Health care...jobs...the economy. These are the issues that you and other Working America members have told us you care most about. We're always looking for ways to take action with you on those issues, and one of the most important elements of taking action is having information you can trust, information from someone who's on your side. You can't know how to change things without knowing what's going on.

That's why we'd like to introduce you to our new Main Street blog. It's a source of information on the issues you care about-not just health care and jobs but education, the mortgage crisis and retirement too-and coming from Working America, you know that that the focus will always be on what will benefit working families. We won't waste time crying that a Wall Street millionaire might have to sell his third vacation home.

Instead, we'll put the challenges working families face into the context of the broader economy. The Main Street blog is where working people come to learn and talk about "the economy," which isn't distant or abstract, but something we all deal with every single day, at work or in the search for work, in the aisles of the grocery store, and at the kitchen table.

I'm not one to think we should impeach people lightly, or for political reasons, but this is clearly an instance where it is necessary. He has really messed up, and clearly broken the law.

Sign the petition to impeach Gonzales.

MoveOn.org had a Virtual Town Hall with the '08 Presidential hopefuls. I wasn't able to participate but all the "videos" and a summary is available on Campaign for America's Future's blog, Common Sense.

I'll be listening to the audio at work today!

I'm about week late on this one. Still worth posting because, its extremely telling, and there is a good chance you didn't know it happened.

The 100 Hours agenda is now in the hands of the Senate.

Madame Speaker Pelosi and the house democrats stood together passing clean, strong and progressive bills. Accomplishing this in the Senate is where the campaign faces its toughest challenge.

Already we've seen the right-wing conservatives demanding us to "Stay the Course"... or worse.

Bob Geiger and the AFL-CIO Blog broke this important story.

Two weeks ago 28 ultra-conservative Senators attempted to completely eliminate the minimum wage.

Brazenly ignoring the clear demands of the voters, they didn't just try to stop the much needed minimum wage increase, they wanted to destroy the federal minimum wage all together.

It is time working America gets their long over due raise. No, it's past time and we need to make that clear.

As Senator Jim Webb so eloquently stated in his rebuttal to President Bush's State of the Union....

Tonight we are calling on this President to take similar action.... If he does, we will join him. If he does not, we will be showing him the way.

So the same goes for Senator Republicans. Follow the will of the people, or we will be showing you the way.

Great new video from CAF

I know my blogging has been too light these weeks. I have at least two posts in my head and will try to get them out later tonight!

The Campain for America's Future recently hosted an event with Professor Jacob S. Hacker touting his new book The Great Risk Shift.

Hacker's new book, The Great Risk Shift, describes the "assault on American jobs, families, health care and retirement" by corporations eager to off-load costly responsibilities. Beyond analysis, Hacker describes new progressive policies to reverse the great risk shift and forge a new social contract for economic security and opportunity.

Short and great to get the gist of it

For those why are really interested (and you should be) here is the full video of the event.

New Ads from the Center for American Progress

I wonder if these are getting TV play too. It's only 25 secs so I doubt it.

The co-director of the Campaign for America's Future has a new post up on DailyKos.

When the first woman Speaker of the House, Democrat Nancy Pelosi, takes office, it will mark a new day for Congress. Pelosi will drive new rules through the House to help curb the corruptions of the DeLay Congress. She has Democrats prepared to pass her "100 hour program," anchored in bread and butter, common sense issues - raise the minimum wage, halve interest rates on student loans, negotiate lower drug prices, revoke subsides to big oil and invest in renewable energy. A broad range of progressive groups will mobilize across the country to insure this agenda passes to the Senate with public support at its back. This will mark a sea change from the corrupt, corporate lobby-driven agenda of the DeLay congress.

Read the rest here

I haven't posted any "post election" stuff. I spent the night in Rochester watching the election results come in. It was big night of democratic wins for the Rochester area.

For national stuff Bob Borosage of the Campaign for America's Future and Stan Greenberg of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research have a video discussing a poll showing the progressive wins in this election.

The poll, ad examples and the full video from the event at here

From CAF:

If you like what you see, register to come and be a part of Take Back America 2006 yourself.
This year's conference kicks off one week from next Monday (June 12^th - 14^th, 2006). GO »

I'll be there will you?

From CAF:

If you had 30 seconds (roughly 100 words) to answer the question, "What is a progressive?", what would you say? Share your answer with us, and you could win a trip for two to Washington DC, for Take Back America 2006 (June 12-14th), the year's largest gathering of progressives. GO »

Yesterday there was an interesting debate put on by the Campaign for America's Future. The discussion was between two leading Democratic thinkers and authors, Gene Sperling and Jeff Faux. The debate was entitled: Defining a Progressive Economic Strategy for America's Future. Gene Sperling was Clinton’s national economic adviser and Jeff Faux was the founder of the Economic Policy Institute.

I was there and found the debate interesting but a bit over my head. I'll let you make your own decisions about their arguments.

Transcript of the debate (PDF)

There is a new twist in Campaign for America's Future’s Wal-Mart slogan campaign. Clear Channel, the owner of the billboard on which the winning Wal-Mart slogan was to go, has rejected the billboard content. The CAF email is below and it explains what happened.

The winning billboard slogan is Wal-Mart: Killing Local Businesses One Main Street at a Time. Rejecting the ideal of free market capitalism, as well as freedom of speech, Clear Channel decided to side with the interests of cronyism and partisanship once again to deny the Campaign for America's Future’s billboard.

Clear Channel doesn’t get much text on the blogosphere and I think that should change. Clear Channel, as you may know, makes no efforts to hide its political and corporate bias. The example are numerous (link , link , link , link) Its also has close ties to the republican party including holding "patriotic rallies" which in fact were little more then pro-bush rallies. source In the 2004 election Clear Channel gave “$42,200 to Bush, vs. $1,750 to likely Democratic nominee John Kerry”. Worse yet is that Clear Channel’s “executives and Clear Channel's political action committee gave 77% of their $334,501 in federal contributions to Republicans. That's a bigger share than any other entertainment company….” source . Would it also surprise you that on 12.06.2004 the AP press reported that Clear Channel starting using Fox News Radio as its “primary source of national news”?

People for the American Way have an important campaign to stop the PATRIOT act from being reauthorized.

House and Senate leaders are very close to reauthorizing the PATRIOT act allowing this civil rights catastrophe to continue. PFAW have organized a petition to pressure our senators to filibuster the signing of this act.

Sign the petition here

From the PFAW email:

If passed:

• the Justice Department will retain the authority to investigate American citizens without judicial oversight, a power that is invoked more than 30,000 times each year.
• the government will still be able to search individuals' private property without notifying them.
• authorities will still be able to search citizens' library records, medical records, school records, and financial records virtually unchecked by the judiciary.
  The Senate has an opportunity to take a stand for one of Americans' most cherished traditions --the right to be free from government intrusion.

The finalists have been named! As I first blogged, Campaign for America's Future is having a contest to find the best Wal-Mart slogan to put on a billboard very near Wal-Mart corporate office in Bentonville AR. The finalists have now been named and now we get to vote on our favorite of these ten finalist to decide which one goes on the billboard. Vote here!

The ten finalists are:

• Wal-Mart: A Living Wage is Worth the Price. Always!
• Made in America by Wal-Mart (They say “The final design for this billboard would show deserted, boarded-up American downtown overlaid by the slogan: "Made in America by Wal-Mart" “)
• Wal-Mart: Profits for China, Foodstamps for Americans!
• Wal-Mart: Prices so Low, They Hurt – Everyone!
• Wal-Mart: Could YOU live on $8.23 an hour?
• Wal-Mart: Where Low Prices Cost Taxpayers Billions!
• Wal-Mart: Our Employees Pay MORE So You Don’t Have To!
• Wal-Mart: Made in China for $0.18 an Hour
• Wal-Mart: Killing Local Businesses One Main Street at a Time!
• Wal-Mart: I’m smiling because I am a government-sanctioned monopoly

I’m a little sad my suggestion didn’t get picked “Wal-Mart: King of the “We’d like to pay you less but legally we can’t” wage” but it is a bit long.
Vote here!

The efforts to cause change at Wal-Mart have just stepped up a notch.Campaign for America's Future is having a contest where you get to submit a slogan to be placed on a billboard near Wal-Mart’s headquarters. This is part of the ongoing efforts of many organizations to fix Wal-Mart. The DC premier of WAL-MART: The High Cost of Low Price was last night (I didn’t get to go). It seems like it went very well, no confrontation with Wal-Mart execs trying to video tape the movie but…. Also there are many house parties to screen the movie coming up. There is also list of screenings if you want to find one in your area.

From the site:

Take Action to Fix Wal-Mart

Below are five ways to help confront the hidden high costs of Wal-Mart's deceptive "low-price" image, and stand up for America's workers, family businesses and communities.

WAL MART SLOGAN CONTEST

Send a message to Wal-Mart's executives and shareholders through our Wal-Mart slogan contest! Submit the winning slogan, and we'll publish it in two key spots:
A prominent billboard located one mile from Wal-Mart's Bentonville, Arkansas headquarters, and A highly-trafficked website in time for the holiday shopping season.

Please submit your slogan today, and help expose the truth about Wal-Mart!

Contest Rules & Guidelines

Your slogan should expose something true about Wal-Mart in a creative way. Remember, this is meant to be thought-provoking not obscene or slanderous! (ex. "Wal-Mart: Poverty Wages for Workers. Always!")

The shorter the better. Remember, this needs to fit on a billboard!

You can submit as many slogans as you like before 11:59pm EST, on Friday November 25th — "Black Friday," the largest shopping day of the year.

Old Comments:

BLOGBANK said...

Seriously folks, since we are a capitalistic society, and Wal-Mart manages their organization better by introducing extreme competition, than your goal should be to figure out a better way to grapple with an efficient company instead of complaining about them or using strong arm tactics to have them change their business model. Besides, the more people jammed into Wal-Mart parking lots the fewer I have to deal with on the road. Altering capitalism hurts everyone.

Campaign for America's Future is doing another cool campaign. Now they are doing a petition drive to try and force those who took money from ARMPAC to give the money to help Katrina survivors. It’s a great idea. It is another way to let our representatives take a side, to prove if they stand with the people, or they stand with Delay and his web of corruption.

Two links for this campaign.

One to sign the petition: link

…and two to see who took money from ARMPAC and who has given it to help Katrina survivors: link

I highly recommend signing the petition if you want to help erode support for Delay

ARMPAC for those who don't know is the PAC that Delay set up and it the focus and source of Delays money laundering indictments. Also here is some more info on ARMPAC from Wikipedia.

I blogged about this a couple days ago (link) so I thought I'd give an update.

The Campaign for America's Future, along with Voices for Working Families, ACORN, AFSCME, and SEIU, succeeded in their campaign to bring Katrina survivors to DC to speak to the press and our elected officials regarding the failures of the response and rebuilding efforts in the affected regions. 12 individuals from the effected region, many more then the 5 who were hoped for, spoke to the press and our countries leaders on Tuesday, October 25 2005.

I won't try to summarize the events, as other have already done so. The Campaign for America's Future has a great page summarizing the events here . They also have links at articles written about the event, participant bios, and videos from the events.

There is a new movie coming out by Robert Greenwald, the director of Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism, entitled Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price. From the website:<

WAL-MART: The High Cost of Low Price takes you behind the glitz and into the real lives of workers and their families, business owners and their communities, in an extraordinary journey that will challenge the way you think, feel... and shop.

The website where you can order the DVD or even host (or find a local) screening is http://www.walmartmovie.com/index.php. Or if you live in the DC area there is a premiere you can attend and tickets for the premiere can be found though the Campaign for America's future at http://ga3.org/caf/events/walmart/details.tcl.

I can't afford to buy a ticket to this premiere so I can't go, but if you want to buy me a ticket let me know!

Eleven years ago today, Congressional Republicans gathered on the steps of the U.S. Capitol and signed the "Contract with America." They pledged to "restore accountability to Congress" and "to end its cycle of scandal and disgrace...."

I have to admit I was only 12 when the "Contract with America" was signed (and I wasn't following politics much, unless you count my SNL "Bob Dole in is '96" tee-shirt) but it had to have been as hard not to laugh at the idea as it is now.

I mean its true that the Republican's are a lots of things: they are the party of inclusion, compassionate conservatives, the representatives of wholesome American values, the party endorsed by every member of the Holy Trinity, and last but not least the only true Patriots in this hell bound country... but accountable? Accountable to whom? I mean that part has to be a joke right? On how many number of issues do the republicans take the extreme minority opinion, the opinion which is not accountable to the American people? Woman's reproductive rights, euthanasia, assault weapons, the war in Iraq....

And the "end its cycle of scandal and disgrace...." part?

The Campaign for America's Future has two great campaigns relating to this issue. First they are the group that alerted me to the whole anniversary with their The Broken Contract with America Campaign. They also have some great rap sheets for our more "accountable" and scandal-less congress people here

Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a lot of other groups focusing on this issue. If any of you find other links on this issue add them as a comment!