Common Sense Democracy

Tomorrow is the big day: thousands of MoveOn members from Nashville, Tennessee to Phoenix, Arizona will come together at more than 300 rallies across the country to demand an “oil-free” future.

Tomorrow’s National Day of Action is really important because this weekend is the 4th of July holiday and gas prices are on everyone’s minds. We need to seize this moment to make sure the media and the public know that the Republican addiction to oil money is keeping gas prices high and holding America back from the clean energy future that we desperately need.

Can you join us at a rally near you?

National Day of Action for an “Oil-Free” Congress
Where: 5 Star Parking across the street from Bob Stivers Shell Station at 10th and A
1011 A St.
San Diego, CA
When: Wednesday, 28 Jun 2006, 4:00 PM
Link to RSVP: http://political.moveon.org/event/oilfree/9551?id=8139-4350126-l5TwvpSTl1nApWx_ZMUtlA&t=3

National Day of Action for an “Oil-Free” Congress
Where: Mobil Station Hwy 67 (aka Main St)
16992 Sky Valley Rd
Ramona, CA
When: Wednesday, 28 Jun 2006, 4:00 PM
Link to RSVP: http://political.moveon.org/event/oilfree/9650?id=8139-4350126-l5TwvpSTl1nApWx_ZMUtlA&t=3
Or click here to search for events near you:

http://political.moveon.org/event/oilfree/?search_zip=92103&id=8139-4350126-l5TwvpSTl1nApWx_ZMUtlA&t=4

As we write this email, Republicans are using the national frustration with gas prices as an excuse to push through even more giveaways to Big Oil instead of getting serious about clean energy alternatives that can move us away from oil.

Why? Because the oil industry has bought the majority stake in the Republican party. Big Oil has given hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign contributions to Republicans and in return, Big Oil has received billions in subsidies from Congress.

We can’t afford Congress’ addiction to oil money anymore. It keeps gas prices high, keeps us dependent on the Middle East and is blocking progress on a clean energy future,

Congress needs to know that we’re paying attention. We need them to start working for us, not Big Oil. Tomorrow we’re going to make it clear that we want an oil-free, clean energy future and we want it now.

Can you join us on our National Day of Action for an “Oil-Free” Congress?

http://political.moveon.org/event/oilfree/?search_zip=92103&id=8139-4350126-l5TwvpSTl1nApWx_ZMUtlA&t=5

Renewable and alternative energy sources, like biofuels, hybrids, solar and wind power are ready today, but Congress’s addiction to oil money is holding us back. Breaking the addiction to oil is the first step towards energy independence and the clean energy future we all want.

Thanks for all you do,

–Nita, Matt, Tom, Eli and the MoveOn.org Political Action Team
Tuesday, June 27th, 2006

Support our member-driven organization: MoveOn.org Political Action is entirely funded by our 3.3 million members. We have no corporate contributors, no foundation grants, no money from unions. Our tiny staff ensures that small contributions go a long way. If you’d like to support our work, you can give now at:

http://www.moveonpac.org/donate/email.html?id=8139-4350126-l5TwvpSTl1nApWx_ZMUtlA&t=6

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ExxonMobil recently announced the largest quarterly profits—$9.9 billion—of any American corporation in history. Of course nobody is going to condemn the right of a business to earn profit, it’s the reason businesses exist and is the cornerstone of a healthy capitalistic society. We are not, after-all, a socialist state. But there are currently congressional hearings going on regarding the recent oil industry profits and whether ExxonMobil is unfairly raising prices while at the same time crushing any and all attempts to fund alternative energy research.

Via MoveOn:

During yesterday’s hearings on recent record oil industry profits, Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) told the oil executives, “People are concerned about fairness and justice at a time of sacrifice. Your sacrifice appears to be nothing.”….

The only answer to the current energy crisis is energy independence. That’s something we’ll be working on together in the next few weeks—one of the big positive things progressives stand for. And we’re starting with ExxonMobil, the biggest obstacle in the way.

Exxon owes much of its lobbying success to close ties to Republican leaders. Over the last decade, Exxon has given more than $5.2 million to Republicans, while giving less than $650,000 to Democrats.3 This year 91% of Exxon’s political contributions have gone to Republicans.4 In turn, Republican energy policy has amounted to a series of massive handouts to the oil industry. Even now, with Republicans grandstanding with show hearings on television, they refused to make the oil executives testify under oath.5 Together with the coalition, we’ll deliver your petition signature to ExxonMobil CEO Lee Raymond, and we’ll send a copy to Congress to help break Exxon’s stranglehold on our government.

There are four main areas in which Exxon needs drastic change:

1. With gas prices near $3 a gallon, it’s outrageous to watch ExxonMobil rake in record profits while refusing to support greater fuel economy or invest significant amounts in cleaner, healthier energy.
2. ExxonMobil is the only oil company that remains part of Arctic Power, the group lobbying Congress to open the pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. Congress will cast the final vote on drilling in the Arctic shortly.
3. ExxonMobil has spent over $15 million since 1998 to deny the existence of global warming by funding junk science groups to cloud the debate. The company lobbies against efforts to fight global warming even as it alone is responsible for 5% of the world’s output of the main type of global warming pollution.
4. Remember the Exxon Valdez tragedy? Exxon’s tanker killed hundreds of thousands of seals, otters, birds, fish and whales when it spilled 11 million gallons of thick, deadly crude oil into the waters of Alaska’s pristine Prince William Sound. Yet despite making a record profit of $25 billion last year, ExxonMobil is still shirking payment of the full amount it owes fishermen and natives hurt by the spill 16 years ago!

The Exxpose Exxon campaign includes a dozen leading environmental and public interest groups, including the Union of Concerned Scientists, U.S. Public Interest Research Group (U.S. PIRG), True Majority, the Alaska Coalition, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Defenders of Wildlife, and more.

If you want to learn more about his issue and sign a MoveOn.org petition to ExxonMobil, you can click on this link: http://political.moveon.org/exxon/?id=6320-4350126-2Vyr_9mTzR32AKYeWNjb5g&t=3.

Technorati Tags: ExxonMobil, Movon.org, energy, global+warming

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Via Yahoo! News.

The Supreme Court has ruled that the government can take a person’s home or business for new development projects.

By a 5-4 vote, the high court upheld as constitutional the taking by New London, Connecticut of 15 properties belonging to nine residents or investment owners for a project to complement a nearby research facility by the Pfizer Inc. drug company.

….
Stevens upheld the city’s plan under the U.S. Constitution, which allows the government to take private property through its so-called eminent domain powers in exchange for just compensation.

In her dissenting opinion, Justice Sandra Day O’Conner wrote, “Any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private party, but the fallout from this decision will not be random. The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms.”

I suppose historically, this isn’t a new policy of our government; they’ve been pushing people off private lands since the pilgrims first landed on Plymouth Rock. It does seem, however that in this day and age, and given our country’s rich tradition of the American dream and owning land, individual rights would prevail in the face of big business, power and influence.

If you can’t feel safe and secure and proud in the home you’ve worked for and earned for your family, what do you really have as an American. Our rights seem so temporary when the government collectively swings it’s might.

Makes me think back on John Steinbeck’s novel, “The Grapes of Wrath” (novel, movie). We have not come very far.

Read the full article at Yahoo! News.

Technorati Tags: Supreme+Court, eminent+domain, constitution, land+ownership, Pfizer, New+London, Justice+Sandra+Day+O’Conner, government, John+Steinbeck, The+Grapes+of+Wrath

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Blogs and Google Adsense go hand-in-hand. In case you’re not familiar with Google Adsense, it’s the advertising program sponsored by Google that allows site owners to put those little ad boxes along the margins, headers and footers of websites. Webmasters earn revenue from the clicks on the ad links. The type of ads that appear on a site depend on the content of the page and Google’s technology serves up ads that it thinks are relevant to the topic of the page based on various keywords and phrases. Most site owners use Adsense as a way to defer costs of maintaining the site (as is the case with Common Sense Democracy). One of things I find quite amusing is to watch the types of ads that are being served to my sites change based on what I’m blogging about that week. This brings me to the point of this post. This week the story broke on the Watergate’s “Deep Throat” and I posted several references to the news with various links to other sources. Shortly after, the Google Adsense ads stopped appearing on the home page of this site. This is not unusual, as occassionally the druids over at Google play with the algorithms that cause blips across the universe. What is unusual is the lengh of time the ads have not appeared. Digging deeping into other pages, I realized that the ads are showing in other areas, which rules out the argument that Common Sense Democracy was being somehow blocked or reindexed in it’s entirety. One conclusion I came up with was that Google just simply didn’t like the term “Deep Throat”. Perhaps their engines have determined this term to be profanity and so the ads are filtered on any page referencing this content.

Anyway, it’s just a theory. I’d be interested to hear from anyone else who has experienced this phenomenon.

Technorati Tags: Google, adsense, Google Adsense, deep throat, blog, profanity, search engine marketing

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Wal-Mart, the largest employer in America, is using its economic power to force taxpayers to pay for costs every other large company in the US pays for. They are using the savings to increase the profits to their shareholders. According to Wal-Mart’s latest annual report , their own website, and SEC filings, Wal-Mart is the world’s largest retailer ($285 Billion in sales) and the largest employer in the US (1.6 million employees around the world). They account for 3% of global retail sales and they are immensely profitable. Said their President to their shareholders, “Our fiscal year ending January 31, 2005 was another record year for Wal-Mart. We topped $10 Billion in net income for the first time in our history and added almost $29 Billion in sales.” The results were so good they increased their dividends to shareholders and gave their President a $4 million bonus. So Wal-Mart isn’t hurting.

Wal-Mart’s average wage is $9.68 an hour. That’s $19,300 a year, $1,600 a month. And that’s the average, many make less. The result is that many of Wal-Mart’s 1.3 million US employees live below the poverty line and many are eligable for Medicaid, the state programs that provide healthcare to the indigent. The result is that state governments around the US are having to pay for the cost of healthcare for an employer who last year made $10 Billion in profits. And who paid the bill? The taxpayers, of course. This is going to become a big scandal as more and more states wake up to what’s happening.

In Georgia, 10,000 children of Wal-Mart employees were in the states’s Medicaid program. The same report identified a hospital in North Carolina where “31 percent of its 1,900 patients were Wal-Mart employees on Medicaid, and an additional 16 percent were Wal-Mart employees with no insurance at all.” And in California the University of California at Berkley reported that “the healthcare expenses of uninsured Wal-Mart employees were costing the already economically-strapped state $32 million a year in taxpayer funds.” A TV station in Des Moines found the same thing in Iowa. In Alabama 3,864 children of Wal-Mart employees have cost the state as much as $8.2 million. In Florida, 12,300 Wal-Mart workers are eligible for Medicaid and 29,900 Wal-Mart employees and dependents have enrolled in Medicaid. There have been similar findings in West Virginia, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Washington State and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

How have the states reacted? The New York Times reported on 5/6/05 that Maryland recently passed a bill requiring employers to spend at least 8 percent of their payroll on healthcare benefits. Connecticut is considering the same. Massachusetts and Colorado are considering tracking and publishing the names of employers whose employees’ healthcare is being paid by taxpayers.

The public policy issue is straightforward. Should a company like Wal-Mart, who is wildly successful by any measure, have the right to force many of their employees to look to Medicaid for their healthcare? I can’t think of a single reason that Wal-Mart could use to justify their policy. It’s greed, pure and simple. The largest emplyer on earth is forcing individuals to live below the poverty line just because they can.

Technorati Tags: Medicaid, Wal-Mart, healthcare costs

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