribed medications, and have attentive care.

Sadly, many elderly residents are neglected.

Mary Hight was dehydrated and ill for days, but her nursing home wouldn’t call an ambulance. Her daughter had no choice but to push her in a wheelchair to a nearby hospital, where she died the next day. Adding insult to injury, Mary’s family couldn’t sue the nursing home and hold it accountable in court -- because it had put something called a “binding mandatory arbitration” clause in the fine print of its admission papers.

Instead of focusing on providing the best care to their residents, nursing homes are busy immunizing themselves from accountability for their wrongdoing -- by stripping the elderly of the right to take them to court! This must end.

Help stop this predatory practice!

Congress is considering banning the use of pre-dispute binding mandatory arbitration in nursing home contracts NOW.

New Health Care Video and Petition from the AFL-CIO

** Working Families **



"You can play by the rules. Or you can follow insurance company rules where you can do whatever the hell you want." That's the message of a new video from Health Care for America NOW, a strong new coalition that includes the AFL-CIO.

"Insurance companies rewrite the rules as they go along to win every time. Why shouldn't you?"

Really, none of us should have to play by insurance company rules in a system that costs too much, covers too little and excludes too many.

We have a choice. Please sign the petition now to help win secure, high-quality health care for all.

Your 5 Minute Activist Links for April 14, 2008

** Environmental Defense **
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers wants to build the world's largest hydraulic pumping plant in one of the most sparsely populated regions in the state of Mississippi.

In a throwback to another era and contrary to federal policy, the Corps would use the Yazoo Pumps to drain wetlands so agribusiness can intensify production to reap more farm subsidy payments.

The Yazoo Pumps project would waste $220 million in taxpayer money, drain and damage more than 200,000 acres of wetlands in the heart of the Mississippi River flyway and ruin some of the richest natural resources in the nation.

An EPA veto would put an end to this harmful plan. Send an email today! Help protect these precious Mississippi wetlands once and for all.

** Working Families **
Just about any way you look at it, runaway pay packages led CEOs to take on excessive risk and are one of the real causes of the mortgage crisis.

Too often, compensation programs encouraged top corporate executives to maximize short-term financial gains at the expense of long-term sustainability. In effect, boards of directors rewarded their CEOs for generating financial results that were often based on taking on irresponsible levels of subprime mortgage risk.

1) Click here to tell your representative and senators to help homeowners affected by the irresponsible corporate lending practices that led to the mortgage meltdown.



2) Click here to urge your senators to support giving shareholders a say on CEO pay.


** American Civil Liberties Union **
For the first time, George W. Bush acknowledged that he knew his top national security advisers discussed and approved specific details of the CIA’s use of torture. “I’m aware that our national security team met on this issue and I approved,” he said. He also defended the use of waterboarding -- simulated drowning where the victim feels like they are about to die.

Congress should long ago have gotten to the bottom of which top officials approved, condoned and authorized U.S. involvement in torture. But, now that the President has admitted to a policy of top-down torture, the ACLU is calling on Congress to demand an independent prosecutor to investigate possible violations of the War Crimes Act, the federal Anti-Torture Act and federal assault laws.

Tell your members of Congress: Don’t look the other way on torture.


** Vote Vets **
Take a moment today to use our website to write a letter to your own senators and representative, urging them to back a new GI Bill. We've drafted some text for you, so all you need to do is enter your name and information, and click.

TELL CONGRESS TO RESTORE AMERICA'S PROMISE TO ITS TROOPS

Your 5 Minute Activist Links for March 30, 2008

** American Civil Liberties Union **
Ongoing efforts by the ACLU and its members helped get the House of Representatives to do the right thing and stand up to the administration's fear mongering, including rejecting the Monkey King Bush's unconstitutional spying bill, and, just before Spring recess, passing the FISA Amendments Act -- a far cry from the blank check that the Monkey King Bush demanded so strenuously.
Tell your representative and Speaker Pelosi to stand strong against a spying bill that harms the Constitution.


** National Parks Conservation Association **
Any day now, the Senate could vote on a package of public lands bills that will greatly benefit our national parks and public lands. Some of NPCA's top priorities-- reauthorization of the Park Service's Underground Railroad Network to Freedom Program, the Cesar Chavez Study Act, and the Acadia National Park Improvement Act to name a few--are all in the mix. These bills have strong bi-partisan support, and yet they’ve been held up for more than a year.
Write your Senators and urge them to vote in favor of S. 2739.

** Jobs with Justice **
In the tomato fields of south Florida, modern-day slavery still thrives. As part of the week of action, students across the country are demanding that Burger King and food industry leaders work with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) to improve the wages and conditions for the workers who pick tomatoes and join an industry-wide effort to eliminate human rights abuses from Florida’s fields.
Click here to sign the National Petition to End Sweatshops & Slavery in the Fields.

** Working Families **
Another petition to eliminate modern-day servitude in America produce fields.

** Sierra Club **
The good news is that thanks to the support of our Sierra Club members and supporters we were able to block a staggering 5,000-acre timber sale in the Giant Sequoia National Monument.
But the bad news is our fight to protect the majestic Giant Sequoias is not over. More than half of the remaining groves — located in Giant Sequoia National Monument — are in jeopardy because, despite being rebuked by the federal courts, the Monkey King Bush Administration is refusing to back off its plan to log this irreplaceable ancient forest. That’s why we are asking you to act now and sign our petition to Forest Service Chief Abigail Kimbell, asking her to implement the strongest possible protections for Giant Sequoia National Monument.

Your 5 Minute Activist Links for Feb 4, 2008

** AFL-CIO Working Families **
#1) Tell your Senators to include unemployment benefit extensions in the Stimulus Package.


#2) On behalf of Working America and AFL-CIO members, ask the Top Banks in America to Stop the Foreclosures.


** Credo Action, Working Assets **
Send an e-mail and tell your Senators: NO Retroactive Amnesty for Telecom Companies for their illegal wiretapping of Americans.