Category: Activism Works

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Two weeks ago, Treasury Secretary Paulson bailed out American Insurance Group (AIG) with $85 billion dollars in taxpayer money. With this money, AIG executives headed out on a taxpayer funded junket to the St. Regis resort in California. While there, they had a blast at our expense.

Join me in sending this message to Secretary Paulson:

“The Director who authorized this junket should be fired and every penny spent on this lavish retreat must be returned to the Treasury.”

Darcy from TrueMajority wrote this:

“Our government needs to be involved in restoring the economy. We need an economic recovery package for Main Street instead of more giveaways to Secretary Paulson’s buddies on Wall Street.

These bailouts are the last money grab by the Bush Administration on their way out of office. It’s on us to provide oversight and make sure taxpayer money isn’t wasted.”

You can send this message yourself, or go to Take Action: TrueMajority.org.

Dear Friend,

I’m outraged by St. Paul law enforcement’s overly aggressive and violent tactics to stifle independent journalism.

Yesterday, police in St. Paul arrested several journalists, including Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman and an AP photographer as they were covering protests of the Republican National Convention. Get involved in this campaign by demanding that press intimidation cease immediately, and that all charges be dropped.

Take action at: https://secure.freepress.net/site/Advocacy?id=281

Also, this aggressive suppression of free speech is not isolated to journalists, but also to the rank and file of our citizenry. This interference with free speech should stop, and it takes voices to make it clear that not only is suppression of free speech illegal and unethical but also untenable.

Another savings & loan bailout? Another chrysler bailout? Why is our society being asked to subside predatory business practices and rampant speculation … again? Boom & bust economic cycles shouldn’t be encouraged by rewarding those that participate in the willfully risky behaviour that makes them happen. There’s a time for real and important economic assistance to people, and there’s times when it’s merely a way to reinforce inequity and merely a subsidy to industry masked as if it were assistance to individuals.

How about this: instead of bailing out another industry, let’s re-visit the bankruptcy laws and make personal bankruptcy a viable and functional option for people in need of protection, instead of making the process another captured regulation?

Via the ACLU and Crooks & Liars:

“Friday night, in a national television interview on ABC News, President Bush directly admitted what we have suspected all along: The White House was deeply and intimately involved in decisions about the CIA’s use of torture.”

“The decision in Ledbetter v. Goodyear involved the interpretation of a federal statute—not the Constitution. That’s why Congress has the authority, and the responsibility, to correct the Court’s error and strengthen Americans’ ability to recover wages that they have been unfairly denied. Will you join the petition calling on congressional leaders to support legislation to correct Ledbetter v. Goodyear?”

“Congress could vote in the next few weeks on a bill that would double our greenhouse gas emissions from planes and cars. It sounds crazy, but this is exactly what will happen if a current plan to use “liquid coal” passes. Coal is the dirtiest of fossil fuels and we have a serious global warming problem.”

“President Bush has nominated Leslie Southwick of Mississippi to join the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals — just one level below the Supreme Court in our judicial system. Unfortunately Southwick has exhibited such a long-term pattern of open hostility to workers, African Americans, and gays and lesbians that there is simply no way he should receive Senate confirmation.” [via, also]