Over Christmas dinner with my family, my father looked at me and said,
“So what does the politician do now?” That question and variations of
it are becoming very familiar to me these days.
I told him that one of the things I will be doing is staying on top of
and commenting on the issues that are important to north Iowa. I
mentioned that with only two weeks to go for the start of the Iowa
legislature, I am anxious to compare campaign promises with actual
votes taken and legislation introduced. We talked about letters to the
editor that could be written and other things that I could do to keep
my name out there and to hold our elected officials accountable. I
mentioned this weekly column as one of the ways to do this.
And as we talked, my father and I agreed that these were things that
everyone should be doing. We elect our officials at least partly based
on what we hear during the campaigns. We then expect them to represent
us and our interests, to take their oath of office seriously, and to
not necessarily follow the party line if it isn’t in their
constituents’ best interests. While voting is our duty, it is also our
duty to make sure that we get what we are voting for. My dad and I
agreed that often politicians get caught up in doing what their party
wants them to do as opposed to what the people want them to do. We
agreed that our government is too far removed from the people and that
it is a problem that needs fixing. My father and I often argue
politics. We usually have to agree to disagree—but on that day we found
agreement. Perhaps our conversation that day was a gift to the rest of
our family.
We should all be watching our elected officials to make sure they truly
represent us, not their own or their party’s special interests. A good
example of this happened a couple of weeks ago. Educators and business
leaders around north Iowa presented their concerns and ideas to
legislators in a “Jobs Summit” held at North Iowa Area Community
College. I was surprised when I noticed that Senator Gaskill was
missing from the list of legislators who attended. I remember one of
his campaign ads said he wants north Iowa to be a “haven for good
jobs.” It seems to me that he would have wanted to attend; it would
have been a perfect place to discuss that “haven” concept. Senator
Gaskill will get a letter from me asking why he wasn’t in attendance.
Perhaps I should ask him for his plan to create this haven.
In order to be politically active or even just actively engaged in
one’s community, one needs to pay attention to what the government is
doing. Get involved in the decisions being made and don’t be shy to
voice your opinion. Write letters to the editor, attend city council
meetings, and compare the campaign promises you heard to votes and
actions taken by your representatives and senators in the upcoming
legislative session.
We need to do these things to remain true to the idea of “government of
the people, by the people, and for the people.” Without the people’s
active participation, those words become an empty shell, just something
you memorize in Civics class.
Pay attention to your representatives, write letters, agitate for
change if you don’t like the direction our government is taking. Join
me in being We, the People.
While the number of the world's people who go hungry is rising
for the first time in years, the Bush administration can find no better
way to reduce spending than to cut $600 million from global food aid
programs aimed at helping millions of people climb out of poverty.
That
belt-tightening of $600 million doesn't make much of a dent in a
federal discretionary budget of $965 BILLION (it's 0.0001 percent), but
in the developing world, it's emergency food to prevent the starvation
of millions, and long-term agricultural development to help people feed
even more people themselves.
Or put
another way, it's 1/60th of the $35 BILLION that remains in the budget
to maintain America's Cold War nuclear weapons equivalent to 150,000 of
the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima.
This is
so outrageous that there's now a BIPARTISAN effort in Congress led by
Rep. Jo Ann Emerson (R-Missouri) to convince the administration that
global food aid should not be cut.
Let's
make our voices really count this holiday season and give the most important
gift we can, the gift of life for millions of our hungry brothers and
sisters around the world.
And we
can make it happen. Flood
your members of Congress with faxes. Click here to send a message.
Be sure to select the "fax" button, as sending a fax always gets
through to members of Congress. Emails are too often
deleted. This is a free service. No fax machine required.
Future IOWA Weather
So, now that we IOWANS have endured our first wave of 4-degree F
temperatures and less this winter, what is all the hubbub about global
temperature change?
Let us put it in terms we can understand. Humans put thousands of
pounds per day of carbon dioxide and other nasty items into our air
from our activities. More and more of us have become aware that
these behaviors are not good for our health or for the status of our
weather. According to the Sierra Club, the last four years have
been the warmest since 1861 records were kept. If you happen to
look at the forecast for the end of this week, at least here in eastern
IOWA, we will be close to 60 degrees F by Thursday or Friday.
This is not necessarily a good thing. Let's look at what the
Sierra Club says about this because the consequences of global climate
change will be felt locally by IOWANS and our economy.
The world's leading scientists project that during our children's
lifetimes, global warming will raise the average temperature of the
planet by 2.7 to 11 degrees Fahrenheit.
The Earth is only 5 to 9 degrees warmer today than it was 10,000 years
ago during the last ice age. Throughout history, major shifts in
temperature occurred at a rate of a few degrees over thousands of
years. They were accompanied by radical ecological changes, including
the extinction of many species. Manmade global warming is occurring
much faster - faster, in fact, than at any time in the past 10,000
years. Unless we slow and ultimately reverse the buildup of greenhouse
gases, we will have decades, not millennia, to try to adapt to radical
changes in weather patterns, sea levels and serious threats to human
health. Increased flooding, storms and agricultural losses could
devastate our economy. Plants and animals that cannot adapt to new
conditions will become extinct.
But How Much of a Difference Can a Few Degrees Make?
Plenty.
The human race is engaged in the largest and most dangerous experiment
in history - an experiment to see what will happen to our health and
the health of our planet when we change our atmosphere and our climate.
This is not some deliberate scientific inquiry. It is an uncontrolled
experiment on the environment of the Earth, and we're gambling our
children's future on its outcome. The results of this pollution are
already significant. We have increased levels of carbon dioxide (CO2),
the primary global warming gas, in our atmosphere by 30 percent in the
past 100 years. Some regions of the world have already warmed by as
much as 5 degrees Fahrenheit. Physicians at Harvard University and
Johns Hopkins medical schools and other medical institutions have
issued grim assessments that global warming may already be causing the
spread of infectious diseases and increasing heat-wave deaths. Extreme
weather events have become more common. Plants and animals around the
world are shifting their ranges in an effort to escape a changing
climate.
The rapid buildup of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere is the source
of the problem. By burning ever-increasing quantities of coal, oil and
gas, we are choking our planet in a cloud of this pollution. If we
don't begin to act now to curb global warming, our children will live
in a world where the climate will be far less hospitable than it is
today.
The current Washington, D.C. administration has a Clogged Skies Policy
that does nothing more than give a pass to energy industries and other
corporations that spew killing toxins into our atmosphere. Current
administrators have given their plan a different name, but I choose to
call it EXACTLY what it is: THE CLOGGED SKIES POLICY. For you
see, this current administration is WEAK when it comes to keeping
cancer-causing, asthma-inducing products out of our lives. The
businesses that choose to slide under the radar and not be progressive
and benevolent enough to do the right thing, are going to continue to
contribute to the ill health of us all.
So, are you asking yourself what you can do? Look around your
town, your county, your state, and nearby states to see where the
pollution in your area is coming from. Then take action. It
is as close as looking in your own backyard.
One Senator Needed for January 6th Challenge pdamerica.org
We all
remember that early scene in Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, where
one African American after another stands up in the well of the House
of Representatives to challenge the 2000 Florida vote, only to be ruled out of order
due to the lack of a single signature from a single Senator.
Not this time.
On
January 6, 2005, the House and Senate will once again meet to consider
the electoral vote count. And once again, that vote count is likely to
be challenged by a group of progressive House members, who will make
the case that the misallocation of voting machines (especially in
Ohio), the abuse of provisional balloting in numerous states, and the
refusal and/or inability to conduct the recount in an open and
auditable manner in Ohio, in Florida, and in so many other key states,
mean that the certified electors should not be seated.
This
time, we want several U.S. Senators to join with them, to make a
serious voting rights challenge that the entire world will hear. This
time, we want so much polite-but-firm grassroots contact from
progressive voters beforehand that a whole group of Senators will
choose to stand up and fight for the voting rights of
African-Americans, Latinos, and youth voters that the Republican Party
targeted for disruption and disenfranchisement in the 2004 election.
Some who
need to hear from us are new, such as Barak Obama of Illinois and Ken
Salazar of Colorado. These new Senators could use cover from the new
leadership of the Senate, especially Dick Durbin, who also hails from
Obama's home state.
Some
Senators depend on African American and Latino votes to be elected, and
thus could be expected to stand up tall when voting rights issues are
on the line, including Joe Biden of Delaware, Carl Levin of Michigan,
Bill Nelson of Florida, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Jeff Bingaman of
New Mexico, Barbara Mikulski and Paul Sarbanes of Maryland, Jon Corzine
and Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey.
Senator
Byrd of West Virginia was once a Klansman; but his eloquent leadership
against the Iraq War has inspired us all, and he has the courage and
fortitude to cap his career with an outspoken battle on behalf of
abused African American voters. Senator Lieberman of Connecticut
rightfully brags about his youthful efforts to register voters in the
Old South in the 1960s; on 1/6/05, he will have the chance to
demonstrate that his youthful idealism still survives.
There
are Senators who are safe, and could do the right thing - like Chris
Dodd of Connecticut, Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, Charles Schumer of New
York, Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, and Herb Kohl of Wisconsin.
There is
Jim Jeffords of Vermont, an Independent who was brave enough to stand
up to the Bush White House once before. There is Senator Lincoln
Chafee, a Republican in a solid Democratic state, the namesake of
Lincoln, a moderate caught in a far right party.
And, of course, there is John Kerry.
To
remind them why they're in Washington, click here. Ask them to stand
for every American's right to vote (and have it counted.)
Thank you for forwarding this action alert to your networks.
Standing tall in solidarity,
Tim Carpenter Progressive Democrats of America email: info@pdamerica.org phone: (877) 368-9221 web: www.pdamerica.org Join your fellow Iowans in the fight to take back the media for ordinary citizens. Click here to joinRapidResponse - Iowa.
Bush Propaganda Machine Takes Aim at Social Security
Brace yourself for more Orwellian doublespeak, sleight of hand, smoke
and mirrors and bald-faced lies, as the Bushies launch their public
relations campaign to drum up popular support for dismantling…er, I
mean privatizing, Social Security. Progressives have
another opportunity to watch helplessly as the Bushies continue
getting away with saying down is up and black is white. If all
goes according to plan, and with help from the compliant media, no one will notice what is being taken from
them in broad daylight.
Groups with friendly, politically-correct
sounding names such as For our Grandchildren, Alliance for Worker
Retirement Security, Women for Social Security Choice [get
it? women…choice…oh, they are shameless!] are all part of the
strategy to convince the country that we need to rid ourselves of that
dastardly program, Social Security. And to add insult to injury,
they call themselves grassroots organizations while receiving
funding from such groups as right-wing zealots, Club for Growth (the one
they’re willing to name)…Read on. Then write a letter to your
local newspaper.
Help reframe this issue for the asleep-at-the-wheel media by calling it
what it is. This is not about reform, updating, reshaping or overhaul:
this is an attempt to dismantle, undo, take down, rob, destroy, Social
Security, a government program that works.
New York Times
By Edmund L. Andrews
WASHINGTON, Dec. 16
- Introduced as a "single mom" from Iowa, Sandra Jaques was cool and
confident as she praised Bush's plan to partly replace Social
Security with private savings accounts.
But Ms.
Jaques is not any random single mother. She is the Iowa state director
of a conservative advocacy group, FreedomWorks, whose founders are Jack
F. Kemp, the former vice-presidential nominee, and Dick Armey, the
former House Republican leader.
[Another
advocate for private accounts] Leanne Abdnor said she had raised
start-up money from friends, whom she would not identify. She said the
group would wage a publicity campaign to counter groups that oppose
private accounts.
Support
for overhauling Social Security also comes from numerous self-described
grass-roots organizations: For Our Grandchildren, which employed Ms.
Jaques as a director in Iowa; SocialSecurityChoice.org, backed by
pro-business political groups like Club for Growth; and USANext, a
Virginia-based group run by Charles Jarvis, a former Reagan
administration official.
Keep Corporate Bias off Local News: Take Back the Media from Sinclair Broadcasting MoveOn.Org, MediaMatters, Iowa Rapid Response
Please join us in the fight to take back our public airwaves from corporate special interests!
Before the election, we stopped Sinclair Broadcasting from
airing an anti-Kerry hit piece. Sinclair continues to interject partisan bias into local
evening news reaching 1 in 4 homes.
Every night, Sinclair vice president Mark Hyman broadcasts a
conservative rant - called "The Point" - which most of Sinclair's
62 stations are required to air during their local news. "The Point"
predictably attacks Democrats and progressives while praising George Bush. No
counterpoint is offered. This is an abuse of the public airwaves.
Our friends at Media Matters for America
are spearheading a campaign to demand balance on Sinclair's evening news by
telling Sinclair's advertisers about the partisanship they're supporting.
Can you contact Sinclair's local and national advertisers?Click here to visit the new website, SinclairAction.com:
You can tell advertisers how Sinclair's "The
Point" interjects partisan commentary into the evening news program they
sponsor, reflecting poorly on their product. We are not suggesting a boycott of
these advertisers. Rather, we are hoping these advertisers, as good corporate
citizens, will persuade Sinclair to include a counterpoint.
Sinclair's partisan bias is not new. In April, Sinclair
forbade its stations from airing an ABC Nightline special [The Fallen] honoring the 700
American soldiers killed in Iraq.
Explaining its decision, Sinclair declared: "We do not believe political
statements should be disguised as news content."
From Iowa Rapid Response: You can help in Iowa by contacting the following Iowa Sinclair Affiliates:
Cedar Rapids, Waterloo, Dubuque: KGAN Channel 2
e-mail address: kgan@kgan.com
Ph. 800-642-6140 toll free or 319-395-9060
Ames, Des Moines: KDSM Fox 17 e-mail address: comments@kdsm17.com Ph: 515-287-1717 or FAX: 515-287-0064
NOTE: Sinclair also has outsourcing agreements with stations that
aren’t on the list referenced below (e.g., KFXA and KFXB in Dubuque and
Cedar Rapids, Iowa). These stations also carry Sinclair
newscasts. You can e-mail KFXA/KFXB: fox2840@fox2840.com or
call 319-393-2800
If
you live in these broadcast areas, watch Mark Hyman tonight at the end
of the 10:00 news. We guarantee you will be moved to action!
Republicans Absent at Vote Fraud Hearings: Help Get Congress Involved! VotersUnite.org
Last
Wednesday, the Honorable John Conyers held a hearing on the allegations
of fraud in the Ohio election. Monday he held another one in Ohio. No
Republican members of the House Judiciary Committee were present at the
hearing on Wednesday. Take action: 1. Call
2 (or more) Republican committee members and urge them to participate
in the investigation Congressman Conyers and others are holding. Scroll down for a list of names. 2. Call
2 (or more) Democratic committee members who were not involved and urge
them to participate — to add legitimacy to the protest against the
fraud that is being exposed in Ohio. See the list at the end of this
email. 3. Email
or call the New York Times [or the Des Moines Register - letters@news.dmreg.com] and ask why they did not cover the hearing
last Wednesday. The event was historic and deserved serious media
attention. 4. Every day, from this day on, call 3 (or more) members of Congress. Verify
that the legislator understands: 1) The counts are not yet final and we
have no way of knowing, in many parts of the country, what the actual
vote count was; 2) Between vote suppression, voter intimidation,
registration fraud, and software flaws, neither the results nor the
counting process is legitimate; 3) The Conyers hearings make it obvious
that, because election irregularities were so widespread, there is no
way of telling whether the election outcomes are an accurate reflection
of the people's will. Ask your
representative: What is the solution when the election is clearly
illegitimate? What can Congress do and what can we, in our thousands of
community organizations do, to prevent this fast approaching
miscarriage of justice? 5. Each
time you call, record it at http://www.usvip.org/congresscall. [Note,
if you haven't already registered, click the JOIN US link first, and
sign in. Then report your calls.] To reach any member of Congress, call the Capitol switchboard at 1-800-839-5276 and ask for the member by name. Thanks, ~ The VotersUnite.Org team ————————————————————————————- House
Judiciary Members are listed below, Democrats first, in order by state,
then Republicans, in order by state. An * indicates those who have
participated in the hearings and/or the letters to the GAO and
Blackwell. Call and thank them. Call the others and urge them to
participate. It is their responsibility. Remember 1-800-839-5276 reaches the Capitol switchboard. Hon. Howard Berman (D) California, 28th Hon. Zoe Lofgren (D) California, 16th Hon. Linda Sánchez (D) California, 39th Hon. Adam Schiff (D) California, 29th Hon. Maxine Waters (D) California, 35th * Hon. Robert Wexler (D) Florida, 19th Hon. William Delahunt (D) Massachusetts, 10th Hon. Martin Meehan (D) Massachusetts, 5th ** Hon. John Conyers (D) Michigan 14th [Ranking Member] * Hon. Jerrold Nadler (D) New York, 8th Hon. Anthony Weiner (D) New York, 9th * Hon. Melvin Watt (D) North Carolina, 12th Hon. Sheila Jackson Lee (D) Texas, 18th Hon. Rick Boucher (D) Virginia, 9th Hon. Robert Scott (D) Virginia, 3rd * Hon. Tammy Baldwin (D) Wisconsin, 2nd Hon. Spencer Bachus (R) Alabama, 6th Hon. Jeff Flake (R) Arizona, 6th Hon. Elton Gallegly (R) California, 24th Hon. Tom Feeney (R) Florida, 24th Hon. Ric Keller (R) Florida, 8th Hon. Henry Hyde (R) Illinois, 6th Hon. Mike Pence (R) Indiana, 6th Hon. John Hostettler (R) Indiana, 8th Hon. Steve King (R) Iowa, 5th Hon. Howard Coble (R) North Carolina, 6th Hon. Steve Chabot (R) Ohio, 1st Hon. Melissa Hart (R) Pennsylvania, 4th Hon. William Jenkins (R) Tennessee, 1st Hon. Marsha Blackburn (R) Tennessee, 7th Hon. Lamar Smith (R) Texas, 21st Hon. John Carter (R) Texas, 31st Hon. Chris Cannon (R) Utah, 3rd Hon. J. Randy Forbes (R) Virginia, 4th Hon. Bob Goodlatte (R) Virginia, 6th Hon. Mark Green (R) Wisconsin, 8th Hon. James Semsenbrenner (R) Wisconsin 5th [Chairman] Join your fellow Iowans in the fight to take back the media for ordinary citizens. Click here to joinRapidResponse - Iowa.
*IBLTV is a group of citizens from the Iowa City/Cedar Rapids area who are concerned about the decline in the quality of local television. Fight local media consolidation, as it leads to an unaccountable medium that enriches itself while disregarding the need to serve the public good.
*The rational counter to 'The Point,' 'The Counterpoint' critiques and corrects the daily editorial by Sinclair Broadcasting's corporate vice president, Mark Hyman, that is broadcast on all Sinclair-owned television stations across the country
So What Does The Politician Do Now?
Call to Action: U.S. Cutting Foo
One Senator Needed for January 6th Challenge
Join your fellow Iowans in the fight to take back the media for ordinary citizens. Click here to 
Bush Propaganda Machine Takes Aim at Social Security
Republicans Absent at Vote Fraud Hearings: Help Get Congress Involved!