Act Now!

One Voice for Choice

By Peter Rothberg

Thanks to Nation reader and peerless Twitter activist Sarah Emily Labance for alerting me to the One Voice for Choice campaign, which aggressively takes the position that passing healthcare reform should not come at the expense of a woman's right to reproductive choice.

Reps. Diana Degette and Louise Slaughter recently wrote a letter signed by 41 pro-choice members of Congress, who stated quite clearly their position on the health care bill:

We will not vote for a conference report that contains language that restricts women's right to choose any further than current law.

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March 15, 2010

Glenn Beck Attacks ME!

By Peter Rothberg

I woke up this morning to an email from my father telling me that Glenn Beck had attacked me on Fox News.

Please spread this video, find out how you can get on Beck's black-board, and check out StopBeck.org for background resources outlining the Fox News host's brand of intolerant hatred and suggestions on ways you can help mute his impact.

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March 14, 2010

Heidi Montag: Consumer Advocate

By Peter Rothberg

First, the former Saturday Night Live presidents threw their support behind financial regulation. Now an even more unlikely reformer, reality TV star Heidi Montag, is teaming up with director Ron Howard and Americans for Financial Reform in an amusing new video pressing for the creation of a new agency to protect consumers. After all, "a consumer agency will stop the banks and credit card companies from being such sleazy jerks."

Now watch my colleague Chris Hayes doing a terrific job guest-hosting Rachel Maddow's MSNBC show and hailing Montag for "putting every bit of her substantial power as a kinda-sorta-somewhat-famous-ish person into pushing for a consumer financial protection agency."

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March 10, 2010

Protest Friends of IDF Fundraiser

By Peter Rothberg

Tonight, March 9th, The Friends of the Israel Defense Forces, a non-profit organization that provides support and services to members of Israel's national army, will be holding a gala $1,000 a plate fundraiser at the Waldorf Astoria in Manhattan.

The keynote speaker, Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, IDF Chief of General Staff, was responsible for the prosecution of last year's Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza strip, and is someone I consider a war criminal. This link explains why.

At the same time as the dinner tonight, a broad coalition of local groups will stage a mobile protest outside the hotel to highlight the crimes committed by the IDF during Operation Cast Lead as well as Israel's ongoing illegal blockade of the Gaza Strip.

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March 9, 2010

International Women's Day

By Peter Rothberg

This post was researched and co-written by Chantal Flores, a Nation intern and freelance writer living in New York City.

The world has been celebrating International Women's Day since 1911 when it was established largely thanks to the efforts of activist Clara Zetkin. The idea was to create a global forum for celebrating the economic, political and social achievements of women past, present and future.

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March 8, 2010

Students Protest Nationwide

By Peter Rothberg

This post was updated at 1:50pm EST on March 5.

Walkouts, student strikes, and marches shook every level of California's embattled public education system yesterday, as Paul Abowd reported in a good roundup for Labor Notes, from which I'm drawing info for this post. University of California students blocked access to campus entrances at Berkeley and Santa Cruz while college kids joined forces with K-12 students and teachers in Oakland, San Francisco, San Diego, and Los Angeles. In Oakland and Sacramento, hundreds of marchers confronted police after taking their protests onto the freeways. Numerous concurrent rallies numbered in the thousands.

The call for action against crippling state budget cuts coupled with tuition hikes was echoed by students and teachers in 32 states coast to coast.

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March 4, 2010

SNL Presidents Unite

By Peter Rothberg

Online videos have become probably the most effective -- and definitely the most entertaining -- means of modern political communication.

Now, Americans for Financial Reform, a coalition of more than 200 national, state and local consumer, labor, investor, civil rights, community, small business and senior citizen organizations, fighting for stringent financial regulation, is getting into the action in a big way with the release of a new video urging Congress to pass real financial reform.

The video, which was created in association with the producers of Funny Or Die, was directed by Ron Howard and stars all the actors who portrayed "Presidents" on "Saturday Night Live," including Will Ferrell (George W. Bush), Fred Armisen (Barack Obama), Darrell Hammond (Bill Clinton), Chevy Chase (Gerald Ford), Dan Aykroyd (Jimmy Carter), and Dana Carvey (George H. W. Bush). In addition, Jim Carrey rounds out the cast with his inspired portrayal of Ronald Reagan.

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March 3, 2010

How to Help in Chile

By Peter Rothberg

A deadly 8.8-magnitude earthquake struck central Chile early this morning, collapsing buildings, shattering major bridges and highways across a long strip of the country, killing at least 122 people and creating tsunami warnings in more than 50 countries along the Pacific basin. (The Washington Post has a good page of breaking news with maps, videos, twitter feeds and aggregated broadcast news accounts.)

The quake was vastly more powerful than the magnitude 7.0 earthquake that caused widespread damage and death in Haiti on January 12, but Chile is a much more prosperous country than Haiti, with average living standards among the highest in Latin America, and about 18 percent of people living in poverty, compared with 80 percent in Haiti.

So while Chile's relative affluence will help the country head off the dire humanitarian crisis that we're seeing in Haiti, enormous resources are still needed for reconstruction, and especially for providing a safety net for the country's millions of citizens already mired in poverty.

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February 27, 2010

Music Freedom Day

By Peter Rothberg

This post was written by Chantal Flores, a Nation intern and freelance writer living in New York City.

Musicians in this country don't have it easy with the implosion of the music industry making it difficult for new acts to get paid for the work they produce. But, at least at the moment, they're free from the death threats, imprisonment, intimidation and censorship afflicting their counterparts around the globe.

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February 25, 2010

The Public Option is Back

By Peter Rothberg

After being left for dead by a bipartisan consensus, the public option is making a comeback on the strength of its popularity with the American people. Twenty-two Senators and more than 100 House members have endorsed putting the public option back on the table on the cusp of tomorrow's healthcare summit.

Writing in The Hill, Brent Budowsky vividly illustrated the absurdity of the public option's uncertain fate:

"It is sad and ridiculous that with a Democratic president who supports the public option, and with a historically large Democratic majority in the Senate, and with a near-80-vote Democratic majority in the House, and with the public option supported by a strong majority of voters, and with the public option supported by more than 70 percent of independent voters, and with the public option significantly lowering the deficit, and with the public option supported by four out of five congressional committees that have voted, and with the public option having passed the House, and with the public option supported on the record by a majority of senators, the public option cannot be passed."

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February 24, 2010