OPEN LETTER CONCERNING OUR CALIFORNIA CONGRESSIONAL REPRESENTATIVES:  
Joe Baca (CD-43), Brian Bilbray (CD-50), Jane Harman (CD-36), Devin Nunes (CD-21), Dana Rohrabacher (CD-46), Loretta Sanchez (CD-47), Henry Waxman (CD-30), John Campbell (CD-48), Jim Costa (CD-20), David Dreier (CD-26), Darrell Issa (CD-49), Gary Miller (CD-42), George Radanovich (CD-19), Edward Royce (CA-40), Adam Schiff (CD-29), Brad Sherman (CD-27), Mike Thompson (CD-1)

It was with great disappointment that we learned that these California Congressional Representatives have chosen to co-sponsor the bill that could take our country into yet another war-- H.Con. Res. 362 increasing sanctions against Iran (complete text below).

The now delayed final vote on the FISA bill is scheduled for AFTER the holiday on July 8th. The bill contains retroactive immunity from prosecution for the telecom giants who illegally allowed access to all YOUR telephone records without a search warrant. It is like a bankrobber who KNOWS his crime is against the law and does it anyway, then goes to Congress and gets them to pass a law saying it WASN'T a crime AFTER the fact. It is so bizarre as to be laughable if it weren't happening in our country at this very moment.

PDLA urges you to

CONTACT SENATOR FEINSTEIN IMMEDIATELY

For Bob Blumenfield, with Love from Dad and Employer, Congressman Howard Berman
Ignored by the mainstream media this Wednesday, the Fair Political Practices Commission complaint filed against "Valley Democrats for Change" by attorney, Nicole Kuklok-Waldman, is heating up the race in the 40th Assembly District. It entered cyberspace Thursday through the subscription-only website, Capital Morning Report.

What it appears to be, said an employee at the Secretary of State's office, is another committee set up to circumvent California's legal contribution limits.

Background. California law sets a contribution limit for state candidates for the legislature at $3600 per person. A candidate can use an unlimited amount of his or her PERSONAL funds. But, a relative cannot. Which brings us to the present situation. What's a father to do???

Dear Friends of a Free Media,

Well, if not free, at least allowing all opinions to be heard in a presidential race.

The impetus for this movement was the exclusion of candidates from the recent MSNBC debate in Nevada. MSNBC, owned by GE, used its legal muscle to overturn a judge's order to INCLUDE all the candidates. What's pathetic is that there even was an order in the first place.

The AIR WAVES, for those who remember the distant past, are supposed to be owned by the public. The corporations who run the television networks have definitely FORGOTTEN that and allege that as "private entities" they have the right to limit the voices and viewpoints you hear on these air waves.
 
If you wish to SIGN ON to this resolution,
PLEASE GO TO  http://www.gopetition.com/...
And, PLEASE FORWARD this to your contacts so that they can be included. Thank you all!!

For those of us who have spent an inordinate amount of time writing letter after letter to our unresponsive Senator, CENSURE of her by three of the caucuses within the California Democratic Party this weekend was sweet.

Now, perhaps now, will she finally start to vote WITH her party? Now, perhaps now, will she start to vote to end the war? Now, perhaps now, will she stand up for the Constitution which has been largely dismantled under her watch and often with her complicity? Too long we have stood by while our senior senator acted as an enabler for this renegade president. And too long has the party brass stood in the way of holding her accountable for voting with the Republicans more times than we can count.

2204 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, D.C. 20515
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In Los Angeles
8436 West Third Street, Suite 600, Los Angeles, CA 90048
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Dear Congressman Waxman,

It is well past the time when this Congress should have acted to prevent the continuing destruction of our Constitutional rights and our position as a respected nation.

I believe that there is NO ISSUE MORE IMPORTANT THAN IMPEACHMENT at the present time.

Progressive Democrats of Los Angeles joined the Westside and Los Angeles Greens and the Santa Monica Democratic Club to open the first national impeachment center on the 4th of July using this day to demand that Congress hold Bush and Cheney accountable.

The Los Angeles Impeachment Center is at the Peace Center near the Beverly Center  at 8124 W. Third St. just west of Crescent Hts...a familiar location to anti-war activists. It was opened to coordinate and bring together all the various groups who have become enraged by the destruction of our constitution and the lies that took us into the ongoing war in Iraq.

About forty peace activists from multiple groups gathered at the local Rite-Aid in the Valley Village area of the San Fernando Valley and paraded over to the home of Congressman Howard Berman May 26th to express their outrage over his NON-VOTE on the supplemental Iraq appropriations bill.

Activists say they have repeatedly met with Berman to try to turn around his hawkish views and votes on the war and have been largely unsuccessful. An earlier entry in this diary, last June 18,2006, details how he voted with the Republicans on HR 861.

The following direct transcript was taken from a speech by DENNIS KUCINICH, 5/5/07, in Venice at the West Los Angeles Democratic Club. It is too appalling to imagine that the new Democratic majority put into office to stop this war would be doing Bush's bidding and selling out to the multinational oil corporations. Let's tell them what we think of this.
This was about 40 minutes into the speech:

"You would think that by reading the reports that this bill was going to take us out of Iraq. Not a chance. What it would do, it would remove a substantial number of U.S. troops, to be sure, but an equally substantial number would stay. Why would they stay there? They would stay there to protect the contractors. They would stay there to run special missions. It doesn't end the occupation. The base is still staying there. The occupation continues.

But there was another provision of this bill that most American citizens don't even know about.  This bill had provisions that the White House asked for, and the Democrats said to the president, okay, this is what you say you want, well we're going to give you what you want. Here's the provision is the provision that I argued against in the Democratic Caucus. This is the provision that says that the Iraqi government must privatize its oil."

Dear Henry,

 I was happy see you at last weekend's Pacific Palisades Dem Club and to hear of your commitment to actually get something passed on both global warming and single payer health care (without the insurance companies adding to their massive profits). I'm hopeful that these will be actual accomplishments rather than hearings resulting in press releases that regurgitate the main points from the hearings. We've had far too many of these.

  Most troubling, however, were your statements that you would NOT commit to withholding the funding that would put a brake on this seriously out-of-control occupant of the White House. Also, that you actually said you thought he should NOT be impeached!!! I hope that you heard the hundreds of gasps in the room after that one.  

7/7/06
NO ON LIEBERMAN

OPEN LETTER TO: Barbara Boxer

  Ever wonder why our party is out of power and theirs is in? It's because of the millions of former Democrats who are now either not voting, independent, or Green, as a direct result of the lack of connection to their elected officials. I mean INCUMBENTS who after being re-elected once flip into the corporate column and continuously vote against the people's interests. I call them the corporate Democrats. Others call them the DLC or "Blue Dogs." Either way, the grassroots people they once represented are left behind to wonder if all politicians are really worthless. And each year, more conclude that voting is not worth their time.
 

   We have again witnessed a masterful Republican propaganda drama played out in the House of Reps last week. Designed to give the majority a leg up in the fall elections as Bush's failed Iraq policies continue to drag him down in the polls, their leadership stage managed a so-called "debate" to ram through HR861 that effectively says Congress stands behind Bush in Iraq.
   And where, you might ask, are our reps from the San Fernando Valley??? HOWARD BERMAN voted WITH the Republicans. Yes, his name is right there alongside Dennis Hastert, Bill Frist, and Henry Hyde. Howard, a long term incumbent who ignored his primary peace activist challenger, continues to stand with the war lobby. HENRY WAXMAN, addressing Congress on another topic, somehow managed to NOT VOTE at all! His press release speech allows him to headline that on his website and obscure the non-vote on the more important issue of the day. BRAD SHERMAN voted "present" preferring to stand on the fence and say he liked parts, didn't like others, and, oh well, why take a real position when you can say "present" instead.

The grassroots are taking back the Democratic Party in California's 36th Congressional District if challenger, Marcy Winograd, has anything to say about it. In a stunning blow to incumbent, Jane Harman, Winograd swept the voting of members of the West Los Angeles Democratic Club 54 to 19. Promising to support single payer health care as well as the impeachment of Bush and Cheney, Winograd was the clear favorite as the crowd cheered and gave her a standing ovation. Harman, who had refused to attend the event if it were a debate format, spoke earlier laying the groundwork for Winograd's withering attack on her record of complicity with the Bush administration.