Past Actions Page

On going Action needed!!!

Last week, you and tens of thousands of others pledged an hour a week or more to defeat Bush. The Bush campaign just handed us an urgent task and we're asking you to spend a half an hour on it this week.

Yesterday, Bush launched the first attack ads of the general election. Both ads contain blatant and outrageous lies about the Bush and Kerry records. Bush has been on the defensive for several weeks over jobs, Iraq, corruption and questions of personal integrity. And these ads are a desperate attempt to get the upper hand by any means necessary -- even by telling lies in ads personally authorized by the president. Candidates are expected to characterize their opponents' records and proposals in the worst light possible. But outright lying is not acceptable.

Today, we're asking you to write a letter to the editor of your local paper to set the record straight.

Below, I've listed the lies from the ads. In your letters you may want to choose one or two to debunk. But it's just as important to speak against this practice of lying and misleading itself. Before you write your letter, watch the new ads at www.georgewbush.com and read our tips for writing an effective letter the editor below. Please let us know when you've sent your letter by going to:

http://www.moveon.org/pac/ltes/attackadltes.html?id=2461-3907592-gtA5RixDJkpEVepFJr2bsw

Attack Ad: "100 DAYS"

Lie #1: John Kerry will raise taxes by $900 billion in his first 100 days.

The Truth: John Kerry has promised to lower taxes on working families, not raise them. He will repeal the Bush tax cut only for families earning $200,000 or more, simply returning those families' taxes to pre-Bush rates. He will close corporate tax loop holes. And he will provide additional tax cuts to working families to help with health care costs which have increased dramatically under Bush. Click here for more.

Lie #2: John Kerry wants to weaken the Patriot Act used to arrest terrorists and protect America.

The Truth: John Kerry wants to strengthen the parts of the Patriot Act that actually fight terrorism, such as intelligence information sharing. However, he believes there may be some parts of the Act that take away our freedom without providing any protection against terrorism, and that those parts should be reviewed. We need a president who knows that standing up for freedom means standing against terrorism. Click here for more.

Attack Ad: "FORWARD"

Lie: "We can continue to go forward to work to create new jobs...and decrease the cost of health care."

The Truth: America has lost 2.4 million jobs since the Bush recession began in March 2001. [Source: Economic Policy Institute] Bush has tried the same remedy for three years: massive tax cuts for the rich, and for three years that remedy has failed. Meanwhile, health care costs have increased by an average of $793 since Bush took office -- a stunning 49 percent increase -- according to a survey of Employer Health Benefits by the Kaiser Family Foundation. [www.kff.org]

Here are a few tips on writing an effective letter:

Brevity is the soul of wit.
The key to publication is to respond to something specific you've seen in the newspaper -- such as a story Bush's new attack ads.
Be sure to include your name and address, and especially your phone number when submitting your letter. Editors need to call you to verify authorship before they can print your letter. They don't print your phone number.
Your newspaper's letters page should give you an email address or fax number to use, or you can try this website: http://congress.org/congressorg/dbq/media/

In addition to debunking the lies about, here are two talking points you can work into your letter:

Characterizing an opponent's record and ideas in the worst light possible is par for the course in politics, but blatant lies are not to be tolerated.
The press has a responsibility to hold politicians accountable when they campaign on baseless lies. If the press fails to do that, then they are just stenographers in the game of he-said-she-said. In that environment, politics is a fast race to the bottom.

Last month, President Bush's Secretary of Education, Rod Paige, called America's largest teachers' union a "terrorist organization." Why? Because the union had the gall to insist that President Bush live up to his own promises to adequately fund education. Please sign our petition demanding that President Bush fire Secretary Paige.

http://www.FirePaige.org/index.asp?ms=1

This is typical behavior for the Bush administration. It says one thing - "no child left behind" and does another - under-funding its promises to our schools by $9.4 billion in its latest budget proposal. And when people dare to disagree with its policies, it questions their patriotism or labels them terrorists.

Secretary Paige uses insult to defend the indefensible. Not only did the president break his promise to fund the reforms, his current budget calls for cuts in support for schools over the next five years. And he still wants to take billions from public schools to pay for private school vouchers. So Paige resorts to slurs: even in his supposed apology, he dismissed teachers' growing concerns as "obstructionist scare tactics."

We teach our kids that name calling is not the right way to win an argument - in fact, its usually a sign that you don't have the facts on your side. Making our schools better is a tough job. We need a Secretary of Education who sees teachers and their representatives as partners in this effort rather than as enemies. Join us in calling on President Bush to find a better person for the job.

http://www.FirePaige.org/index.asp?ms=1

We thank the Campaign for America's Future for co-sponsoring this campaign with us. Please sign on today.

Truth Connect

Join the resistance!

     I hear we are going to hit close to $3.00 a gallon by the summer. Want gasoline prices to come down? We need to take some intelligent, unitedaction. Phillip Hollsworth, offered this good idea: This makes MUCH MORE SENSE than the "don't buy gas on a certain day" campaign that was going around last April or May! The oil companies just laughed at that because they knew we wouldn't continue to "hurt" ourselves by refusing to buy gas.
    It was more of an inconvenience to us than it was a problem for them. BUT, whoever thought of this idea, has come up with a plan that can really work. Please read it and join with us!

    By now you're probably thinking gasoline priced at about $1.50 is super cheap. Me too! It is currently $1.97 for regular unleaded in my town. Now that the oil companies and the OPEC nations have conditioned us to think that the cost! of a gallon of gas is CHEAP at $1.50- $1.75, we need to take aggressive action to teach them that BUYERS control the marketplace....not sellers. With the price of gasoline going up more each day, we consumers  need to take action. The only way we are going to see the price of gas come down is if we hit someone in the pocketbook by not purchasing their gas!
And we can do that WITHOUT hurting ourselves. How? Since we all rely on our cars, we can't just stop buying gas. But we CAN have an impact on gas prices if we all act together to force a price war.

    Here's the idea: For the rest of this year, DON'T purchase ANY gasoline from the two biggest companies (which now are one), EXXON and MOBIL. If they are not selling any gas, they will be inclined to reduce their prices. If they  reduce their prices, the other companies will have to follow suit. But to  have an impact, we need to reach literally millions of Exxon and Mobil gas  buyers. It's really simple to do!! Now, don't whimp out on me at this point...keep
reading and I'll explain how simple it is to reach millions of people!!

I am sending this note to about thirty people. If each of you send it to at least ten more (30 x 10 = 300) ... and those 300 send it to at least ten  more (300 x 10 = 3,000)...and so on, by the time the message reaches the sixth generation of people, we will have reached over THREE MILLION  consumers! If those three million get excited and ! pass this on to ten  friends each, then 30 million people will have been contacted! If it goes one level further, you guessed it..... THREE HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE!!!

    Again, all You have to do is send this to 10 people. That's all. (If you  don't understand how we can reach 300 million and all you have to do is send this to 10 people... Well, let's face it, you just aren't a mathematician. But I am ... so trust me on this one.) How long would all that take? If each of us sends this e-mail out to ten more people within one day of receipt, all 300 MILLION people could conceivably be contacted within the next 8 days!!! I'll bet you didn't think you and I had that much potential, did you! Acting together we can make a difference.

    If this makes sense to you, please pass this message on. PLEASE HOLD OUT UNTIL THEY LOWER THEIR PRICES TO THE $1.30 RANGE AND KEEP THEM DOWN. THIS CAN REALLY WORK.

Kerry Lyle, Director, Research Coordinator
Interventional Cardiology Research Laboratories
Division of Cardiovascular Diseases
932 Ziegler Research Bldg
703 South 19th Street
University of Alabama @ B'ham
Birmingham, Al 35294-0007
Phone: (205) 934-6163
Fax: (205) 934-7360

Today, we're launching our major campaign to defeat George Bush. Are you in? Pledge your support:

On Thursday, President Bush will go on the air with his first campaign ads -- a $3.6 million blitz.
This is it, folks -- the fight is on. So today, we're launching the MoveOn PAC and our major campaign to beat President Bush in the fall election. We'd like to know if we can count on your help and how much time and energy you're willing to give to the cause.
You can join the campaign now at:
http://www.moveon.org/pac/pledge/?id=2417-3907592-sikaixmEBk0TqUD3eIjpuw
As a member of the campaign to take back the White House, we'll send you special emails that identify ways in which you can help swing the election -- from writing post cards to voters in swing states to distributing flyers to holding house parties for the nominee. We're asking for a committment of a certain number of hours per week on average -- if you don't have time to help out one week, you can make it up another.
We'll need MoveOn members to pledge over 1,000,000 hours between now and November 2nd to beat George Bush and take back our country. It's a big number, but if we each pledge just a few hours a week, we'll far exceed it. We've posted a running tally of the hours pledged on the page above.
President Bush has already raised hundreds of millions for his bid. Our great hope is in our collective power to get out the vote. We'll work via the Internet, the telephone, and face-to-face conversations with voters. And we'll take back our democracy, city by city, block by block, and voter by voter.
It's clear that our nation needs new leadership. We can make that a reality if we work together. Join the growing movement to beat George Bush at:
http://www.moveon.org/pac/pledge/?id=2417-3907592-sikaixmEBk0TqUD3eIjpuw

Tell the EPA to protect our children from harmful mercury pollution by clicking the button below.

Then please ask your friends to join as well.

Under energy industry pressure, President Bushs EPA plans to defer controls on mercury emissions by power plants for at least a decade. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that 4.9 million women of childbearing age in the U.S. -- that's 8 percent -- have unsafe levels of mercury in their blood. The people hit hardest will be new-born infants -- every year over 630,000 infants are born with levels of mercury in their blood so high they can cause brain damage.

We have just a few weeks to get public comments to the EPA on this plan to defer mercury controls. It's time to tell the EPA and the White House that our kids come first. You can submit your comment by clicking this link:

http://www.moveon.org/mercury/

From a public health standpoint, the EPA's new policy is a disaster. But for Bush's energy industry allies, who are responsible for most mercury pollution, it's yet another bonanza. Increased pollution levels will allow these companies to save millions, while their top managers keep writing big campaign checks to support George W. Bush -- it's a pretty sick cycle.

On January 30th, the EPA announced its intention to weaken its own earlier proposal that would have required a 90 percent reduction in mercury pollution by power plants by 2008. The new proposal doesn't force every power plant to limit mercury pollution, leaving many communities vulnerable. It would also delay implementation of even these weaker requirements until 2018, leaving a whole new generation of kids needlessly at risk.

The first responsibility of the Bush administration and the EPA is to protect our nation's most vulnerable citizens. Time and again, we've seen the Bush administration try to weaken environmental protections, starting with its proposal to roll back stricter limits on arsenic in our drinking water. We must boost the visibility of the mercury issue so that, as with arsenic, the Bush administration is shamed into adopting a more rigorous standard.

Please join our effort to protect our environment and our children from the debilitating effects of mercury poisoning. Your comments will bolster the efforts of MoveOn members and other concerned people who are showing up today at public hearings on this issue in Chicago, Philadelphia and Raleigh.

Tell the Bush administration to protect children's health by reducing power plant mercury emissions by 90 percent by 2008 and ensuring that these reductions occur at each and every power plant, by clicking here:

http://www.moveon.org/mercury/

Thanks for all your efforts.

While the Presidential race dominates headlines, Tom DeLay's underhanded plans for Texas are quietly moving forward. DeLay's goal has been clear from the start -- to eliminate key progressives, and at the same time ensure that the makeup of the U.S. Congress stays solidly Republican.

One of DeLay's prime targets is U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett. Lloyd has been one of the most progressive leaders in the House. He was a leader against the rush to war in Iraq and has consistently stood his ground against the extremist policies of the Republican leadership. Heres what Republican staffer Joby Fortson had to say in an internal memo, upon seeing what they were able to do to Doggetts district: "ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha" [1].

Congressman Doggett is fighting to stay in office. He is running in the newly-drawn 25th district and has asked for our help in his primary bid. We encourage you to support his re-election campaign by making a donation, here:

https://www.moveon.org/pac/doggett/

Congressman Doggett helped lead the effort to oppose the invasion of Iraq and aggressively lobbied his colleagues in an effort that resulted in a majority of Democratic members of Congress voting "no" on the Iraq war resolution. At a February 2003 anti-war rally in Austin, Doggett told a cheering crowd:

"Mr. President, the policies that you are pursuing in the name of our security are wrongheaded. They will make our families less secure. You jeopardize the security of our families when you insist on a land invasion and umpteen years of occupation of Iraq..."

In addition to his efforts against the Iraq war, Doggett has compiled a lifetime 94 percent voting score on important arms control issues and has been a vocal opponent of Star Wars, nuclear weapons testing, landmines and wasteful military spending. His votes consistently receive top ratings from PIRG, League of Conservation Voters, American Public Health Association, and the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare.