I've started doing a round-up of smart, useful progressive actions I've seen land in my inbox or elsewhere on the web. A lot of folks have told me they found it helpful, so I'll try and make this a regular series from here on in. This is the 4th installment.
Another great action from our friends at CREDO Action. Fox News is vying for a front row in the White House Press Briefing room (Helen Thomas' old seat, actually) against NPR and Bloomberg News. It's vitally important that NPR be awarded the seat in the front row, not Fox. This eventually comes down to the officers of the White House Correspondents' Association. CNN's Ed Henry has come out in favor over "gentlemanly reasons". Whether it's Shirley Sherrod, ACORN, Van Jones, or the latest smear of the day, we need to tell the White House Correspondents Association that a right-wing propaganda outlet shouldn't get to sit in Helen Thomas' seat.
Nearly 170,000 have already signed CREDO's action petition. They are faxing and delivering them to board members and the ED. Sign the petition here.
Special note Also, some colleagues working on this are looking for help with certain information. They know the Correspondents' Association meeting has been moved to Sunday, August 1st. We need to know where and when.
We also need suggestions on direct contact info for these members who have a vote and/or influence over the decision:
WHCA Officers 2010-2011
President: David Jackson, USA Today
Vice President: Caren Boah, Reuters
Secretary: Steve Scully, C-SPAN
Treasurer: Doug Mills, New York Times
WHCA Board Members 2010-2011
Carol Lee, Politico
Michale Scherer, Time Magazine
Julie Mason, DC Examiner
Don Gonyea, NPR
Ed Henry, CNN
WHCA Executive Director
Julia Whiston
If you have contact info or suggestions, please drop me an e-mail at adambink AT gmail DOT com.
This could be a really useful victory in efforts to delegitimize FOX. Thanks.
A small announcement- I've joined with Courage Campaign to take over managing their NOMTourTracker.com blog for the next few weeks. It's an outgrowth of Prop8TrialTracker.com to cover anti-gay National Organization for Marriage and their "Summer for Marriage" tour across country which ends in DC on August 15th. Courage Campaign has trackers on the ground exposing NOM and the company they keep with video, photos and audio of their rallies and the counter-protests (which, so far, have outnumbered nearly ever NOM rally in every location). My pieces the last few days can be found here, here, here, and here. This is an especially amazing video of a NOM supporter in Indianapolis, taken by two of our trackers:
Human Rights Campaign and Servicemembers Legal Defense Network are launching a campaign to finish the push on ENDA and DADT. Countdown 2010 is focusing on connecting LGBT Americans and allies to their representatives during the upcoming August recess, a critical period. Check it out.
If you attended Netroots Nation 2010 and loved it as much as I did, you can save money and register early for Netroots Nation 2011 in Minneapolis.
Dick Durbin is asking for votes on which Senate Dem challenger he should chip in towards. I went for Roxanne Conlin in Iowa, a friend of Mike Lux's who I met during Netroots Nation and found out she's been talking about same-sex marriage equality since 1979. Yes, 1979. And signed an amicus brief in favor of equality during the Iowa Supreme Court case. Mike will probably be writing more about her in the months to come.
NYS Senate homophobe majordomo Sen. Ruben Diaz called Fight Back NY, which is targeting Senators who voted against marriage equality, "Nazi-esque" and "the gay Gestapo". Classy. He's got a great challenger, Charlie Ramos. Chip in to FBNY to kick Diaz's rear.
In a fun case of progressive actions aimed at the progressive activists themselves, immigration activists staged a very enlightening action at Netroots Nation. I went through it myself. Watch here.
Several organizations are doing actions relating to getting Elizabeth Warren appointed as head of the new Consumer Financial Protection Agency. This of course is another vital action. MoveOn (here and here), Credo Action, and PCCC all have actions on this.
Any additional good actions you've seen land in your inbox or around the web, leave them in the comments.
ACTION: Sign our open letter to the Dems on ENDA and repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell!
All across the blogopshere and offline too, anger has been simmering at both the likelihood of many Democrats to vote against a base constituency of their party- namely, gays, lesbians, bisexual and transgender people. Despite large majorities of the public supporting an inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act and the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, there has been failure to deliver on it. Markup on ENDA has been put off several times. There is still no vote scheduled. Lots of Blue Dogs like Heath Shuler are considering voting against it or say now is not the time, knowing full well we won't have a chance after the midterm. The Administration hasn't lifted a finger to help on the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, and even actively opposed Congressional repeal efforts via the Gates letter.
So, OpenLeft is joining with our friends at AMERICABlog, the Courage Campaign, and CREDO Action to write an open letter on behalf of the gay community to Dems who are considering throwing us under the bus. Click here to read and sign it.
You may have just received the following e-mail we sent out to our OpenLeft Action list:
Dear friend,
Ever feel like the relationship you once thought you had just isn't working out?
Yeah, I feel that way too.
About the Democratic Party.
In fact, I talked to some friends of mine at AMERICABlog, the Courage Campaign and CREDO Action, and found out that when it comes to the Democrats fighting for LGBT equality, they feel the exact same way. We all felt so strongly about it, we thought it was time to write a letter about it.
Click here to read our open letter. If it says just what you're feeling, sign your name onto it. We will deliver it to Democratic leadership.
http://www.couragecampaign.org/DearDemocrats
Adam Bink
OpenLeft.com
Please click here to sign onto the letter. We will deliver your signatures to Democratic Party leadership. This goes for straight allies out there too- we have to support each other.
It is still legal for me, as a gay man, to be fired in 29 states because I'm gay. For someone who is transgender, that goes up to 38 states. That's over half the Union. I also can't join the military. That needs to change this year, and it needs to start with moving ENDA and following through on promises to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell. And those have to start with the Democrats- it has to start with Dems like Heath Shuler taking a stand for LGBT people and it has to start with the Democratic leadership in Congress AND the White House.
Otherwise, as the title of this post suggests, this relationship isn't working out, and that will be apparent come November, as LGBT individuals all across the country are wondering where our fierce advocate is in the White House and when Congressional Democrats will keep their promises.
Click here to read and sign our open letter asking Dems to keep their promises and get it done.
We are all on lots of organizational e-mail lists and sometimes it's difficult to have time to sort through them all. I unfortunately have to let a lot pile up in my inbox during busy days, and then try to take some time to clear them all out (if you want to know part of my secret, it's typing "in: inbox in: unread" in the Gmail search bar). I decided today was that day, and came across some actions I think are really worthwhile/creative, so I thought I would share them in a round-up post.
WeGiveADamn.org, whose model is to produce videos featuring both celebrities and non-celebrities talking about LGBT equality and why they "give a damn". It is especially targeted at straight allies, and a major aim is to share the content using social networking tools, as well as promote issue actions. Check it out and I'd be interested to hear what you think of the model. It's a project of Cyndi Lauper's True Colors Fund.
Color of Change has a petition (in a well-titled e-mail blast "What if AT&T; blocked this e-mail?") to the FCC around the recent court decision on net neutrality. The FCC has the power to re-assert its authority in this space on broadband and institute consumer protections. Here's the petition. For more on the ruling and why this is a key way to move forward based on it, see Chris' post from the other day.
Kendrick Meek's campaign has a well-produced biographical film out today that's worth a look. Short version and long version.
One of Progressive Change Campaign Committee's reasons for founding is that sometimes the high-priced consultants don't bring as much value for their buck. At last year's America's Future Now conference, they even described some who mismanaged campaigns. So PCCC set up a talent pool page where they connect people with campaign skills with campaigns that need help at a better value. Everything from CSS to fundraising to speaking Spanish to if you are an artist or actor. You can fill it out here if you have something to contribute.
Speaking of PCCC, and because we have lots of our own worthwhile actions here, if you haven't signed up for them, you should. PCCC will donate $1 for each new name to OpenLeft, which helps keep our lights on. And speaking as someone who dislikes clogging inboxes including my own, they are one of the most worthwhile lists to be on. Sign up here.
CREDO's DeFox action "now with more Palin!" is frickin' awesome. Side effects of DeFoxing include "breakout of clarity, spreading of rationality, fits of rationalization, tolerance of others, lowered blood pressure, suppressed bloodlust, breakout of truth, analytical seepage, extra energy, faith in your fellow man, more enjoyment of things around you, reduced mockery, and/or loss of irritability."
If you have any good ones that have come across your inbox or whatnot, feel free to leave a comment. And if you like this feature, leave a comment and I'll try and do it more regularly.
Great news for "the left" -- Politics Daily's Jill Lawrence wrote us a memo!
Who is Jill Lawrence, you may ask. She is the prognosticator who declared three months ago, "It may be too soon to write a requiem for the public option, but I'm going to do it anyway..."
Surprise, surprise, she now writes, "Memo to the Left: The Public Health Insurance Option Is Dead, Get Over It."
I actually don't care that someone would question whether the public option is dead. Ezra Klein -- a smart guy -- wrote just last Friday, "The public option: Very alive or totally dead?" (He also wrote, "the story of the public option's resurgence has been a mixture of smart organizing and Senate cowardice," much appreciated by the thousands of folks who have been organizing on this issue.)
What I resent about Jill Lawrence's "memo" is that she engages in journalism without facts. Check out her main three arguments against progressives:
First, a public option could complicate passage in the House. Pelosi is trying to balance potential loss of support from anti-abortion Democrats against gains that may come from moderate "Blue Dog" Democrats who prefer the Senate bill. They like it in part because it has no public option.
I spoke with Jill Lawrence and she said this on the phone. I asked her point blank, "What yes votes turn to no votes because of the public option?" Her answer, "Well, I don't know the names."
I suggested she find them. Evidently, she couldn't. But she threw this unsupported argument out there anyway.
One could just as easily say some members of the House are more likely to vote for the bill if it has a public option. Unlike Jill Lawrence, I can name names. The Atlantic's Chris Good wrote about Rep. Scott Murphy (D-NY) -- a former "no" vote -- in his piece, "A Moderate Dem For The Public Option." When signing our House public option letter, Murphy said:
"Our nation's health care system is broken. To have real reform we need to ensure three things; accessibility, accountability, and affordability. I support this letter because the public option would help achieve all three of these goals and help to keep costs down by giving the American public a competitive option to private insurers."
Jill Lawrence's first point goes down in flames. But, she took two more stabs at it. Here's the next one:
Last night, on MSNBC's Ed Show, the PCCC and our partners at WhipCongress.com announced, "We can say with confidence that there would be at least 51 votes for the public option in the Senate if the House goes first" and then named names and revealed new information.
Ed Schultz called it "the best reporting I have seen anywhere on a head count of the public option." (Ok, ok, he hasn't seen Chris's awesome reporting...) Here's the video:
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