Up-Date from Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders

The debate over raising the debt ceiling and deficit reduction is coming down to the wire and I wanted to take a moment to update you on what is going on in Washington.

Despite the fact that Democrats control the White House and the Senate, it is right-wing Republicans who are calling the shots and setting the agenda. Unless we fight back vigorously, Congress and President Obama will give the American people exactly what they don’t want.

Poll after poll shows that the American people want Congress to focus on job creation and that they want deficit reduction to be done in a way which is fair and which requires shared sacrifice. They do not want the budget to be balanced on the backs of those people who are already hurting through massive cuts in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, education, child care, nutrition, affordable housing, fuel assistance and environmental protection. They want millionaires and billionaires to start paying their fair share in taxes, and they want the removal of massive loopholes which enable many large corporations to avoid taxes. They also want a significant reduction in military spending.

Republican leaders talk about three or four trillion dollars in spending cuts over the next ten years, with no new taxes on the wealthy and large corporations and unless we turn the tide NOW, they will get pretty much what they want.

Please understand what they mean. While no specific proposals have been adopted as of this date, here are some of the ideas which have been discussed.

SOCIAL SECURITY: Revising the formula which determines cost of living increases (COLAs) so that in ten years, a 75-year-old will receive $560 a year less in benefits and in 20 years an 85-year-old will receive $1,000 a year less. Further, another provision which would require that Social Security always be solvent for 75 years would likely mean even larger cuts in benefits. All of this would take place despite the fact that Social Security has not contributed one penny to the deficit and has a $2.6 trillion surplus today. This new formula would also cut back on the pensions of veterans.

MEDICARE: Raising the eligibility age from 65 to 67 and/or cutting benefits by $250 billion over ten years. Now you tell me, how are 66 year old Americans with modest means going to afford health insurance with a private company – especially if they have medical problems? It’s not going to happen. They are going to suffer. Some will unnecessarily die.

MEDICAID: At a time when 50 million Americans already have no health insurance, Republicans and some Democrats are proposing to cut hundreds of billions from Medicaid which means that many men, women and children will lose the health insurance they have. According to a Harvard University study, some 45,000 Americans die each year because they don’t get to a doctor when they should. How many more will die if Medicaid is slashed? How many children will be thrown off of the Children’s Health Insurance Program?

EDUCATION: Today, childcare and college education are already unaffordable for millions of working families and Head Start has long waiting lists. If Republicans and some Democrats get their way, Pell grants and other educational programs will be deeply slashed. Affordable childcare and a college education will no longer be possible for many families in our country.

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AND INFRASTRUCTURE: Forget about the government having the ability to protect the people from corporations who want to evade regulations within the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act. With massive cuts in the EPA, the resources will not be there. Forget about this country having the investment capability to transform our energy system to energy efficiency and sustainable energy. Forget about creating millions of jobs rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure and improving our public transportation system.

At a time of growing hunger in America there will be massive cuts to nutrition programs. We have a crisis in homelessness, and there will be cuts to affordable housing. While we need more funds for research and development in disease prevention and other areas, fewer funds will be available. And on and on it goes.

Yes, the time is late, but we can still make a huge difference.

As, perhaps, the most progressive member of the Senate, I will continue to stand for a deficit reduction plan which is fair, which requires the wealthy and large corporations to begin paying their fair share of taxes and contribute at least 50 percent toward any plan which is adopted. I will also demand that Congress take a hard look at excessive military spending.

This nightmare can be avoided, if, as progressives, we continue to stand together for social justice and common decency. Thank you for all that you do.

Sincerely,


Senator Bernie Sanders

Student Aid & the Debt-Ceiling Debate

From today's issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education:

Student Aid Teeters in the Debt-Ceiling Debate

July 29, 2011, 2:50 pm

By Jeffrey Selingo

As I watched the seemingly endless debt-ceiling drama in the U.S. House of Representatives unfold last night on CNN, I wondered if I was witnessing a moment in higher-education history that one day might be recalled as the point when short-term political gamesmanship won out over the country’s long-term economic success.

If you’ve been following the debt debate in Washington, you know that, as of this minute, there are two competing proposals—one in the House, one in the Senate—to raise the debt ceiling by next week. Both would cut spending over all, but both also include a provision that would actually raise spending to deal with shortfalls in the Pell Grant program for the next two years ($17-billion in the House plan and $18-billion in the Senate plan).

It seems that the provision has been a big stumbling block in getting conservative Republicans to back any debt-ceiling plan. “I really don’t understand why we’re increasing spending in a bill [that's] supposed to be cutting spending,” Rep. Andy Harris, a freshman Republican from Maryland, told The Hill, a newspaper that covers Congress.

But even if one of those plans eventually is enacted, the money would provide only temporary help for the Pell Grant program. The bottom line is that, with federal spending caps likely to be part of any deal on the debt ceiling and long-term deficit reduction, federal student aid is facing some sort of major cut. The Obama administration wants to protect the Pell Grant because it’s the primary aid program for low-income students. But doing that will come at the expense of other higher-education programs, and there is probably not enough money in those cuts to save Pell as it is andcut the budget deficit.

So changes in the Pell program are inevitable. Lots of ideas have been thrown about, including cutting the maximum award, limiting eligibility to fewer semesters, and giving small grants in the first year.

Those will be the debates in Washington over the coming years: discussion about how to limit access to higher education rather than ways to strengthen the economy through increasing access to some form of postsecondary education. In many ways, the discussion will follow the playbook of the “don’t go to college” crowd that has flooded the airwaves in recent months.

But as David Leonhardt of The New York Times so succinctly put it this week in acolumn: “The next time you hear naysayers poor-mouth college, ask them if they plan to send their own children.”

Sure, the Pell Grant program and other federal student-aid programs have their problems. If Washington needed partisan debates to survive, then Congress and the administration should be discussing how to make the programs more accountable with the money they have, not just slash spending.

As the debate has unfolded, we were reminded again this week about how important rising levels of education are to the country’s long-term success. According to a report inThe Wall Street Journal, workers “without college degrees find well-paying jobs scarce in the modern U.S. economy.” There are 25.3 million Americans over age 25 without high-school diplomas, and only 9.8 million, or less than 40 percent of them, were working in June. About 1.6 million said they were looking for work; the rest weren’t even looking.

Many more might not even be looking if the current political system doesn’t begin looking for real solutions.

Support Pell Grants

Invest in the Future: Support Pell Grants!	Take Action!
Pell Grants -- which help more than nine million students afford college -- are facing massive cuts. The students who receive these grants, disproportionately women and minority students, are at risk of being among the victims of Washington’s current budget battle. Cuts to Pell would not only devastate the futures of the students who rely on it, but also our economy, which desperately needs more college-educated workers to rebound. Pell Grants and other federal tuition assistance constitute a direct investment in the future and long-term economic strength of our country. Today, the American Association of University Women and our allies across the country are standing up in support of Pell Grants. We're making sure Congress understands that cuts to Pell would hurt millions of Americans and weaken our economy moving forward. Tell your members of Congress that slashing Pell is not an option. Tell them why higher education matters and why denying it to millions of women and minority students will undermine the economic recovery. To send a message, click on the "Take Action" link in the upper right hand corner of this email. Remember: You can always help strengthen AAUW's efforts to support access to higher education by making a tax-deductible donation to AAUW's Public Policy Fund! Double your impact! Tweet, Facebook, and forward this action alert to friends and family. Follow AAUW on Twitter, and read our award-winning AAUW Dialog Blog for discussion, information, and advocacy for women and girls! General AAUW questions? Please contact connect@aauw.org or call 800/326-2289 between 10 am and 5 pm Eastern, Monday through Friday.

Protect Access to Birth Control

Clicking here will automatically add your name to this petition to Secretary Sebelius: "Dear Secretary Sebelius, Now that the Institute of Medicine has issued its report, please do the right thing for women and designate birth control as preventive care. Your decision should be guided by medicine, not politics. There's no question that access to contraceptives has a significant, positive impact on women's health."

Automatically add your name:

Time and time again, extreme anti-choice groups have put pressure on the Obama administration and won rollbacks on women's health care. Now these same groups are targeting women's access to contraceptives. 

Under the new health care law, the Department of Health and Human Services must decide which preventive services are to be covered by insurance companies at no additional cost.

On Tuesday, the well-respected Institute of Medicine concluded that contraceptives are critical to women's health, and recommended that they should be considered preventive health care.

But the final decision about the designation rests with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

Tell Secretary Sebelius: Protect women's health by designating contraceptives as preventive care. Click here to automatically sign the petition.

The medical community is strongly in support of access to birth control, with the president of The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists saying that "unimpeded access to affordable contraceptives for all women is foundational."¹

But the anti-women theocrats on the right are up in arms because they literally oppose birth control, and are demanding that Secretary Sebelius reject the findings of the medical community.

This small but vocal anti-contraception fringe is fighting to turn a medical decision into a political one. And they are trying to muddy the waters by turning this into a debate about abortion.

Without a strong public outcry in support of women's right to access birth control, the Obama administration could decide to side with the extremists once again and throw women under the bus.

Tell Secretary Sebelius to do the right thing for women and designate birth control as preventive care for women. Click here to automatically sign the petition.

Thank you for standing up for women's health.

Ali Rozell, Campaign Manager CREDO Action from Working Assets

1. "Birth control should be fully covered under health plans, report says ," Madison Park, CNN, 07-19-2011.

Stop Taxpayer Funds to Bachmann's Anti-Gay Clinic

Clicking here will automatically add your name to this petition to Sec. Sebelius and Cmsr. Edward Ehlinger:

"Public money shouldn't fund a discriminatory, hateful religious agenda and medically-unsound ex-gay therapy. In light of recent investigations, please take action to immediately stop funding Bachmann and Associates."

Automatically add your name: 

So-called gay conversion therapy has been denounced by the scientific and medical communities as ineffective, and potentially dangerous.

But an investigation earlier this month exposed that this hateful practice is used by the "quality Christian counseling clinic" owned by Michele Bachmann and her husband¹ — a clinic which was recently discovered to have received over $137,000 in federal Medicaid funds, in addition to $24,000 in other state and federal funds.²

It's bad enough that Bachmann and Associates, after denying for years they practiced ex-gay therapy, clearly encourages patients to pray the gay away. Our taxpayer dollars shouldn't be funding it.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which oversees Medicaid, and the Minnesota Department of Health (DEH), which distributes the funds within the state, should immediately pull public funds from Bachmann's clinic.

Tell Secretary Sebelius and DEH Commissioner Edward Ehlinger: Stop funding Bachmann's anti-gay clinic. Click here to automatically sign the petition.

Going to the Bachmann family for counseling is like attending a peace rally hosted by Dick Cheney.

Their views are extreme, hateful and crazy. Michele Bachmann has called homosexuality "a part of Satan," and "a real issue of sexual dysfunction" while her husband Marcus has called gays "barbarians."

And even as Michele Bachmann's family was collecting over $160,000 in Medicaid and other public funds, she was leading Tea Party calls for drastic cuts to the social safety net — especially to Medicaid which she has said swell the "welfare rolls" — and even voted to shut down the government rather than continue funding Planned Parenthood and the Health Care Reform Act.³

Yet when reports broke of the Medicaid payments to her family, Bachmann suddenly became sensitive to discrimination, declaring "it would be discriminatory not to accept Medicaid as a form of payment."⁴

It would be stunning to keep funding with public money a clinic that promotes an anti-gay, religious agenda and medically-unsound services. HHS and Minnesota DEH must take a stand now.

Tell Secretary Sebelius and DEH Commissioner Edward Ehlinger: Stop funding Bachmann's anti-gay clinic. Click here to automatically sign the petition.

Thank you for fighting publicly funded hate.

Elijah Zarlin, Campaign Manager CREDO Action from Working Assets

1. "Undercover Investigation Confirms Bachmann Clinic Provides Discredited, Damaging 'Ex-Gay' Therapy," ThinkProgress, July 8, 2011
2. "Bachmann's husband got $137,000 in Medicaid funds," MSNBC, June 28, 2011
3. "Bachmann voted for government shutdown because of abortion," The Minnesota Independent, March 2, 2011
4. "Bachmann responds to Medicaid payout report, CNN, June 29, 2011

Help Stop Sexual Violence on Campus!

This week, the AAUW Action Fund Capitol Hill Lobby Corps are visiting members of Congress to build support for a critical piece of legislation that would fight sexual violence on our nation's campuses. They hope to reinforce the message you can send today: Help stop sexual violence and assault by cosponsoring the Campus SaVE Act!

A 2007 campus sexual-assault study by the U.S. Department of Justice found that around 28 percent of women are targets of attempted or completed sexual assault while they are college students. The Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network (RAINN) reports that college-age women are four times more likely than any other age group to face sexual assault. There is an epidemic of sexual violence on campuses, and we must take steps to stop it.

The Campus Sexual Violence Elimination (SaVE) Act (H.R. 2016) would help to end sexual assault and violence on campus by requiring schools to spell out their policies, conduct prevention activities, and ensure necessary assistance for victims. It would constitute a step toward ending the sort of violence which prevents women from attaining their educational dreams.

Ask your representative to cosponsor and support this important piece of legislation!

To send a message, click on the "Take Action" link in the upper right hand corner of this email.

Remember: You can always help strengthen AAUW's efforts to fight sexual violence and assault by clicking here to make a tax-deductible donation to AAUW's Public Policy Fund!

Double your impact! Tweet, Facebook, and forward this action alert to friends and family. 

---

Follow AAUW on Twitter, and read our award-winning AAUW Dialog Blog for discussion, information, and advocacy for women and girls

Wisconsin TV Ad

Which would you vote for -- tax breaks for millionaires or essential funding for schools?

Luther Olsen voted for the millionaires and now he's one of six Wisconsin Republicans being recalled for his attacks on working families.

We just finished a new TV ad showing how Olsen's votes to cut school funding and support tax breaks for the rich has devastated communities across Wisconsin. Take a look and please contribute $10 to keep it on the air.
Last night, the first recall election was a big win for progressives. Republicans tried recalling Democratic State Senator Dave Hansen for standing up to their radical right-wing agenda -- and he crushed their Tea Party candidate by a two-to-one margin.

That's a win for the defense, but we need to recall at least three Republicans next month to take back the State Senate and end the right-wing war on working families. Here's what we're doing to win:

Right now, DFA Wisconsin Field Director Nick Passanante is on the ground leading our largest field program ever. So far, we've knocked on 20,262 doors in Republican State Senate Districts 8, 10 and 32.

Thousands of DFA and PCCC volunteers nationwide have teamed up to make over 70,000 calls to Wisconsin voters as part of our Call Out The Vote program.

Now, we're expanding our campaign into District 14 with our first television ad.

Our TV ads earlier this year got massive media attention for featuring real Wisconsinites. We don't make cookie-cutter ads -- we feature real people hurt by Scott Walker and his right-wing Republican war on working families.
Please contribute $10 now to keep our new TV ad on the air.

We're not taking anything for granted. We're going to keep hitting Republicans for their attacks on middle class Wisconsin families -- on the air, on the ground and on the phone -- until we win.

Thank you for everything you do.
Charles Chamberlain, Political Director
Democracy for America

Democracy for America relies on you and the people-power of more than one million members to fund the grassroots organizing and training that delivers progressive change on the issues that matter. Please Contribute Today and support our mission.

Live Blogging of Murdoch Testimony

A message from Media Matters:

We're providing on-going live blogging of the Murdochs testifying in front of Parliament on the phone hacking scandal. For up to the minute commentary of the proceedings, tune in here:

http://newscorpwatch.org/newscorpnews/201107180024

Sincerely,

Matt Butler

Crazy to Cut Medicare

Clicking here will automatically add your name to this petition to Rep. Simpson:

"Don't mess with our Social Security and Medicare benefits. Pass a clean bill to raise the debt ceiling and get on with the task of governing."

Automatically add your name: 

In this week's column, Paul Krugman laid it out pretty simply — he said the Republicans have gone insane. ¹

Republicans won't even discuss raising taxes, they want to cut Social Security and Medicare and they're being totally obstructionist in debt ceiling negotiations. Some of the Republicans are even willing to drive our economy into another recession by forcing our government to default on our debt for the first time in history.

It's gone too far. And it's insane that the people controlling the House of Representatives are acting like this.

Republicans like Rep. Simpson need to hear from their constituents.

Tell Rep. Simpson: Don't mess with our Social Security and Medicare benefits. Pass a clean bill to raise the debt ceiling and get on with the task of governing. Click here to automatically sign the petition.

In his column, titled "Getting to Crazy" Krugman wrote:

President Obama has made it clear that he's willing to sign on to a deficit-reduction deal that consists overwhelmingly of spending cuts, and includes draconian cuts in key social programs, up to and including a rise in the age of Medicare eligibility. These are extraordinary concessions. As The Times's Nate Silver points out, the president has offered deals that are far to the right of what the average American voter prefers — in fact, if anything, they're a bit to the right of what the average Republican voter prefers!

Yet Republicans are saying no. Indeed, they're threatening to force a U.S. default, and create an economic crisis, unless they get a completely one-sided deal. And this was entirely predictable.

What's become predictable is that years of normalizing extreme behavior by Republicans has culminated in a Crazy Caucus in Congress. The vast majority of Americans oppose cuts to Social Security and Medicare. Period. That the debate in Congress could drift so far to the right that the Republicans would wreck the economy to prove an ideological point is a new low.

Republicans need a reality check.

Tell Rep. Simpson: Don't mess with our Social Security and Medicare benefits. It's time to pass a clean bill to raise the debt ceiling and get on with the task of governing. Click here to automatically sign the petition.

Krugman closes his column by noting that "there has been no pressure on the G.O.P. to show any kind of responsibility, or even rationality — and sure enough, it has gone off the deep end."

We agree. We need you to be part of that pressure. Even though we know it is unlikely that Republicans will break ranks and do the right thing, we must hold individual Republicans like Rep. Simpson accountable to reality and let them know how insane we think their plan to cut our Social Security and Medicare benefits is.

Thank you for speaking out.

Matt Lockshin, Campaign Manager 

CREDO Action from Working Assets

1. "Getting to Crazy," Paul Krugman, New York Times, 07-14-2011.

Obama Rejects Student Loan Debt Increase

From The Chronicle of Higher Education, July 13, 2011

Obama Strongly Rejects Republican Proposal That Would Increase Student Debt

By Kelly Field

Washington

President Obama is pushing back against a Republican effort to end the in-school interest subsidy on federal student loans, The Daily Beast reports.

According to the news site's report, the president reacted angrily when the House majority leader, Rep. Eric I. Cantor, proposed the cut during deficit-reduction talks on Tuesday. Sources said the president objected to the Republicans' growing list of spending-cut proposals and lack of compromise on the tax-increase side, saying, "I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to take money from old people and screw students."

Mr. Obama and Congressional leaders have been mired in negotiations over legislation to raise the federal debt limit and reduce the deficit for several days, with Republicans insisting that any new borrowing be offset by spending cuts. The stakes in the negotiations are high: The federal government is expected to reach its borrowing limit on August 2, and without a deal, the country is likely to default on its debt.

Ending the in-school interest subsidy on student loans would save the government $43-billion over 10 years, according to a 2010 report by the chairmen of a deficit-reduction commission appointed by President Obama, which endorsed the cut.

This is not the first time that the interest subsidy has been on the chopping block. Republicans proposed requiring students to pay interest on their loans while still in college as far back as 1994, as part of their "Contract With America." House Republicans revived the idea in their budget blueprint for the 2012 fiscal year, arguing that there is "no evidence" that the subsidy increases college attendance. Even President Obama has supported ending the interest subsidy for graduate students—but not undergraduates—as a way to cover the shortfall in the Pell Grant program.

Here's a link to the article and to the readers' comment:  http://chronicle.com/article/Obama-Strongly-Rejects/128217/?sid=pm&utm_source=pm&utm_medium=en

Take 23 Seconds to Send a Message

Cheryl says: It took me just 23 seconds to use this link to read and send a message to President Obama, John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid. Won't you take 23 seconds to let these decision-makers know what you think?

A message from Feminist Majority:

President Obama and Congressional leaders are entering a critical phase in the negotiations to raise the debt ceiling and prevent default on the Nation's legal obligations. Feminists must speak out loud and clear.

Please sign our letter and tell President Obama and the Congressional leaders they must not balance the nation's budget on the backs of women, children, the elderly, and the disabled.
Whether the Republicans like it or not, the budget deficits cannot be reduced by cutting spending alone. Revenue must be raised by increasing taxes on the wealthy, closing loopholes for major corporations, and ending federal subsidies to profit-bloated oil corporations.
The Republicans are refusing to raise taxes on the wealthy or major corporations even though House Republicans passed, in a straight party line vote, the 2012 Ryan budget which eliminates Medicare for future generations. Plus it both cuts drastically the Medicaid program by $750 billion and converts it to block grants to states. This means instead of eligible poverty-level people (such as pregnant women, children, elderly and disabled persons) having rights of access to benefits, they will be at the mercy of individual states.

Nor can we let our national leaders eliminate or drastically cut vitally needed women's programs such as both domestic and international reproductive health and family planning programs. This has nothing to do with cutting the budget. Every $1 spent on family planning saves the government some $4.
Now national media are reporting that the President may put Social Security on the table and that the Cost of Living adjustments could be reduced by a new calculation based on the Chained Consumer Price Index. This would result in a smaller cost of living adjustment (COLA) despite the fact that seniors' medical costs have been increasing at a rate higher than inflation. The average Social Security monthly payment to women is $1000. President Obama and Congressional Democrat leaders have stood strong for Social Security; this must not change now. Retired women need real COLA increases.
We must stand strong for family planning, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Let President Obama and Congressional leaders hear from you now.

For women's lives,

Eleanor Smeal
President
Feminist Majority

1600 Wilson Boulevard, Suite 801, Arlington, VA 22209 | 703.522.2214 |femmaj@feminist.org

Tell Obama: Protect Social Security

Speak out before it's too late. Click here for the number to call and a sample script.

A message from CREDO Action:

According to the New York Times¹ and theWashington Post², President Obama has offered Republicans a budget deficit deal that would lower the deficit with trillions in cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid — programs that had previously been off the table.

This is disastrously wrong.

Republican pundit David Frum had it right when he said, "The debt ceiling negotiations have amounted to a succession of retreats and concessions by President Obama."³

We can't be silent and allow President Obama to cave to Republicans, and put some of the most important and successful programs in our country on the chopping block.

House Democrats and most Democratic Senators have already said they will not go along. It is not too late.

Call the White House and tell President Obama: Protect Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Click here for the number to call and a sample script.

The debt limit negotiations don't have to play out this way. There's absolutely no reason why negotiations about the federal deficit had to take place in the context of looming financial catastrophe if the debt ceiling isn't raised.

By insisting that the debt ceiling vote be tied to long-term deficit reduction, the Republicans simply took the financial health of this country hostage. And rather than repudiating that strategy or calling the Republicans out for it, President Obama responded as though he could win the Republicans over through appeasement.

We are now seeing the results of this negotiating failure. And the best thing we can do right now is speak out to prevent President Obama from making a catastrophic mistake.

Call the White House and tell President Obama: Protect Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Click here for the number to call and a sample script.

The simple fact of the matter is that Republicans are willing to tank the economy for their perceived electoral benefit. And they're willing to drive our economy into another recession rather than raise taxes on the Koch brothers. If anything we should be expanding these programs, not cutting them during this time of extreme economic duress.

President Obama needs to stop trying to play the reasonable negotiator when the group he's negotiating with does not have the best interests of the country in mind. If the New York Times story is true, President Obama will enable Republicans to push through a radical agenda to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid — a feat that even George W. Bush couldn't pass despite a Republican Congress.

President Obama needs to stand up for something other than "the spirit of bipartisan compromise" with the most extreme and irresponsible elements of the Republican Party. Tell President Obama he needs to draw a line in the sand, for his own sake and for the good of the country.

Call the White House and tell President Obama: Protect Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Click here for the number to call and a sample script.

Thank you for speaking out.

Matt Lockshin, Campaign Manager 

CREDO Action from Working Assets

Footnotes:

¹ "Obama to Push for Wider Deal With G.O.P. on Deficit Cuts," Carl Hulse and Mark Landler, New York Times, July 6, 2011. 

² "In debt talks, Obama offers Social Security cuts," Lori Montgomery, Washington Post, July 6, 2011

³ "Obama plays nice, GOP turns tough," David Frum, CNN, July 5, 2011. 

Recall Right-Wing Legislators

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's overreaching, undemocratic and anti-middle class law taking away collective bargaining rights for public employees went into effect yesterday. In Wisconsin, right-wing lawmakers have waged all out war on working families and the American Dream, not only stripping workers' most fundamental right to bargain collectively and therefore have a voice, but trying to divide the middle class against itself by demonizing public sector workers. 
As similar right-wing attacks spring up in more and more states around the country, Wisconsin's recall election laws allow us to do something to stem the tide now. 

Winning in Wisconsin is the first step towards winning in other states AND winning nationally in 2012. Help us Recall the Right in Wisconsin and stop the overreaching agenda that threatens to undo everything that makes this country great.

Find out more at RecallTheRight.org