Join Mayors Against Illegal Guns

A message from Democracy for America:
If the gun lobby and their far right allies in Washington, D.C. get their way, Idaho will no longer be able to make its own decisions about who can legally carry a hidden gun. 

Domestic abusers, drug addicts, stalkers, people with violent arrest records and even people with absolutely no training who have never held a gun before could be granted a concealed gun permit in another state, and Idaho would have to honor it -- no matter what.

A coalition of more than 600 mayors from across America is mounting an aggressive campaign to stop this dangerous legislation before it becomes law, and I’m asking you to step up and help out.

Join Democracy for America and Mayors Against Illegal Guns in telling Congress -- When it comes to carrying guns in our communities it’s OUR STATE and OUR LIVES, so we should decide OUR LAWS. 

Every signature we collect will be hand-delivered to the U.S. House during an important hearing on September 13th -- when the extremists who support the gun-lobby will try to argue for the proposed concealed carry law. 

Before that happens, we need to organize as much opposition as possible from real Americans in communities nationwide.

Our petition is about protecting states’ rights and the lives of people in our communities. To make sure Congress hears us, we need you to speak out against this mandatory hidden-gun immunity.

Add your name to stop Congress from trampling your state’s rights and putting police and average citizens at risk right now. 

Washington ideologues want to call the shots on local laws that just aren’t their business. Let’s tell them that to protect OUR LIVES, let us decide OUR LAWS.

Thank you for taking action today, 

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.

9/11 Conspiracy Theories

eSKEPTIC is the email newsletter of the Skeptics Society. This week's newsletter features an explanation of the physics involved in the buildings' collapse and a refutation of some of the wilder conspiracy theories. Here's the link: http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/11-09-07/

Monsanto Lobbyist as FDA Food Safety Head?

Why is a former Monsanto lobbyist currently serving as the FDA's food safety czar waging war on small dairy farms that produce fresh milk?

While factory farm operators are getting away with serious food safety violations, raw milk dairy farmers and distributors across the country have been subjected to armed raids and hauled away in handcuffs.

The Food and Drug Administration is running sting operations followed by "guns-drawn raids usually reserved for terrorists and drug lords" as part of a crackdown on unpasteurized milk.¹ Meanwhile, the FDA is letting the highly consolidated industrial meat and factory farm industry off the hook despite growing problems.

Not surprisingly, the person responsible for prioritizing armed raids on small dairies over holding agribusiness accountable is a former Monsanto attorney and chief super lobbyist. Monsanto's Michael Taylor is the second highest-ranking official at the FDA, and as Food Safety Czar is responsible for implementing the day-to-day policies that govern the food safety laws for the U.S. ²

Tell President Obama to fire Monsanto's Michael Taylor from his job as Food Czar at the FDA. Click here to automatically sign the petition.

CREDO is joining our allies at Food Democracy Now! in calling on the president to fire Monsanto's Michael Taylor from the FDA. Midwestern farmers will play an important symbolic role in President Obama's reelection campaign. We need to let the president know that we stand with small farmers and not Monsanto!

Michael Taylor seems focused on entirely the wrong aspects of food safety enforcement. Rather than making sure that food safety inspections are done properly at our nation's largest factory farms, where antibiotic resistance has run amuck, Taylor has been leading a departmental crusade against small raw milk dairy producers. So far several dairy farmers have been subject to a year-long undercover sting operation from the East Coast to California.

Incredibly, Michael Taylor and FDA inspectors have not arrested or fined the Iowa agribusinessman — Jack DeCoster — who was wholly responsible for the half-a-billion eggs that were recalled in 2010 salmonella-tainted egg recall.³ Though this industrial agribusinessman endangered the health of millions, Michael Taylor thinks Amish farmers producing fresh milk are more deserving targets of his FDA enforcement raids with guns drawn.

While CREDO recognizes the inherent risks that are involved in food production, it's time that the U.S. government start responsibly looking into the real origins of our nation's largest food safety recalls and stop harassing family farmers trying to survive in the excessively consolidated food and agricultural sectors.

Tell President Obama to fire Monsanto's Michael Taylor from his job as Food Czar at the FDA. Click here to automatically sign the petition.

Thanks for standing up for small farmers and taking our government back from Monsanto.

Becky Bond, Political Director
CREDO Action from Working Assets

¹ "Food safety chief defends raw milk raids", San Francisco Chronicle, June 7, 2011
² "Monsanto's man Taylor returns to FDA in food-czar role", Grist, July 8, 2009.
³ "DeCoster Gets Warning, Hillandale Sales OK'd", Food Safety News, October 19, 2010.

Pay-Per-View Government, Part II

We've seen reports that at least two more Republican members of Congress -- Reps. Lou Barletta (R-PA) and Renee Ellmers (R-NC) -- are avoiding public constituent meetings this August recess, opting instead for the "pay per view" events Michael wrote to you about last week. This new "pay per view" practice mocks the spirit of Democracy and the First Amendment, and tends to weed out non-supporters in order to shield members of Congress from criticism or even challenging questions. 
Speak out now by signing our petition to members of Congress -- help us keep the heat on these representatives to hold them accountable and make them stop. 
By voting for policies as unpopular as the ones congressional Republicans have recently supported, like ending Medicare and Medicaid as we know it, it's understandable that these representatives would attract some criticism, but denying their constituents free access to them so they can cravenly hide from that criticism is wrong. -- Ben Betz, Online Strategy Manager 

From: Michael Keegan, People For the American Way
To: Ben Betz
Date: Thursday, August 18, 2011
Re: Pay-Per-View Government?
Original message:
It seems that congressional Republicans either have a severe distaste for, or a severe lack of understanding of, the First Amendment of the Constitution. 

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) is not holding any open-to-the-public town hall meetings in his district this August recess -- instead, he's charging constituents $15 for face time with their democratically elected representative. And Ryan isn't the only member of congress whose recess meetings are, as Politico put it, "strictly pay-per-view." 

Speak out by joining our petition to members of Congress now and help us draw attention to this growing problem. 

Congressmen like Ben Quayle (R-AZ) and Chip Cravaack (R-MN), instead of hosting town hall meetings, are having events hosted for them by friendly organizations with a fee for attendance. These Republican members of Congress are so desperate to shelter themselves from criticism that they are denying their constituents' basic democratic access to their elected officials. 

The First Amendment states that Americans have the right to "petition the Government for a redress of grievances" and does NOT include the words "only if they are willing and able to pay for that privilege."What Ryan and his colleagues are doing is an affront to American democracy AND to the First Amendment. 

Exercise YOUR First Amendment right and petition Congress now. 

Selective disregard of the Constitution by the Right Wing is nothing new, but this latest wave of hostility to the First Amendment is so cowardly and begs for a light to be shined on it and for accountability for the elected officials engaged in it. 

Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-CO) recently had a sign reading, "Private Property: No soliciting, No protesting, No loitering," appear outside his district office. This was in response to protests by progressive activists after Lamborn referred to President Obama as a "tar baby." However, the restriction appeared not to apply to Lamborn's supporters who held a "spontaneous" rally outside the office on Friday. 

The "no protesting" portion was removed after Lamborn received pressure for his selective allowance of free speech at his congressional office and his blatant disregard for the spirit of the First Amendment. Now we need to make sure all members of Congress are receiving similar pressure. 

Help us keep up the pressure by speaking up and joining PFAW's petition now. 

Since voting on many anti-middle class policies, especially the "Ryan Plan" attacks on Medicare and Medicaid, Republican members of Congress have been facing angry constituents at town hall meetings and protests at their offices. That's called democracy -- elected officials being held accountable by their constituents. 

By outsourcing meetings to third parties that raise money on the events, members of Congress are ducking all but their most supportive constituents, and in some cases, creating a misleading media narrative by allowing in local reporters and TV cameras. 

If these Republican members of Congress are so scared of Democracy, then they're in the wrong business. 

Please help us keep the pressure on by joining our petition and then by helping to spread the word. 

As always, thank you for all you do. 

Sincerely,

Michael Keegan