Action Alerts reposted by Citizen Press Revolution
http://www.myspace.com/citizenpressrevolution
* To those who follow through with this, let me know what responses you got, if any.
ACTION ALERT: MAKE THE LOBBYING REFORM BILL AS STRONG AS POSSIBLE
http://www.cleanupwashington.org/action/page.cfm?pageid=122
"The Senate was poised to pass S.1 – the Legislative Accountability and Transparency Act of 2007 – until last night when Senate Republicans moved, largely along party lines, to kill the lobbying and ethics bill by failing to invoke cloture and allow a vote.
The stand-off is over a dispute between Sen. Mitch McConnell (R.-KY) and Senate Majority Leader Reid (D-NV) on whether the Senate will take a vote on a "line-item" veto proposal desired by President Bush. The only Republicans to cross the aisle on the vote to invoke cloture were Norm Coleman (R.-MN) and Gordon Smith (R.-OR), both of whom face re-election in 2008. See the Roll Call here.
There will be another attempt to invoke cloture and proceed to a vote on the ethics bill this afternoon. We urge you to CALL Senate offices NOW with a new message that you expect the Senate to complete a strong lobbying and ethics reform bill.
Click here to find your Senators' phone number, or call the Senate switchboard at (202) 224-3121.
Here is a sample script:
Hello. My name is _______, and I am calling in regards to S. 1, the lobbying and ethics reform bill. I urge Senator ________ to vote for cloture and allow an immediate vote on this important bill that would reign in corruption.
I urge Senator ______ to vote in favor of S. 1, the reform bill to limit the influence of lobbyists on lawmakers and make the behavior of Congress more transparent. The Senator should vote against any amendments that weaken the bill. I would appreciate a written response from the Senator. Thank you.
Let me know who you call and what response you get by emailing me at cleanupwashington@citizen.org.
We only have a short time left to make sure that the Senate passes the strongest lobbying and ethics reform bill possible. Please call your Senator today!
Daniel De Bonis
Online Organizer
Public Citizen's Congress Watch"
ACTION ALERT: CUTTING BIG OIL SUBSIDIES OFF
http://action.citizen.org/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=6510&t=CleanUpWashington2col.dwt
Big Oil flexed its muscles when it deployed its army of lobbyists and the Congressmen tied to its purse strings - including Rep. Tom DeLay, who formerly represented Sugar Land, Texas to sneak in an earmark that could pay it back up to $1.5 billion of our taxpayer money.
Why are the most profitable corporations raking in this charity? Apparently, the $200 billion they have raked in since 2005 is not enough to fund research into new sources for natural gas.
Although removing the RPSEA earmark is not in tomorrow's bill, the new energy bill has some important improvements. It will promote clean energy and help break our ties to foreign oil.
The House of Representatives is scheduled to vote TODAY. Write your representative NOW to call their attention to the need to remove the RPSEA subsidy in future bills and to vote "YES" on H.R. 6.
ACTION ALERT: Repost these action alerts so that others might take action as well!
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I posted a comment on this post earlier warning about a hidden provision in the bill. I had found an article about how a sec 220 in this bill would only hurt bloggers and grassroots lobbyists. Later in the day I found another article stating that is not the case and the term blog or blogger does not even appear in the bill. Check it out for yourself.
BlackListed News is Your Total Resource for
Real Uncensored Daily World News, Information, and Commentary
Reality Check: Senate Bill S.1 Poses No Threat To Bloggers
Published on Thursday, January 18, 2007.
Source: Information Week- By Paul McDougall
My colleague Mitch Wagner and some other journalists have picked up on a report by an organization called Grass Roots Freedom that a Senate bill designed to bring transparency to the lobbying process could result in the jailing of political bloggers. Did you know that the bill does not even mention the words "blog" or "blogger"? There's also a couple of things you should know about "Grass Roots Freedom."
As Mitch reports on his own blog entry, Grass Roots Freedom says Senate bill S. 1 "would require grassroots causes, even bloggers, who communicate to 500 or more members of the public on policy matters, to register and report quarterly to Congress the same as the big K Street lobbyists" or face time in the slammer.
As Bill O'Reilly might say: Folks, that's just spin. First off, as I mentioned, the bill itself contains no reference to blogs or bloggers. What it does cover are paid lobbying activities, which include "paid efforts to stimulate grassroots lobbying, but do not include grass roots lobbying," according the text of the bill itself. It also indicates that the lobbyist must be receiving at least $25,000 per quarter from a client to fall under the "paid" definition.
So, sure. If a blogger is receiving what amounts to a six-figure annual salary from a client, say, Acme River Pollutants, Inc., to write blogs urging people to form a campaign to stop, say, a clean water act, then that blogger would have to register as a lobbyist or face the penalties set out in the bill.
(Note that if the blogger was simply opposing the act he or she would not fall under the bill's definition of a lobbyist. He or she would have to be urging other people to organize and oppose.)
So the notion that this would apply to individual bloggers who use the Web to disseminate their opinions or report news is pure nonsense. But don't take my word for it, read the bill yourself, it's The Legislative Accountability and Transparency Act of 2007.
Oh, and about Grass Roots Freedom? If you think it's an organization with a long tradition of promoting civil disobedience or something like that, you'd be wrong. According to Internet records, GrassRootsFreedom.comdid not exist until December 11, 2006.
And its chairman, Richard Viguerie? He's also chairman of something called American Target Advertising, to which the site GrassRootsFreedom.com is registered. And he also hosts a conservative Web forum called ConservativeHQ.com.
Are you getting the picture? Blog on.
I heard about the anti-blogging myth too. I read it. For some reason, something wasn't clicking right for me in my mind so I passed it up. However, I am definitely going to look deeper into this.
Thank you very much for the heads up on this.
More pseudo grassroots campaigns like this are popping up to purposefully confuse citizens. Its dishonest. Its disgusting. There was a similar misleading "grassroots" campaign that attacked net neutrality while saying it wanted to save it. Sick jerks.
Citizen Press Revolution