This is a whopper of an action diary, so I won't waste your time with reading up here. I've put the Urgent items at the top. Obviously this week the Alito hearings begin. Some of the Alito items are recycled from previous weeks, others are new...please participate in as many campaigns as possible! The more letters Senators get, the better! Also, if you have Republican Senators, you should email and tell them that they HAVE to vote against Alito because he's been proven to be an "activist judge"!
Update: Here's the link to Armando's diary which proves that Alito is an activist judge!
Anyway, without further ado!! Oh...and if you could recommend, that'd be lovely and appreciated. The more people who read this and take action, the better!
UPDATE: I'd be a bitch if I didn't link you to Melvin's fabulous diary about the Endangered Species Act! His has fab links for action as well:)
Urgent!
Justice Sunday III happens tonight! Faithful America has a letter for you to send letting your Senators know that the Dobson crowd doesn't speak for you! Click here to send it off! You don't have to be religious for this one...although it does say in the letter that you are "a person of faith", but...I'm not and I sent it anyway:)
Earthjustice has a petition to help save the Roadless Rule. Click here to sign on! The deadline is January 12th!!
Senator Durbin is on the Judiciary Committee...he has the ability to postpone the Alito hearings. Click here and ask him to postpone the Alito hearings until Hearings on Bush's illegal wiretapping can take place!
Women's Issues and the Supreme Court:
People for the American Way need some help in the fight against (Sc)Alito. You can check out their next phase of the fight and get involved here.
If you've been hiding under a rock these past few weeks you may not know that Planned Parenthood opposes the (Sc)Alito nomination. Here is their action page. They even have a link for Republicans for choice!! The link to oppose (Sc)Alito is at the top.
NARAL is also opposed to (Sc)Alito. Send another letter using their website here. Check out the other stuff on their site as well. For all the complaining some folks do...NARAL is a good organization. They've also got a short cartoon you can check out!
NARAL's also got quite a funny campaign going to push the FDA to approve Plan B. Click here to help them!
NOW also has a letter opposing (Sc)Alito here
If you've never seen this site, check it out-- U.S. Women Without Borders! There are action items here too!
Campus Progress has a scary vision of Alito's America! Click here to watch a video and take action!
The Democratic Party is asking you to write letters to the editor about (Sc)Alito. Click here for their help in writing a letter of your own!
AND The Human Rights Campaign has come out against Alito. Click here to send a letter to your Senators from their site.
StoptheNRA.com has a form letter you can send to your Senators regarding ScAlito. Click here for their website. They've got some other issues as well!
DEFCON also has a letter for you to send regarding Alito! Click here to send yet another letter of opposition!
Democrats.org has a petition to stop Alito...Click here...blah blah blah...
Communications Workers of America (a Union that I'm not a member of, but I get their emails anyway) has a letter you can send to your Senators opposing Alito as well. Click here to fill in your info. Is it me, or does EVERYONE hate Alito?!
War in Iraq:
CODEPINK has launched a new campaign, the "Women Say No to War" campaign. You can sign your name by clicking here. They'll deliver the signatures to the White House and U.S. Embassies around the world on March 8th...they'd like to get 100,000 women to sign before then. I'm betting we can certainly do better than 100,000!! So, let's get to work ladies!! Sign on yourselves and then send this to every woman you know!
Protect Pets and Wildlife:
I've been touting the ASPCA lately, they have an absolutely excellent action page. Click here to check out all the various federal action items and to find your own state for more specific action items. This site REALLY is excellent. You can also sign up to receive regular emails from them. Anyone who watches Animal Planet knows what important work the ASPCA does...support them if you can, but if you don't have any dough to send, I'm sure they'd appreciate the action you take!
Last year, part of the appropriations bill was a ban on horse slaughter. Congress passed the ban on horse slaughter by refusing to provide money in the budget for USDA inspectors to those slaughterhouses. Without the inspectors, they can't operate. Well, just when you thought horses were safer...the USDA is considering a petition filed by "three foreign-owned slaughterhouses" (not my language....but I think it is important that the USDA is willing to overrule Congress because of a petition filed by 3 corporations that aren't even owned by citizens). Click here to take action to prevent horse slaughter...yet again! Once you take action, there will be an entire page of action items for you to sign as well:)
The Humane Society of the United States also has an action item with regard to the USDA trying to overrule Congress...Click here to send this letter as well!
The Animal Protection Institute has a petition up to "End the use of animals in Ringling Bros. Circuses." For those of you who don't know, Ringling Brothers and other Circuses are fined and charged with animal cruelty all the time. Animals often die in the care of these circuses..and the deaths are typically slow and painful. Please click here to sign the petition and help these animals.
Protect the Environment:
Click here to join the Virtual March to Stop Global Warming! This link has a lovely letter and pic from the fabulous Leonardo DiCaprio;-) I don't know if that helps to convince you to sign up...but I figured that if Hurricane Katrina wasn't cutting it...maybe Leo would help a bit!
Click here to tell auto makers why you want green cars today!
The NRDC has a letter for you to send to help Save the Tongass National Forest. Click here to express your disgust for the repeal of the Roadless Rule!
Oxfam has a petition for you to sign--here's some background info: "The US government is violating the rights of the Western Shoshone to ancestral lands--rights that had been recognized as belonging to this Native American Nation by the 1863 Treaty of Ruby Valley. The government has allowed gold mining and military testing of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons; all on Western Shoshone lands without their consent. Denied fair resolution in US courts, the Western Shoshone have appealed to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD)." Click here to add your voice of support to the Western Shoshone! Once you sign that petition, there are three other action items you can do as well:)
Exxon Mobile sucks. Click here to tell them you won't be buying gas from them until they clean up their act. Defenders of Wildlife wants to get 1 million people to take action on this....so far, only 16,000 or so. That isn't quite acceptable! Get signing and passing this along people!!!
Illegal Spying:
Tim Tagaris posted this here the other day...but for all of you who signed an FOIA request last week, you can click here to watch a short video of Bush admitting that spying on Americans requires court approval.
The ACLU is calling for Special Counsel to investigate Bush's illegal spying operation. Click here to add your voice to the request.
Labor Issues:
I posted a link to take action on this before, but it was to write to the Threemile Canyon corporation itself. A little background, "In May, the United Farm Workers began appealing to McDonalds about grievances voiced by Threemile Canyon farm workers: sexual bias that included farm co-owner A.J. Bos vowing, "I don't want women at the farm--they are only good for the bed," according to sworn declarations from current farm employees; on-going threats, retaliation and firings of pro-union workers; and high levels of ammonia emissions." Now United Farm Workers is asking McDonald's to use its influence to settle some of the problems and get Threemile to negotiate and resolve the issues with UFW. Click here to learn more and take action.
American Rights at Work is a pretty good group (for those of you who've never heard of it). Click here for their action page. They've got a few issues up, including a letter to oppose Alito, a letter to promote the Employee Free Choice Act, and some anti-WalMart stuff!
Other Issues:
Ricky Santorum may be a lost cause, but we shouldn't let up on him either way! So, sign this petition and tell Senator Rick Santorum to stop pandering to right wing extremists, and support the American Principle of separation of church and state.
Those of you looking to jump onto the Impeachment bandwagon can click here to add your name to the petition to Congress!
If you are REALLY excited about impeachment, you could send two letters! Click here to send one from ImpeachBush.com!
If you want to express outrage at "President Bush's nomination of Ellen Sauerbrey to serve as Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration, a crucial position that will affect the lives of women and girls around the globe," click here to write a letter to the editor. International Planned Parenthood Foundation had this to say about Sauerbrey, "The President used this recess appointment to prevent what was likely to be a hard-hitting Senate debate on Sauerbrey's qualifications for this position: namely, that she has no experience with refugee protection, nor with responding to complex humanitarian emergencies - both of which are obviously important aspects of the assistant secretary post. Moreover, her record on population issues is one of unrelenting hostility to women's sexual and reproductive rights."
Remember the Downing Street Memos? CensureBush.org has launched a new campaign. Tomorrow is a National Call-in day to support Censure. Click here to read more and get involved!
Specific State Issues:
If you're from California, you can click here to "tell Phil Angelides how you or your family members have been affected by Governor Schwarzenegger's high price for education."
If you're from Illinois, Please call Governor Blagojevich's office at 217-782-6830 to thank him for his promise to reduce mercury emissions from power plants by 90 percent by 2009. At this point, the Illinois EPA will submit the Governor's proposal to a public rulemaking process, which could take up to 9 months, but hopefully it will become policy asap. I know lots of you don't like Blagojevich much, but he's been pretty good on the Environment, which is more than I can say for ANY Republican. Actually, those of you thinking about Topinka may want to check into HER plans for the environment. Anyone looking for more information about the Governor's plan can click here.
Illinois residents can also sign up to be a part of the Illinois Campaign for Responsible Sex Education. Click here for the website!
If you live in Maryland, your help is desperately needed to ensure the General Assembly overrides the veto of Fair Share Health Care legislation. For additional info on this one, check out ImAHealthCareVoter.org/MD. (I couldn't get this link to work with the html for some reason...)
The details:
When: Wednesday, January 11
Where: St. Anne's Parish, 199 Duke of Gloucester St, Annapolis
How: Email ezekiel at imahealthcarevoter dot org
Health Issues:
The Clean Air Act requires the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to set air pollution standards at levels that protect public health. On December 20, 2005, the EPA proposed new rules to limit particle pollution in outdoor air that fall short of their obligation to the American people. Click here to sign a petition asking the EPA to follow the Clean Air Act.
I know you've all seen those St. Jude commercials before movies these days. They've been all over TV as well. Well, click here to send a message of hope to children with cancer.