It's the only way that I can see to make a difference, a meaningful difference, in the American Political Arena. A party that is not beholden to the corporate crooks that run the country must rise up and speak the truth about why things are the way they are. This is a democratic republic, not a fascist state, yet the philosophy of those at the top, and I mean financially, is fascist. Mousolinni said that fascism should be more appropriately called "corporatism". Well that is what we've got.

We the People are the final check and balance on our government. It is time for us to do our job, and check the corruption now, before it is too late!!!

Sign the Petition here:

http://www.petitiononline.com/ap24387/petition.html

DNC Action Alert
------------------------------

Do you believe that the amount of a person's Social Security check should be tied to the color of that person's skin? Of course not. But the Republican Party's point man on Social Security in the House is strongly recommending consideration of just such a step. On Meet the Press yesterday, Representative Bill Thomas (R-CA) raised the possibility of linking Social Security benefits to a person's race -- or even gender.

Ill-conceived, dangerous ideas about Social Security are nothing new to the Republican Party. But no idea is more dangerous or patently unfair than linking Social Security benefits to a person's race and gender.

We can disagree about which ideas should be on or off the table when it comes to the Bush plan to overhaul Social Security. But surely every American can agree that there is no place in the Social Security debate for linking the amount of a Social Security benefit check to the race or gender of the person receiving it.

Please sign our petition today and join the Democratic Party in demanding that President Bush immediately and unequivocally disavow Chairman Thomas' dangerous and offensive suggestion.

http://www.democrats.org/action/200501240001.html

If the President and other Republican leaders fail to act, we'll know that there are no limits to the tactics they'll use in their radical campaign to dismantle Social Security and unravel one of the core programs at the heart of the American dream.

The President is already the main architect of a Social Security scare campaign designed to convince the American people that Social Security is in imminent danger. But the fact is, the Social Security system has the resources to keep paying benefits for decades to come -- and there is absolutely no need for Bush's radical approach.

Their aim is to tear the Social Security program apart by privatizing it. If they get their way, Social Security will be transformed from a sacred promise to a stock market gamble. And American taxpayers will be hit with the trillion dollar price tag for Bush's radical privatization plan.

We Democrats are ready, willing, and able to protect Social Security in a spirited public debate. But first, every political leader in America -- beginning with the President of the United States -- must disavow Chairman Thomas' suggestion that we put on the table the reprehensible idea of linking the size of someone's benefits to that person's race or gender.

Act now by signing our "Equality and Social Security" petition -- and join in supporting our campaign to protect Social Security from Republican efforts to dismantle it. It's going to take all the grassroots power we can muster to win this monumental struggle over the future of Social Security.

http://www.democrats.org/action/200501240001.html

Sincerely,
Terry McAuliffe
Chairman

P. S. It seems as if every day, another Republican comes forward with a new idea for weakening Social Security. They've opposed Social Security from the start and they have made it clear that, in 2005, they will stop at nothing in their effort to dismantle this remarkable social achievement that has kept generations of America's seniors out of poverty. We will never let them win.

P. P. S. I have attached the transcript of Chairman Thomas' comments. Read them for yourself and then act to make it clear that linking Social Security benefits to someone's race or gender has no place in this debate.

MEET THE PRESS TRANSCRIPT

MR. RUSSERT: Let me show you something else you said at the National Journal Forum that raised some eyebrows: "Women are living longer relative to men today than they were in 1940. Yet, we never ever have debated gender-adjusting Social Security. ...But, at some point if the age difference continues to separate and more women are in the workforce and you have more of an equality of pay structure in the workforce, at some point somebody might want to suggest that we need to take a look at the question of whether or not actuarially we ought to adjust who gets what, when, and how."

A gender adjustment--what does that mean?

REP. THOMAS: Well, it was one of my ways of getting people to focus on the issue of age. To move from 65 to 68, which we did in 1983, was a benefit cut. But it also creates hardships based upon the occupation that you have, and it creates inequities on who you are and how long you live. You could just as easily have a discussion about occupations as to when would be a fair or an unfair time to require. We also need to examine, frankly, Tim, the question of race in terms of how many years of retirement do you get based upon your race? And you ought not to just leave gender off the table because that would be a factor.

Now, there are people who are saying, "Gee, this is great. We can get them into a box and maybe we can win some seats in the next election over this issue." This ought not to be about the next election. This is about how we have an opportunity given to us by the president, his willingness to work with us to solve some problems that are here and now, but will only get worse. If we're not in a crisis now, we're in a problem. Wait a few years. We will be in a crisis. We ought to examine all opportunities to solve the problem. Then we can dismiss them. But to not look at them denies us an opportunity to have yet another way to solve our problem.

MR. RUSSERT: So if someone is a woman and they live longer, they would get less per year?

REP. THOMAS: It's not that you would do it; it's something that you need to look at. Because if you extend the age beyond 78, if you go to 80 or 82, all of those concerns about race, occupation and gender are exacerbated. And you shouldn't just extend the age without understanding the additional complications and unfairness that you're bringing into the system. That's the point I'm trying to make. Don't look for a simple solution like shifting age without realizing you're creating additional problems for yourself down the road. Same thing with payroll tax. Same thing with individual accounts or other ways to bring additional revenue in the system. All of them should be examined. None of them should be labeled with the pejorative with an opportunity to try to gain seats in the next election. You are doing a disservice to the society if that's your intention in this debate. My goal is to get it as broad as possible, look for bipartisan support and give the president a bill on !
his desk that he can sign that addresses the real societal inequities that we have with seniors.

MR. RUSSERT: Do you think Congress, Mr. Chairman, would accept any formula that said that people would be treated differently because of their gender or their race?

REP. THOMAS: If we discuss it and the will is not to do it, fine. At least we discussed it. To simply raise the age and find out that you've got gender, race and occupational problems later, I would not be doing the kind of service that I think I have to do. You and I have been around quite a while. We went through the '80s. We went into the '90s. And now we're in the 21st century. We saw the choices that were made in the past. We went to the well over and over again with the same old solutions which really aren't solutions. We've reached the point where we have to fundamentally examine it in my opinion. The president has given us that opportunity. We ought to take it.

SIGN THE PETITION:

http://www.democrats.org/action/200501240001.html


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From Wes Clark, asking the Senate Armed Services Committe chairman to investigate prisoner abuse:

http://ga4.org/campaign/prisonerabuse/k6guxn42558tw6?

http://www.votersforpeace.us/

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/070606E.shtml

Not in Our Name: The Voters' Pledge
By Daniel Ellsberg

t r u t h o u t | Press Release
Thursday 06 July 2006



According to recent opinion polls, most Iraqis don't believe that we're making things better or safer in their country. What does that say about the legitimacy of prolonged occupation, much less permanent American bases in Iraq? What does it mean for continued American armored patrols such as the one last November in Haditha, which, we now learn, led to the deaths of a Marine and 24 unarmed civilians?

Questions very much like these nagged at my conscience at the height of the Vietnam War, and led, eventually, to the publication of the first of the Pentagon Papers in June of 1971, 35 years ago.

As a former Marine Commander and defense analyst in 1970, I had exclusive access to highly classified defense documents for research purposes. They came to be known as the Pentagon Papers and constituted a 47-volume, top-secret Defense Department history of American involvement in Vietnam titled, "U.S. Decision-making in Vietnam, 1945-68." The Pentagon Papers made it very clear that I, like the rest of the American public, had been misled about the origins and purposes of the war I had participated in - just as are the 85% of the troops in Iraq today who still believe that Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11 and that he was allied with Al Qaeda.

That period had several similarities to this one. Congress was debating the withdrawal of U.S. armed forces from Indochina while President Nixon was making secret plans to expand, rather than exit from, the ongoing war in Southeast Asia - including a major air offensive against North Vietnam, possibly using nuclear weapons. Today, the Bush administration's threats to wage war against Iran are explicit, with officials reiterating regularly that the nuclear "option" is "on the table." Americans saw the color photographs of the My Lai massacre; now we are seeing photographs eerily similar to those from Haditha: women, children, old men and babies, all shot at short range.

What was it that prompted me to begin copying 7,000 pages of highly classified documents - an act that I fully expected would send me to prison for life? I came to the conclusion that the system I had been part of, giving my unquestioning loyalty to for 15 years, as a Marine, a Pentagon official and a State Department officer in Vietnam, was a system that lies reflexively, at every level, from sergeant to commander in chief, about murder. And I had the evidence to prove it.

The papers showed very clearly how we had become engaged in a reckless war of choice in someone else's country - a country that had not attacked us - for our own domestic and external purposes. It became clear to me that the justifications that had been given for our involvement were false. And if the war itself was unjust, then all the victims of our firepower were being killed without justification.

That's murder.

Today, there must be, at the very least, hundreds of civilian and military officials in the Pentagon, CIA, State Department, National Security Agency and White House who have in their safes and computers comparable documentation of intense internal debates - so far carefully concealed from Congress and the public - about prospective or actual war crimes, reckless policies and domestic crimes: the Pentagon Papers of Iraq, Iran or the ongoing war on U.S. liberties. Some of those officials, I hope, will choose to accept the personal risks of revealing the truth - earlier than I did - before more lives are lost or a new war is launched.

Haditha holds a mirror up not just to American troops in the field, but to our whole society. Not just to the liars in government but to those who believe them too easily. And to all of us in the public, in the administration, in Congress and the media who dissent so far ineffectively or who stand by as murder is being done and do nothing to stop it or expose it.

Americans must summon the civil courage to face what is being done in their name and to refuse to be accomplices. The Voters' Pledge is one way to do this. The Voters' Pledge is a project comprising many of the major organizations in the antiwar movement, United for Peace and Justice, Peace Action, Gold Star Families for Peace, Code Pink, and Democracy Rising, as well as groups with broader agendas like the National Organization for Women, Progressive Democrats of America, AfterDowningStreet.com, and magazines including the American Conservative and The Nation. The goal of this coalition is to build a base of antiwar voters that cannot be ignored by anyone running for office in the United States. We want millions of voters to sign the pledge and say no to pro-war candidates.

--------

You can help right now by visiting http://www.votersforpeace.us/ and immediately signing the Voters' Pledge.


--------

Daniel Ellsberg is a former American military analyst who helped bring about an end to the Vietnam War when he released the Pentagon Papers, the US military's account of its scandalous activities during that war.

Here's why

http://www.peacetakescourage.com/whatwillyoudo.html

ACTFORCHANGE ACTIVISM UPDATE: July 11, 2006

You are receiving this newsletter because you have previously taken
action on ActForChange in
support of progressive values.

*** FEATURED ACTION ***

Tell The Senate: Send Stem Cell Research to the President's Desk!

http://act.actforchange.com/cgi-bin7/DM/y/...rpS0Tw60BJRs0Ez

Embryonic stem cell research holds enormous promise in the search for
cures for ailments that afflict millions of Americans such as diabetes
and Alzheimer's disease. Regrettably, a small group of religious
fundamentalists and anti-choice activists have (so far) managed to
hold this potentially life-saving scientific research hostage to their
narrow views.

But now, Majority Leader Frist has finally agreed to allow a vote on
S.471, the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act. Under a special
agreement, the bill will need 60 votes to pass -- so contact your
senators today to make sure they will support this important bill!

Tell your senators to support S.471, the Stem Cell Research
Enhancement Act. Click here:
http://act.actforchange.com/cgi-bin7/DM/y/...rpS0Tw60BJRt0E1

Passage of this bill will present President Bush with an interesting
dilemma. You'll recall that back in 2001, he straddled the fence on
this issue -- allowing federal support of research on only those stem
cell lines that had already been created. Unfortunately, scientists
have found that most of those lines are now contaminated or unusable.
If this bill passes, the President will be forced to choose -- between
scientific advances that could potentially help millions of families,
and the narrow views of some of his supporters.

It's important to note that embryonic stem cell research can, and
will, be performed using cells from the thousands of frozen
pre-embryos (blastocysts) already being routinely discarded at
fertility clinics around the nation every month. As a society, are we
not morally bound to advance science and offer hope to those suffering
from debilitating ailments that could benefit from this research?

Tell the Senate -- embryonic stem cell research is too important to be
held hostage by a small group of religious fundamentalists and
anti-choice activists. Click here:
http://act.actforchange.com/cgi-bin7/DM/y/...rpS0Tw60BJRu0E2

*** Please forward this email to anyone you know -- friends, family,
and colleagues -- who would like to see science and medical progress
triumph over the narrow views of a small but vocal conservative
minority. ***


THANK YOU, once again, for working to build a better world.

Will Easton
Manager, ActForChange.com / Working Assets

Dear Vote.com Voter,

Log on to http://www.vote.com and vote on whether you think the United States should call for an immediate cease-fire in the Middle East.

We'll send your vote to President Bush.

To access the vote, please click the link below.

http://www.vote.com/

(If the link is not active, please copy and paste it into the "Address" field of your web browser)

Please forward this vote to any friends or family who may be interested in this issue to make their vote count too!

Sincerely,

Your friends at Vote.com
http://www.vote.com

Once upon a time, not too long ago, people argued that global warming didn't exist.

But as we move into a long, hot summer, few continue to ignore evidence of global warming's devastating consequences: climbing temperatures worldwide; more violent hurricanes like Katrina and Rita; chronic wildfires and drought; and disappearing icecaps and glaciers. All the while, energy prices continue to rise, hurting American families in the pocketbook. Global warming is happening now, and it's time to act.

Today, the League of Conservation Voters is launching a campaign – The Heat is On: Demand Global Warming Leadership Now! – to make a difference about global warming. We will mobilize thousands of Americans to call on Congress, the President, and both political parties to make their plans to tackle global warming and move America to a more secure energy future a central issue in the upcoming elections in November.

Click here to sign the Global Warming Leadership Petition demanding that politicians and candidates for office make global warming and clean energy a priority in the 2006 elections.
http://action.lcv.org/campaign/gw_petition...e=adv_mojo_0706

The evidence for global warming is convincing and clear-cut. Even President Bush recently said, "I think we have a problem on global warming." But America's political leaders, including President Bush, have not taken action to address the problem. With one-third of the Senate and all House members up for reelection this November, we have a perfect opportunity to begin a national discussion and demand practical solutions, including:

New energy technologies that create jobs and build our economy
More fuel-efficient vehicles that reduce our reliance on oil
Cleaner power production that reduces greenhouse gas emissions
Caps on global warming pollution
In the next few months, candidates for Congress and many local races will be combing their districts, holding town meetings and campaign events, and talking to voters and editorial boards. Now is the time to remind America's future political leaders that they hold the key to solving our epic energy problems.

For all the dire predictions, there are also sensible solutions to global warming. America has the technological know-how to reduce our reliance on oil and other fossil fuels, reduce emissions that cause global warming, and make our economy more energy efficient. We as citizens must demand that our elected officials act now to develop policies to stop global warming before our environment is irreparably harmed.

Sign the Global Warming Leadership Petition. Tell politicians and candidates that The Heat is On! We want to hear their plans for a cleaner, cheaper, better energy future.
http://action.lcv.org/campaign/gw_petition...e=adv_mojo_0706

Today LCV begins the march to own our energy future and lead the world economy with a forward-looking strategy. We certainly hope you join us!


Sincerely,

Gene Karpinski
President
League of Conservation Voters