Showing posts with label SierraRise. Show all posts
Showing posts with label SierraRise. Show all posts
Friday, December 6, 2013
Monsanto are still at it - of course
This just in from SierraRise:
`Senator Blanche Lincoln used to serve as Chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee. She was sometimes called "the Senator from Wal-Mart," [7] and her other clients have included oil giants Valero and ConocoPhillips, everybody's favorite cable provider Comcast, and credit giant Experian. She's clearly an influential figure in Washington, and now she's ready to cash in for "the world's most evil corporation."'
Yes, she's sold her pathetic, shrivelled soul to Monsanto.
Read on - "It's easy to see why Monsanto was voted the world's most evil corporation for 2013. [1] Two examples from just the last 30 days might almost be enough to win the title all on their own.
Last week, 20 environmental activists were brutally assaulted for protesting the biotech giant in Argentina. [2] And in the November 5 election, Monsanto broke spending records to defeat a Washington ballot initiative that would simply label genetically engineered food (GMOs). [3, 4] What are they hiding?
But we've been shining a light on Monsanto's shady activities. Thanks to SierraRise supporters like you, it's not just the Big Ag corporation's products that are potentially toxic, but also their reputation.
Rather than fix these disastrous practices, Monsanto is trying to buy a better image. [5]
They recently hired former Senator Blanche Lincoln [6] and the high-powered PR firm FleishmanHillard to improve their reputation and help block more labeling initiatives in 2014. Now when you want to know what's in your food, the forces against us will be stronger than before.
This means we need to fight back against the Monsanto agenda harder than ever. Let's start by sending 75,000 letters reminding our government to listen to we the people, not them the corporations and PR firms, and label GMOs now!
Monsanto -- the maker of toxic chemicals like Agent Orange -- is also the largest producer of risky genetically modified seeds. Corn with built-in insecticides? Squash impervious to virus? We have a right to know what we're eating. Many other countries around the world do require GMO labeling -- but Monsanto is bringing in the big guns to make sure they can keep hiding that critical information from our families.
Senator Blanche Lincoln used to serve as Chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee. She was sometimes called "the Senator from Wal-Mart," [7] and her other clients have included oil giants Valero and ConocoPhillips, everybody's favorite cable provider Comcast, and credit giant Experian. She's clearly an influential figure in Washington, and now she's ready to cash in for "the world's most evil corporation."
Corporations always do this -- why fix a problem if you can pay someone to hide it? That's why so many of us decided to join the SierraRise community. We're sick of corporate lobbyists running the show -- this is a democracy and all of our voices matter. By speaking up now, we can be louder than Senator Lincoln or any other Monsanto lobbyist or executive.
The FDA has the power to enforce labeling and protect our health -- but not if we let Monsanto's lobbyists go unanswered.
We deserve to know what's in our food. Send your letter to the FDA today demanding customer choice -- we need labels on GMO foods!
In it together,
Nathan Empsall
SierraRise Senior Campaigner
P.S. Five signatures are even more powerful than one -- after you take action, be sure to forward this alert to your friends, family, and colleagues!"
Friday, November 1, 2013
The Only Way Republicans Can Stay In Congress...
... is by blanketing the airwaves with their paranoid, militarist, racist - quoting Winston Churchill's immortal phrase - "terminological inexactitudes".
To do that they need huge amounts of cash. And they would dearly love to have all limits taken off their ability to receive these bribes - which is what they are.
Why are they bribes? Because the rich - should we call them people; are they actual humans like the rest of us? - persons who pay these dues to "conservative" politicians, know full well that what they are buying is the right to have the laws passed that suit them - see my earlier posts about A.L.E.C., the American Legislative Exchange Council.
Now the Supreme Court is going to rule on a case called McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission. (I mentioned this case a month ago, in Goddammit, What Did I Just Say?, and pointed out that "Judging by the Supremes' unconscionable decision in Citizens United, we may have a problem, Houston.") The hearing on McCutcheon was this past Tuesday.
But there is good news: Several leaders in Congress are standing up and fighting back. These lawmakers are pushing for major reforms that would reduce the amount of dirty money in politics -- and with the Supreme Court considering the McCutcheon case, that work has never been more important.
Will you take 30 seconds right now to push back against billionaire polluters? Let campaign finance reform champions know that we're 100% behind fair elections!
McCutcheon's Supreme Court case, which the justices are considering right now, is just the beginning -- imagine a system where billionaires could just keep giving and giving. As the U.S. solicitor general told the Court, take away those limits and "Less than 500 people can fund the whole shooting match. The government will be run of, by, and for those 500 people." [4] These are the people trying to replace our democracy with their dollars, and our health and climate with their profit. We must stop them in their tracks.
McCutcheon is the CEO of Coalmont Electrical Development in Alabama. He filed his lawsuit with the Republican National Committee, and Senator McConnell jumped at the chance to join them. McConnell, who's up for re-election, is one of the biggest coal champions in the country, and he couldn't be more excited to take all that dirty money -- even sending his lawyers to join McCutcheon at the Supreme Court.
Environmental champion Senator Bernie Sanders took a different approach outside the Court that day, and told it like it is: "Freedom of speech, in my view, does not mean the freedom to buy the United States government." [5]
We can turn the tide. Our allies on this in Congress, known as the DARE task force, want to "disclose, amend, reform and elect." [6] They're fighting for several critical changes: overturn Citizens United, provide more public campaign financing by matching small donors, block efforts to stop Americans from voting, and require donor disclosure for political front groups like those run by Karl Rove and the Koch Brothers.
Tell the DARE task force to keep at it -- let's send them a petition with 60,000 names so they'll know we've got their backs!
In it together,
Nathan Empsall
SierraRise Senior Campaigner
P.S. Five signatures are even more powerful than one -- after you take action, be sure to forward this alert to your friends, family, and colleagues!


"
To do that they need huge amounts of cash. And they would dearly love to have all limits taken off their ability to receive these bribes - which is what they are.
Why are they bribes? Because the rich - should we call them people; are they actual humans like the rest of us? - persons who pay these dues to "conservative" politicians, know full well that what they are buying is the right to have the laws passed that suit them - see my earlier posts about A.L.E.C., the American Legislative Exchange Council.
Now the Supreme Court is going to rule on a case called McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission. (I mentioned this case a month ago, in Goddammit, What Did I Just Say?, and pointed out that "Judging by the Supremes' unconscionable decision in Citizens United, we may have a problem, Houston.") The hearing on McCutcheon was this past Tuesday.
A group called SierraRise is calling on us to raise our voices against this travesty of a case that should never have been filed, let alone taken seriously by the Supreme Court.
They say, "This is pretty crazy: There's a Big Coal CEO demanding the right to donate as much as he wants in an election cycle."
The message continues, ending in a Petition for your signature -
"The CEO's name is Shaun McCutcheon. His case would end campaign finance law as we know it -- and the top Senate Republican, Mitch McConnell, is on board, eager for all that coal cash. [3] If they get their way, corporate polluters will be able to buy more politicians and elections than ever before, launching a brutal assault on all the environmental progress we've made together.
But there is good news: Several leaders in Congress are standing up and fighting back. These lawmakers are pushing for major reforms that would reduce the amount of dirty money in politics -- and with the Supreme Court considering the McCutcheon case, that work has never been more important.
Will you take 30 seconds right now to push back against billionaire polluters? Let campaign finance reform champions know that we're 100% behind fair elections!
McCutcheon's Supreme Court case, which the justices are considering right now, is just the beginning -- imagine a system where billionaires could just keep giving and giving. As the U.S. solicitor general told the Court, take away those limits and "Less than 500 people can fund the whole shooting match. The government will be run of, by, and for those 500 people." [4] These are the people trying to replace our democracy with their dollars, and our health and climate with their profit. We must stop them in their tracks.
McCutcheon is the CEO of Coalmont Electrical Development in Alabama. He filed his lawsuit with the Republican National Committee, and Senator McConnell jumped at the chance to join them. McConnell, who's up for re-election, is one of the biggest coal champions in the country, and he couldn't be more excited to take all that dirty money -- even sending his lawyers to join McCutcheon at the Supreme Court.
Environmental champion Senator Bernie Sanders took a different approach outside the Court that day, and told it like it is: "Freedom of speech, in my view, does not mean the freedom to buy the United States government." [5]
We can turn the tide. Our allies on this in Congress, known as the DARE task force, want to "disclose, amend, reform and elect." [6] They're fighting for several critical changes: overturn Citizens United, provide more public campaign financing by matching small donors, block efforts to stop Americans from voting, and require donor disclosure for political front groups like those run by Karl Rove and the Koch Brothers.
Tell the DARE task force to keep at it -- let's send them a petition with 60,000 names so they'll know we've got their backs!
In it together,
Nathan Empsall
SierraRise Senior Campaigner
P.S. Five signatures are even more powerful than one -- after you take action, be sure to forward this alert to your friends, family, and colleagues!
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