MW: Action Wednesday!
Posted on: October 7, 2009
Anti-War Protest, 2006, New York City
Well, Widdershins, it’s Hump Day. Are you tired of talking and itching for some feet-in-the-street action? If so, here are some things you can do this weekend and the next, taken from the sources on our site. Please feel free to suggest more in comments.
And should you feel like throwing a few dollars towards some female candidates, there are a whole slew of them on Emily’s List. I’m sure there must be one you’ll like. 
October 10-11
National Equality March, Washington D.C.
Dear Hollywood: Rape Is Rape! (National, from NOW – Protest the “Free Polanski” Movement from Hollywood!)
Army: Don’t Go to Iraqistan (West Point, NY)
October 17-18
Protest the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (Nationwide)
High-Profile Upcoming Events
November 6, Washington D.C.
NoLimits.org Public Policy Conference – Featuring Hillary Clinton
What’s on your mind? This is an open thread.
19 Responses to "MW: Action Wednesday!"
October 7, 2009 at 9:48 am
Yup, I think so. This Roman Polanski thing is going viral. It is really unconscionable that anyone could be defending him. He drugged and raped a 13-year-old girl. He is a monster!
October 7, 2009 at 10:46 am
Have you seen the video of Whoopi Goldberg on The View, saying that Polanski’s actions weren’t “rape-rape?”
October 7, 2009 at 2:49 pm
I did. Sodomizing a 13 yr. old to whom you have given Quaalude is rape=rape.
October 7, 2009 at 4:01 pm
No kidding kidding!
Newsflash – even if she had been “willing,” which she most assuredly WAS NOT, she was only 13 years old! She cannot legally consent to sex with anyone, even when not drugged into complacency.
It is disgusting the way Whoopi and so many of her fellow actors have gotten onto this bandwagon. They need to be given a wake-up call!
October 7, 2009 at 4:04 pm
Uh-oh: Breaking news. CBO report due out shortly – vote delayed until next week. Sounds ominous, doesn’t it?
October 7, 2009 at 4:10 pm
Considering the CBO report will probably include this, I’d say your concern is warranted.
But the report said that then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and other officials were wrong to contend at an Oct. 14 press conference that all nine institutions receiving the first round of support — $125 billion — were sound.
“These are healthy institutions, and they have taken this step for the good of the economy,” Paulson had declared at the time.
Barofsky said that the fact that Citigroup Inc. and Bank of America Corp. soon required billions in additional assistance highlighted the inaccuracy of that claim and raised questions about the whole effort. In addition, Merrill Lynch, which was also in the original nine, was in the process of being acquired by Bank of America because of its weakening financial position.
October 7, 2009 at 4:29 pm
CBO says that Baucus plan will save $81B over 10 years – but – this presupposes Medicare cuts of $400B, taxes on “Cadillac plans”, etc. I have a feeling that this is going nowhere.
October 7, 2009 at 4:46 pm
$81B over 10 years is crap, anyway. That’s an average of $8B a year.
I’d like to see the report on how much Medicare for All would save the government.
But it looks like the CBO was just a formality anyway. The bill will most likely pass out of committee on party lines.
The committee is expected to approve the bill largely along party line, Reuters reports. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) will then authorize and oversee the process of merging the bill with the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee’s bill (S 1679), which was passed over the summer. Three committee members have not announced how they will vote: Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), a key Republican vote that Democrats are counting on, and Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), two Democratic hold-outs (Reuters, 10/5).
Pelosi Hopeful for Thanksgiving Deadline
In an appearance Monday on “The Charlie Rose Show,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said she hopes lawmakers can deliver a reform bill to President Obama by Thanksgiving, Roll Call reports. “I would like to see us have this as a Thanksgiving present for the American people, but it will certainly be this year,” Pelosi said. According to Roll Call, the Obama administration has been pushing a Thanksgiving deadline for reform to reach the White House since lawmakers returned from the August recess (Newmyer, Roll Call, 10/6).
October 7, 2009 at 5:39 pm
Hmmmm…PNHP and Corrente say that Medicare for All would save…$350 Billion PER YEAR.
I may be just a dumb opera singer, but I don’t think that saving $8 billion per year is better than saving $350 billion per year.
October 7, 2009 at 6:53 pm
I know people have different views on Franken, but he did good here.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/howie-klein/senate-passes-amendment-t_b_311866.html
Today the Senate “debated” the Department of Defense appropriations bill passed by the House (H.R. 3326) for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2010. Republicans added frivolous amendments all day, that were defeated one after the other. The amendment du jour, however, came from Al Franken D-MN.
And what a doozy it is! S. Amend. 2566 simply prohibits “the use of funds for any Federal contract with Halliburton Company, KBR, Inc., any of their subsidiaries or affiliates, or any other contracting party if such contractor or a subcontractor at any tier under such contract requires that employees or independent contractors sign mandatory arbitration clauses regarding certain claims.” The “certain claims” have to do with sexual assault.
I might have phrased it differently myself — like “prohibits any member of the executive team and Board of Directors of Halliburton and KBR from ever getting out of prison for any reason whatsoever” or something like that. But my amendment probably wouldn’t have gotten many votes, unlike Franken’s which passed 68-30, every Democrat being joined by 9 Republicans. (Does anyone know if LeMieux has to call Charlie Crist and get his OK before he votes?)
Franken offered the amendment because a KBR employee, Jamie Leigh Jones, age 19, was raped by a bunch of KBR workers in Iraq and then locked up in a crate when she tried reporting them. After she was rescued and returned to America she was informed that she couldn’t take KBR to court because there was some fine print in her — and everyone else’s — contracts that don’t permit any such thing. [See the video below.]
Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, an especially corrupt member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, was the key spokesperson for the GOP against the legislation which he called unfair to Halliburton, one of the biggest Republican Party contributors in history.
There is a video of the rape victim at the link.
October 7, 2009 at 7:57 pm
Jillforhill – I love Al Franken, and I am so proud of him for introducing this amendment! Thanks for sharing…guess he really IS modeling himself after Wellstone!
October 7, 2009 at 8:11 pm
I just can not believe people voted against this amendment.
October 7, 2009 at 8:14 pm
Jill – Really? Remember these are the *ssh0les who claim maternity care shouldn’t be in health reform because they have penii!
NOTHING these venal, corrupt POSes do surprises me!
October 7, 2009 at 8:19 pm
I know I should not be shocked,but this even having to be in an amendment just makes me want to scream. I was thinking how do you turn rape into a political football,but Session’s comment of “this is unfair to Halliburton” proves it can be turned into a political football.
October 7, 2009 at 8:41 pm
You’re right, Jillforhill…it is so sad, and truly a symbol of the moral depravity of our current political culture.
Comments are closed.
October 7, 2009 at 9:12 am
Wow Sounds like there is some good stuff out there.