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March 26
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| Dear friends,
One of the harshest environments in the world is that of the Arctic Ocean. Yet, remarkably, these waters are rich in wildlife - marine and land based. Pacific walrus, polar bears and bowhead whales swim and hunt in these waters, a region particularly hard-hit by climate change.
Incredibly, their plight may get worse, as the Minerals Management Service (MMS) considers offering 73 million acres of Arctic waters to oil and gas leasing. That's an area the size of Arizona.
It's critically important that you speak out in defense of these creatures.
The receding ice cap has made it harder for the animals - marine and land-based - to get around and find food, including the polar bears that hunt and mate here each year, and the Pacific walruses that live here year round. In fact, 90 percent of the entire Pacific walrus population can be found in these waters.
But not just wildlife is at stake. Wholesale leasing in this area would endanger the centuries-old way of life of Native communities, whose very culture centers on wildlife and ecosystem integrity.
Please click here to tell the MMS to halt new leases in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas.
There is simply no safe way to drill in these waters. Studies have shown that even seismic testing of potential drilling sites is known to have an impact on marine animals' habits and lifecycles. And research conducted by the MMS indicates that with extensive drilling, small crude oil and other petroleum spills are inevitable. MMS predicts a 40% chance of a large spill. Making matters worse, the technology to clean up a spill in icy Arctic waters doesn't even exist.
We need science to guide decisions with such long-lasting effects, not pressure from the oil and gas industry. Until there is scientific evidence that drilling won't harm wildlife, all new oil leases should be taken off the table.
Write the MMS today to ask that they halt all new leases until the science on drilling is in.
Thanks for all you do,
Ron G. | Dear friends,
Within days, world leaders are meeting at the London G20 Summit to tackle the global economic crisis -- we desperately need them to agree to invest in a green recovery and a bold global rescue package of stimulus, regulation and fundamental reform.
But without a massive outcry for bold action in the next few days, our leaders could fail this historic test. So we’re launching an emergency petition to the London Summit -- it will be delivered direct to summit officials and leaders and in a thousands-strong march this weekend, follow this link to add your voice:http://www.avaaz.org/en/global_economic_rescueA global depression could threaten everything we care about - breeding poverty, war, environmental devastation and threatening our jobs and our children's futures. But there is a way to stop it -- a powerful, coordinated rescue package where governments governments agree to invest in a green recovery together, make funds available to prevent vulnerable emerging economies from collapsing, properly regulate global financial markets and democratise institutions like the International Monetary Fund.
Leaders are far from consensus on this kind of bold global action - that’s why we’re pressing them with this citizens’ call and taking to the streets. The world's media will be in London to cover the summit, and with thousands of Avaaz members in green hard hats and carrying flags and banners on our behalf, the march will get big coverage and grab leaders’ attention.
Everyone who participates will also have a chance to vote on the principles and reforms needed to rebuild the global economy -- and all our demands will be delivered to the G20 summit, so please sign the petition now:http://www.avaaz.org/en/global_economic_rescueIn 1933, world leaders met in London -- and failed to stop a global depression that lasted a decade. In 2009, the people of the world must be right there challenging our leaders, demanding that they get it right.
With hope and determination,
Ron G. March 25 Dear friends,
The banks have their hand in our pockets again. Higher interest, fees and payments on our credit cards will eat up any extra cash we get from the Recovery Act tax cuts.
Urge President Obama to stop credit card gouging immediately.
Bob Fertik
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Got your stimulus money yet? The banks already have their hands out.
Thanks to President Obama's stimulus package, most Americans will see their paychecks increase by April 1. We're supposed to spend that extra money, so we can get our economy back on track.
But if you're like many, your credit card company just jacked up your interest rate, or slapped new fees on your card, even though you make your payments on time. So much for that stimulus!
Ask President Obama to make credit card reform an immediate economic priority!
The banks and credit card issuers are standing in the way of our economic recovery. They take billions in taxpayer bailouts, then turn around and slam us with higher interest rates, lower credit limits, and exorbitant fees, finding new income at our expense.
Some Chase customers were hit with an interest rate hike or a $120 annual fee and a doubled minimum payment. Capital One hiked rates an average of 5%, and many customers will see an even bigger jump. Citibank, one of the biggest bailout beneficiaries, jacked up rates, too. This means we can't spend that stimulus money because we have to give it to the bank.
Rules that would stop these interest rate hikes on your card balances, and crack down on outlandish fees, were approved in December, but won't go into effect until July 2010. Bills are pending in both the House and Senate to protect us sooner, but they're not moving. Tell the President to make those bills an administration priority right now -- it's an economic rescue that won't cost taxpayers a cent.
Tell the President we need these reforms now, so we can spend our stimulus on rebuilding the economy! |
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| Dear friends,
Let's find out the truth! Sign the petition for an independent investigation into Bush’s War on Terror.
| This week, the US Senate is taking its tentative first steps towards establishing an independent commission into Bush’s War on Terror -- an open investigation into torture, detention, wiretapping and illegal transfers to secret prisons across the globe. This is a major development, but as expected there are very nervous and powerful interests who want to bury it.
A Commission of Inquiry is essential to unravel the full extent of eight years of cover-ups, to hold those responsible to account and to prevent such injustice from happening again. It would send a powerful message that the US wants to repair the damage done to human rights by the Bush years, while strengthening the fight against terrorism.
But without a massive global and US show of support, champion US Senators may not rally the numbers needed to have this commission established. Sign the petition -- which will be presented to the Senate Judiciary Committee before they make their decision this week -- and help get an inquiry with real teeth over the line:
http://www.avaaz.org/en/end_the_war_on_terror
After 8 damaging years, this campaign for justice has a lot to unearth. The hearing this week will begin a process throughout 2009, and as this petition grows, our voices will be submitted to decision makers at every opportunity. But it all starts with a thorough and unflinching Commission of Inquiry - not just to end impunity, but to make sure that the abductions, deaths and disappearances of Guantanamo are never repeated.
Worryingly, the so-called War on Terror is not yet over. Last week the Obama’s Department of Justice argued, as they had under Bush, that detainees at the US facility in Bagram, Afghanistan have no legal right to challenge their detention. Conversely, in a major turnaround it was separately announced that the only remaining ‘enemy combatant’ on US soil is finally to be tried by a US civilian court.
These conflicting decisions reveal an Administration still making up its mind. Now is the time to draw a line in the sand with a bi-partisan Commission that puts the past behind us and empowers an Administration committed to human rights, definitively rejecting torture, refusing to arbitrarily detain and championing the rule of law in its fight against terrorism and in all its global dealings.
http://www.avaaz.org/en/end_the_war_on_terror
As long as the wrongdoing of the Bush years is kept secret and those practices unaccounted for or allowed to continue, mistrust and violence between nations will flourish. Let's plant a seed of hope, understanding a shared commitment by reading this dark page in history before we turn it.
With hope,
Brett, Alice, Pascal, Ricken, Paula, Ben, Graziela, Luis, Paul, Iain, Milena, Veronique - and the entire Avaaz team
More information on the Commission of Inquiry:
http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-02-25-voa58.cfm
What Amnesty says about a Commission: Investigation, prosecution, remedy
http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/AMR51/151/2008/en
Some options for the Administration
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/22/weekinreview/22shane.html
More about the Senate Judiciary Committee
http://judiciary.senate.gov/ | March 14 A couple of weeks ago all of the monolith of right wing radio was
literally hysterical about the possibility that the Fairness Doctrine
might be brought back. And then all of a sudden on Feb 26, 2009, with
no other warning, a nauseatingly named and so-called "Broadcaster
Freedom Act" was passed as an amendment to the DC voting rights bill
in the Senate. It happened so fast that none of the congressional
bill tracking sites have an update on this yet.
We're of the opinion that the handful of hostile corporations who
have such a death grip on our political speech right now don't need
any more "freedom" to suppress even paid commercials they don't agree
with, and to coordinate secret advertiser boycotts of the few
progressive outlets in the so-called "free" market. The only point of
Broadcaster Dictatorship provision is to make the current extreme
wingnut bias of our media permanent, and to hold the DC voting rights
provision for ransom to do it.
Probably never before has such a hideously misleading provision been
snuck into a totally unrelated bill on such flimsy pretext. And had
the ideological greedheads behind it not also pushed for adding the
additional groaning baggage of an enshrinement of wild west gun
ownership rights into the same bill, it might have already been
passed into law. Please contact your members of Congress with the
action page above and tell them to make sure the Broadcaster Freedom
to Monopolize Our Airwaves Act does not make it into law.
The reason why the right wing is so petrified about the return of
real fairness to our media is that it is only by perpetuating
monopoly over the major news sources that they can effectively
exclude alternative viewpoints from public debate. For example, the
widely supported (by the public) proposals for transforming our
national health care into a vastly more efficient single payer system
are not even allowed to be discussed on most outlets. It is their
last ditch attempt to stop the march of people's democracy.
Curiously, many of our progressive radio talkers seem to bend over
backwards to put an inordinate number of abusive right wing jerks on
the air, perhaps to demonstrate that eventually they can lose
arguments to loudmouths who just keep repeating the same discredited
talking points over and over, kind of a self imposed quasi Fairness
Doctrine. Or perhaps they themselves are compelled to do so by their
own corporate overlords.
But just as nobody in the right wing would ever put on anyone who was
an effective advocate to the left of them, save for an occasional
token punching bag, you can be sure NONE of the so-called liberals on
the air right now would ever put on anyone who challenged them for
taking too many right wing positions themselves. Even now, when truly
progressive candidates run for office they are literally blacked out
of coverage even on so-called progressive channels.
Only by in fact bringing back the Fairness Doctrine can we cure the
current de facto and oppressive censorship of truly progressive
views.
Action Page: http://www.peaceteam.net/action/pnum943.php March 13
Salmonella cases: Half still come from crackers
Recalled foods continue to sicken consumers, worried health officials say
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Recall warnings have been issued for more than 3,400 peanut products, including Austin Quality Foods peanut butter crackers, but health officials are concerned the message hasn't reached some consumers. The foods have been linked to an ongoing outbreak of salmonella poisoning.
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msnbc.com
Bill Rector of Blaine, Wash., didn’t know about a nationwide recall of peanut butter products until he and his 3-year-old daughter already had been hospitalized with salmonella poisoning.
“That's the first we heard of it,” he said.
But that was back in January, when the 32-year-old meat cutter said he and his toddler were sickened by Austin Quality Foods crackers linked to a still-widening food poisoning outbreak. Since then, word has spread, he said.
Or so you’d think.
Nearly two months after the initial recalls, and despite massive publicity about the salmonella scare linked to faulty practices at a Georgia peanut processing plant, federal health officials are worried that some consumers still haven’t gotten the message.
Half of new cases tied to crackers
About half of the new cases of confirmed salmonella infection continue to show up in people who ate Austin or Keebler peanut butter crackers manufactured by the Kellogg Co., according to officials from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
That includes illnesses that began as recently as Feb. 13, long after retailers and health officials thought they’d issued adequate warnings.
GO HERE FOR MORE: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29619415/ |
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Dear friends,
Where are the voices in Congress questioning a military approach in Afghanistan?
A group of Afghan parliamentarians have formed a working group to block the military escalation President Obama approved for Afghanistan [1]. After seeing their people lose their lives, homes, loved ones, and livelihoods, they are demanding an end to violence. Who is speaking for them in the US Congress?
Congress needs to exercise real oversight over US strategy in Afghanistan. Let congressional leaders know you are watching US strategy in Afghanistan, and they should be too.
The voices of people in the US and Afghanistan who oppose a military approach are being marginalized in the public debate. For more than seven years, the military approach has failed to bring stability to Afghanistan or defeat terrorism. Al Qaeda was involved in more terrorist attacks in the six years following the invasion of Afghanistan than it had been in the six years before, even if we don't count attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan. [2]
The cost of the military approach to Afghans has been unimaginable. The American public does not see the faces of fathers who lose their sons, of wives who can't feed their families after the death of their husbands, of children without homes. It is up to those of us who understand the tragedy of this mistake to bear witness and hold our government accountable.
That is why Peace Action West is partnering with Brave New Foundation in calling for committee chairs Sen. John Kerry and Rep. Howard Berman to hold intensive congressional oversight hearings, with a full exploration of non-military solutions that are more likely to make Americans and Afghans safer.
Become an Afghanistan Witness and tell Congress you will not allow them to ignore the truth about Afghanistan. Join the call for real oversight and accountability. | March 05
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Dear friends,
We have just emerged from a time when White House officials often acted as if they were above the law. That was wrong and must be fully exposed so it never happens again.
That is why I proposed the idea of a truth and reconciliation commission to investigate abuses during the Bush-Cheney Administration. These abuses may include the use of torture, extraordinary rendition, and executive override of laws.
During the past several years, this country has been divided as deeply as it has been at any time in our history since the Civil War. It has made our government less productive and our society less civil. As we commemorate the Lincoln bicentennial, there is need, again, "to bind up the nation's wounds." President Lincoln urged that course in his second inaugural address some seven score and four years ago.
Rather than vengeance, we need a fair-minded pursuit of what actually happened. The best way to move forward is ge tting to the truth, finding out what happened, so we can make sure it does not happen again.
Please sign my online petition at BushTruthCommission.com -- and urge Congress to consider establishing a truth and reconciliation commission to investigate the Bush-Cheney Administration's abuses. The Obama Administration has already made huge strides to restore the Constitution and renew our commitment to international law after eight corrosive years. But we must read the full page on this dark chapter in American history before we can turn it for good, which is why I feel so strongly about investigating what really happened.
I hope you agree.
Please sign my online petition at BushTruthCommission.c om -- and urge Congress to consider forming a truth and reconciliation commission to investigate the Bush-Cheney Administration's abuses.
Last month, I delivered a speech at Georgetown University where I outlined my ideas about why we need a truth and reconciliation commission and how it could work. You can click here to watch some of my remarks.
Our petition at BushTruthCommission.com has already started building grassroots support for the idea of a truth and reconciliation commission, leading the press, outside groups, my Congressional colleagues, and the White House to start giving it serious attention as well.
But I need your help to show that the American people are committed to uncovering the truth about the misdeeds of the last administration -- so that we can ensure the same mistakes are not repeated.
Please sign my online petition at BushTruthCommission.com -- and urge Congress to consider establishing a truth and reconciliation commission to investigate the Bush-Cheney Administration's abuses.
Thank you for taking action to prevent history from repeating itself by supporting the creation of a truth and reconciliation commission to investigate the misdeeds of the past eight years.
Sincerely,
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