- FW: Sign Our Petition: Civil rights violations cannot be ignored
- FW: The largest show of support for gun reform in history
- FW: Sign the petition: Guns don’t belong in schools
- FW: Petition-No Armed Federal Agents at Polling Places
- FW: SIGN ON: Robert Mueller
- FW: How the U.S. can pursue peace with North Korea
- FW: Sherrod Brown’s courageous vote on Yemen
- FW: fascinating video on cambridge analytica and the manipulation of national elections worldwide
- FW: Socioeconomics; Law & Disorder; Devos’ Head in the Sand; Defending Trump; Cambridge Analytica; War on US Intel Community
- FW: 15 Senate Dems voted with Republicans on [against] Dodd Frank
- FW: Voices, The Peoples News: THINK THIS LADY IS PISSED?
From: Eric H. Holder, Jr. via Daily Kos
Subject: Sign Our Petition: Civil rights violations cannot be ignored
The fight for justice and equality has been the cornerstone of my career. It’s why I became a lawyer — and why, after I left public service, I worked with the support of President Obama to launch the National Democratic Redistricting Committee.
One of the most shameful aspects of gerrymandering is that it disproportionately hurts the voting power of communities of color. Like voter ID laws, and poll taxes before them, in many states rigged maps were clearly put in place to dilute the political power of people of color.
Our struggle, then, is a civil rights struggle. If the NDRC is successful in undoing rigged maps, we’ll be able to achieve a system in which everyone’s vote counts.
A large component of our 2018 plans involves engaging with communities of color to ensure they are motivated and active during this election year. Some of the most gerrymandered states — like Texas, North Carolina, and Virginia — have a history of drawing maps that violate the Voting Rights Act and the Constitution. President Obama and I have plans to campaign with and to engage those communities who have been silenced in the past and help them claim their rightful seat at the table in the next round of redistricting.
To achieve a fair and inclusive democracy, a democracy consistent with our founding documents, we need to fix gerrymandering. It’s as simple as that. At the NDRC, we have a comprehensive strategy for the next four years, but we need you to join our fight. Will you add your name to fight for progress on one of the biggest civil rights battles of our time?
Paid for by the National Democratic Redistricting Committee.
From: Michael, Schuyler, Kenia, Jackie, and the rest of the team, MoveOn.org Political Action
Subject: The largest show of support for gun reform in history
Only days after the massacre at their school, the students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School decided what they were going to do next: march for their lives.
As march organizer and Marjory Stoneman Douglas student David Hogg said, “We’re trying to make sure that these politicians know that their actions can and will have consequences if they don’t listen to their constituents and their future constituents—which are us—because right now they’re not doing a good job of keeping us alive.”1
In just a few weeks, their idea turned into a nationwide movement. And today, hundreds of thousands of people joined them in more than 800 March for Our Lives marches in all fifty states and around the world—as far away as Ghana, Vietnam, and Australia.2,3
The images from today’s marches are astounding, and this movement represents the single largest show of support for gun law reform in history. But these students aren’t stopping now; they know that if this historic outpouring doesn’t change our laws, elections can.
These activists are gearing up to register millions of young voters and to make sure that young people march to the polls in November. Will you help MoveOn stand with them?
Click below and help MoveOn invest in a major effort to register young voters across the country before the midterms, so that they will have a voice to fight the NRA and GOP politicians that are in the NRA’s pocket. Donate
As Jaclyn Corin, a student activist from Marjory Stoneman Douglas said, “We want everyone to know that their voice and their checkmark on a box matters. We don’t want people to continue thinking that they’re just one person, they’re not going to make a difference in the election, [so they’re] not going to go vote.”4
If we can support a massive millennial registration effort, we will fundamentally change not only the conversation about gun legislation, but the entire electorate of the United States. We will take back the House, make gains in the Senate, and set the stage to throw Donald Trump out of the White House.
The bottom line? This is a crucial and heroic effort for America’s political future. And if these young activists have shown us anything today and over the past month, it’s that they can succeed—but they can only do it if allies from around the country pitch in.
Can you chip in right now to help us support these amazing student leaders by dramatically increasing young voter turnout in 2018? Donate
Back in 2008, MoveOn members funded a massive young voter registration effort, which led to thousands of canvassers reaching out to young voters in 14 crucial battleground states, ultimately registering hundreds of thousands of new voters.
MoveOn already has the systems in place to do that again—and more. We’re investing in new technology, like our groundbreaking texting program and video persuasion tools, training our massive volunteer base, and strengthening strategic partnerships with other grassroots organizations. Together with these young activists, we will register a wave of new voters who will challenge the NRA, its GOP enablers—and hold them accountable at the ballot box, and change the balance of power in America’s electorate.
David Hogg said it best: “We’re going to change history with or without [these politicians], and if they choose to be on the wrong side of history that’s fine, because we’re going to write the history books.”5
Let’s start writing the history books now. Click below to chip in. Donate
Sources:
- “Parkland Students David Hogg and Jaclyn Corin Interview | Pod Save America,” Crooked Media YouTube channel, March 21, 2018
https://act.moveon.org/go/36894?t=6&akid=202166%2E1195276%2EW3sqS_?v=IPKDb0qU0xA&t=11s - “March for Our Lives Updates: Chants of ‘Enough is Enough’ at Huge Rallies on Guns,” The New York Times, March 24, 2018
https://act.moveon.org/go/36901?t=8&akid=202166%2E1195276%2EW3sqS_ - “March for Our Lives – Find an Event,” March for Our Lives, accessed March 23, 2018
https://act.moveon.org/go/34702?t=10&akid=202166%2E1195276%2EW3sqS_ - “Parkland Students David Hogg and Jaclyn Corin Interview | Pod Save America,” Crooked Media YouTube channel, March 21, 2018
https://act.moveon.org/go/36894?t=13&akid=202166%2E1195276%2EW3sqS_?v=IPKDb0qU0xA&t=11s - Ibid
Want to support our work? The MoveOn community will work every moment, day by day and year by year, to resist Trump’s agenda, contain the damage, defeat hate with love, and begin the process of swinging the nation’s pendulum back toward sanity, decency, and the kind of future that we must never give up on. And to do it we need your support, now more than ever. Will you stand with us? Donate
PAID FOR BY MOVEON.ORG POLITICAL ACTION, http://pol.moveon.org/. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.
From: Scott, and the rest of the Color Of Change team
Subject: Sign the petition: Guns don’t belong in schools
Today, thousands of young people are taking to the streets in a March for Our Lives because they have had enough. Yet, Trump and the NRA’s answer to their demands for safety is to put more guns and police in schools.
Following the announcement of Trump’s plan to arm teachers and school staff, bills have been popping up in state legislatures across the country. And in Florida, this dangerous plan has become law with SB7026, which allows for teachers and school staff to be armed as well as increase funding for police in schools. We need to act fast to demand that bills like this don’t get passed in other states and that schools can be safe for Black children–with no guns and no police.
Just a week ago, a school officer in Virginia accidentally fired his gun in a Middle School. Fortunately, no one was hurt but this is yet another example of the dangers of having guns in schools, no matter who is holding them.
P.S. Below is the email we sent a couple weeks ago:
|
Teachers with guns.
No, that’s not a horror film title–it’s Trump’s and the NRA’s deadly answer to school shootings, and we can’t let it happen. More guns in our schools won’t make them safer–especially for Black children who are already criminalized and violated inside and outside of schools. At a young age, Black students are heavily policed by the presence of police officers, metal detectors in school buildings, and a system of punitive discipline that funnels them through the school-prison pipeline.
This ridiculous and dangerous response to arm teachers and increase police presence in schools is sadly not new. After the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting in Newtown, resulting in the death of twenty children and six adults, the NRA introduced a new strategy to exploit school shootings to benefit the gun industry by driving up gun sales. According to National Center for Education Statistics, Trump’s plan would require arming up to 700,000 more people in schools with guns.1 This terrible idea has nothing to do with safety, it’s all about making money–and exploiting the families who’ve lost their loved ones in tragedy.
Bills are already popping up in state legislatures to approve measures that would arm teachers–including a bill in Florida that Gov. Rick Scott just signed into law. That’s why we must all stand together and show these lawmakers, and Trump, that we will not allow gun companies to get rich while putting our children in danger.
Sign the petition: Guns don’t belong in schools. Keep our schools gun free.
Black students already face violent discipline in schools–with Black students as young as four years old being more likely to be hit by their teachers than white students.2 This violence against Black children in school is normalized, we saw this in 2015 when a video went viral of a white police officer in South Carolina body slamming a 15-year old Black girl who was sitting at her desk, and dragging her across the classroom floor. Despite this violent video, captured on three cell phones, showing that the officer was clearly in the wrong the Justice Department deemed that there was not enough evidence to charge the officer with any criminal civil rights violations.3 We would see this type of violence happen time and time again if teachers were armed.
Teachers are some of the most hardworking people and carry a huge responsibility every day to educate our youth, often with limited funding, support, and resources. Instead of arming teachers with guns they should be armed with more resources and funding. Many teachers have already spoken out against this plan to arm them, saying that their “desires are not being reflected in the tone-deaf suggestions being made by lawmakers as a solution to America’s gun problem..asking us to now carry the burden of having the responsibility to kill is irreparably damaging, even if we never have to discharge our weapon.”4 Just two weeks ago at a high school in Dalton, Georgia a social studies teacher fired shots in the classroom. Fortunately, no students were injured but this just reinforces the lack of safety that happens when teachers are armed.5
We must keep guns out of schools to protect our kids.
Trump and the NRA are gearing up to turn a quick profit from preventable tragedy. This new plan is in direct response to the Parkland shooting–but is opposed by the shooting survivors, community members and parents as it would allow teachers who are trained by law enforcement to carry a gun in the classroom.6
Being trained by law enforcement, who shoot first, ask questions later, and are notorious for excessive use of force means that teachers will have the same dangerous mentality and practices as the police. Guns are not safe, no matter who has them- teachers, police officers, or school security guards, and the last place guns should ever be are in schools.
The NRA and Trump are working to make the Parkland shooting result in an increase in gun sales, but we have time to make sure that none of these dangerous and potentially fatal bills pass. Sign the petition today–keep our schools gun free.
References:
- “Trump: 10 to 20% of teachers are ‘very gun-adept.’ Reality: not even close.”, Vox, 25 February 2018. https://act.colorofchange.org/go/25755?t=11&akid=10138%2E239715%2Etrex7m
- “Children of color already face violent discipline in schools. Arming teachers will get them killed.”, The Intercept, 28 February 2018. https://act.colorofchange.org/go/25751?t=13&akid=10138%2E239715%2Etrex7m
- “Former school office will not be charged, sues sheriff, school district”, The State, 13 January 2017.http://act.colorofchange.org/go/25756?t=15&akid=10138%2E239715%2Etrex7m
- “Teachers are using #ArmMeWith to demand they be armed with supplies, not guns”, Time, 23 February 2018.http://act.colorofchange.org/go/25758?t=17&akid=10138%2E239715%2Etrex7m
- “Shots fired in Georgia high school; teacher taken into custody”, Daily Kos, 28 February 2018. https://act.colorofchange.org/go/25753?t=19&akid=10138%2E239715%2Etrex7m
- “Emotional Florida House appears on verge of approving bill on guns and school security”, Tampa Bay Times, 6 March 2018. http://act.colorofchange.org/go/25754?t=21&akid=10138%2E239715%2Etrex7m
Color Of Change is building a movement to elevate the voices of Black folks and our allies, and win real social and political change. Help keep our movement strong.
From: MARGARET PETERS
Subject: Petition-No Armed Federal Agents at Polling Places
I just signed a petition demanding that the Senate block any bill that would allow Donald Trump’s regime to station armed federal agents at polling places. I h ope you will sign and share it via email, tweet and Facebook. Thank you. Margaret Peters
From: ADD YOUR NAME (via DCCC)
Subject: SIGN ON: Robert Mueller
BREAKING: GOP HELPING TRUMP COVER UP TIES WITH RUSSIA
Trump is clearly hiding something from Americans. And Republicans are ALL helping him cover it up.
We’re the only ones who can protect the Russia investigation.
| Sign Your Name >> |
Trump is absolutely hiding something big.
His suspicious attempts to derail the Russia probe have erased ALL doubt of that.
But the scariest part? Republicans in Congress are helping him cover it up.
After Trump fired FBI Director Comey? Republicans cheered.
After he attacked Special Counsel Mueller? Republicans egged him on.
And after he JUST fired FBI Deputy Director McCabe? Republicans are STILL backing him.
Together, Trump and Congressional Republicans have launched a full-scale attack on our democratic institutions and the safety of our elections from foreign meddling.
It’s sickening. It’s unethical. And it’s downright dangerous.
We’re the only ones who can protect this investigation. Sign our petition IMMEDIATELY to demand the truth.
| Paid for by the DCCC | 430 South Capitol Street SE, Washington, DC 20003 | (202) 863-1500 | www.dccc.org | Not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee. |
From: AFSC Now
Subject: How the U.S. can pursue peace with North Korea
How the U.S. can pursue peace with North Korea
Photo: AFSC/Asia
Dramatic real-time news coverage may leave you wondering
whether peace between the U.S. and North Korea is even possible. The answer is absolutely yes.
HEALING JUSTICE
We must stand up and say no to a legal system that offers freedom only to those who can afford to pay for it.
SANCTUARY EVERYWHERE
Read stories of nontraditional places of refuge created by and for communities targeted by discrimination.
QUAKER ACTION
What’s new in international peace building? 
Check out the latest issue of our magazine, featuring stories from AFSC’s work in Kenya, Guatemala, Cambodia, and other communities around the world.
From: Cassandra, Amy, Aubrey, and the Win Without War team
Subject: Sherrod Brown’s courageous vote on Yemen
| On Tuesday, your senator Sherrod Brown sent a loud and clear message that Saudi Arabia’s deadly war in Yemen must end, and it must end now. Let your senator know how grateful you are >> |
This week, something amazing happened. Senators Bernie Sanders, Mike Lee, Chris Murphy, dozens of organizations like Win Without War, and hundreds of thousands of activists like you forced the U.S. Senate to confront the suffering our public dollars are causing in Yemen.
The resolution lost — barely — but Senator Sherrod Brown’s courage to vote the right way sent an undeniable message to the world that the American people are done with our tax dollars fueling famine in Yemen.
By refusing to accept the Trump administration’s bogus justification for helping to put 8 million people on the brink of starvation, Sen. Sherrod Brown risked angering not only the administration, but also powerful Senators in their own party. So your senator needs to know you — their constituents — have their back.
Meanwhile, your other senator, Rob Portman, voted against S.J.Res. 54 and chose to keep fueling a famine that has left 8 million people on the brink of starvation. So he needs to hear from you, too.
15 years ago this week, American bombs hit Baghdad. An incalculable number died in that war. Trillions of our public dollars flowed into the belly of the war machine. The human cost and suffering of the disaster still cannot be quantified.
On Tuesday, one of your senators remembered the lessons of the Iraq War. Sen. Sherrod Brown refused to let our military help Saudi Arabia bomb weddings, hospitals, and schools in Yemen. Your senator stood up against the lie that our role in Yemen somehow makes Americans safer — when in fact the US-Saudi bombing campaign fuels extremism and strengthens al-Qaeda and the self-described Islamic State.
Americans like you have been very clear that we reject wars of choice that harm innocent people in our name. But your other senator, Rob Portman, forgot he works for the American people, not the war hawks or the Pentagon. So it’s on us — his constituents — to remind him.
From: Andrew Tierman
Subject: fascinating video on cambridge analytica and the manipulation of national elections worldwide
cambridge analytica …. “ghosting in and ghosting out” to influence elections through data analytics and dirty tricks. Fascinating video – was behind US 2016 election, for Trump campaign
From: Thomas Scott
Subject: Socioeconomics; Law & Disorder; Devos’ Head in the Sand; Defending Trump; Cambridge Analytica; War on US Intel Community
- Study By MIT Economist: U.S. Has Regressed To A Third-World Nation For Most Of Its Citizens – The Intellectualist
- Officer shouts ‘gun, gun, gun’ then shoots unarmed man – CNN Video
- Democrats Tell DeVos Her ‘Head Is in the Sand’ on Racial Bias
- The biblical story the Christian right uses to defend Trump
- Cambridge Analytica, Trump-Tied Political Firm, Offered to Entrap Politicians
- Trump’s War on the U.S. Intelligence Community
From: Judy Burnette
Subject: FW: Bold Progressives: [These] “15 Senate Dems voted with Republicans on [against] Dodd Frank”
|
Last week, the Senate passed a terrible bill Elizabeth Warren calls the “Bank Lobbyist Act.” The Washington Post calls it “the biggest loosening of financial regulations since the economic crisis.”
The Congressional Budget Office found that the bill makes it more likely that big banks will crash the economy again, and more likely that taxpayers will have to bail out Wall Street again.
The majority of Senate Democrats knew that with zero voters clamoring for this bill, the choice was easy — stand with Elizabeth Warren and put people first. That’s why most Dems voted against this bill, including Sen. Ed Markey.
However, too many Senate Democrats chose to stand with the big banks and they should be held accountable. We’re reminding them that the American people want to vote for Democrats who work for them, not big Wall Street banks.
Not that long ago, even more Democrats might have voted with Republicans. But we are clearly standing in a new era. Corporate Democrats and Dems who think voters are interested in bipartisanship just for the sake of bipartisanship — with no regard to what happens as a result — are a dying breed.
But it’s important to speak up when Democrats in Congress are as irresponsible as Republicans, because we all lose when they that happens.
Republicans could not have passed this bill without the help of those Democrats who joined them in putting big banks over people. Help hold them accountable.
Want to support the Warren wing? Senator Elizabeth Warren says, “When PCCC members donate millions in small-dollar donations and make millions of phone calls for progressive candidates, leaders in Washington, they take notice.” Chip in $3 here.
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Paid for by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee PAC (www.BoldProgressives.org) and not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.
Contributions to the PCCC are not deductible as charitable contributions for federal income tax purposes.
From: Jedith
Subject: Voices, The Peoples News: THINK THIS LADY IS PISSED?
THINK THIS LADY IS PISSED?
If you are over 50, you need to read this. If not, don’t bother, you are already screwed.
Alan Simpson, the Senator from Wyoming calls senior citizens the Greediest Generation as he compared “Social Security ” to a Milk Cow with 310 million teats. Here’s a response in a letter from Patty M in Montana … I think she is a little ticked off! She also tells it like it is!
“Hey Alan, let’s get a few things straight!!!
- As a career politician, you have been on the public dole (tit) for FIFTY YEARS.
- I have been paying Social Security taxes for 48 YEARS (since I was 15 years old. I am now 63).
- My Social Security payments, and those of millions of other Americans, were safely tucked away in an interest bearing account for decades until you political pukes decided to raid the account and give OUR money to a bunch of zero losers in return for votes, thus bankrupting the system and turning Social Security into a Ponzi scheme that would make Bernie Madoff proud.
- Recently, just like Lucy & Charlie Brown, you and “your ilk” pulled the proverbial football away from millions of American seniors nearing retirement and moved the goalposts for full retirement from age 65 to age, 67. NOW, you and your “shill commission” are proposing to move the goalposts YET AGAIN.
- I, and millions of other Americans, have been paying into Medicare from Day One, and now “you morons” propose to change the rules of the game. Why? Because “you idiots” mismanaged other parts of the economy to such an extent that you need to steal our money from Medicare to pay the bills.
- I, and millions of other Americans, have been paying income taxes our entire lives, and now you propose to increase our taxes yet again. Why?
Because you “incompetent bastards” spent our money so profligately that you just kept on spending even after you ran out of money. Now, you come to the American taxpayers and say you need more to pay off YOUR debt.
To add insult to injury, you label us “greedy” for calling “bullshit” to your incompetence.
Well, Captain Bullshit, I have a few questions for YOU:
- How much money have you earned from the American taxpayers during your pathetic 50-year political career?
- At what age did you retire from your pathetic political career, and how much are you receiving in annual retirement benefits from the American taxpayers?
- How much do you pay for YOUR government provided health insurance?
- What cuts in YOUR retirement and healthcare benefits are you proposing in your disgusting deficit reduction proposal, or as usual, have you exempted yourself and your political cronies?
It is you, Captain Bullshit, and your political co-conspirators called Congress who are the “greedy” ones. It is you and your fellow nutcase thieves who have bankrupted America and stolen the American dream from millions of loyal, patriotic taxpayers.
And for what? Votes and your job and retirement security at our expense, you lunk-headed, leech. That’s right, sir. You and yours have bankrupted America for the sole purpose of advancing your pathetic, political careers. You know it, we know it, and you know that we know it. And you can take that to the bank, you miserable son of a bitch.
And stop calling Social Security benefits “entitlements”. WHAT AN INSULT!!!!
I have been paying in to the SS system for 45 years “It’s my money” – give it back to me the way the system was designed and stop patting yourself on the back like you are being generous by doling out these monthly checks .