carapace – Not your father's america

Help us keep this TV ad about Iraq on the air so President Bush can’t change the subject to September 11. We need to raise $250,000 today. Will you contribute?

Dear MoveOn member,

Last night, President Bush tried to rescue his failed Iraq policy in a nationally televised address by connecting the Iraq war to the war on terror. He is trying to change the subject from Iraq to terrorism and September 11—implying that Iraq attacked us in 2001.

To keep Bush from changing the subject, we’ve started running a new TV ad about Iraq. But to keep the advertising on the air, we need to raise $250,000 today. Just $50 from 5,000 of us will make a big difference. Will you contribute to help stop Bush from changing the subject?

http://www.moveonpac.org/donate/hagel.html?id=5724-5514896-oxnPy3SJZ5JiNDWJXU97Dw&t=3
Even a small contribution will keep the ads running if we all chip in. And, if we raise $500,000, we can expand the advertising into the hometowns of Republican members of Congress who will have tough elections in 2006.

That will help send a signal that Congress will pay a price at the ballot box because of the Iraq failures. The president’s speech provided political cover to a lot of members of Congress—letting them get away with not supporting an exit strategy—but we can help neutralize that with the ad campaign. If you don’t live in one of those congressional districts, this is your chance to make a huge difference by supporting this ad.

The ad, titled “Hagel,” draws a sharp contrast between President Bush’s claim that we’re making progress in Iraq and the words of Republican Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, who said, “The White House is completely disconnected from reality… It’s like they’re just making it up as they go along.”1 Then, the ad calls for an exit strategy, saying, “It’s time to come home. We went in the wrong way, let’s come home the right way.” An exit strategy with a timeline is supported by nearly 84% of MoveOn members according to the recent vote.

http://www.moveonpac.org/donate/hagel.html?id=5724-5514896-oxnPy3SJZ5JiNDWJXU97Dw&t=4

Supporting this ad will also show that we won’t run away when the Republicans attack. Over the last couple of days, the Bush White House has begun openly attacking MoveOn by name—even accusing us of siding with the terrorists and wanting to make America less safe. It started with lies in a speech by Bush spin-master Karl Rove last week but quickly followed with attacks on “The Today Show” by White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett. Then, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld took a swipe at MoveOn on Sunday talk shows.

We can’t let them get away with this. It’s the Iraq war that’s making America less safe—not the 3.3 million of us in MoveOn.

Because we’re out front on Iraq, we can expect more attacks. By standing up to them, we can demonstrate to Democrats that they need not cower when Republicans slander them. But we can’t keep these ads on the air without your support. Please contribute at:

http://www.moveonpac.org/donate/hagel.html?id=5724-5514896-oxnPy3SJZ5JiNDWJXU97Dw&t=5

The advertising is just the first part of MoveOn’s new Iraq campaign. Over the coming weeks and months, we’ll be pushing for our leaders in elected office to insist that President Bush put together an exit strategy (a plan!) for Iraq. We’ll ask you to get involved in lots of different ways, but right now we really need your help to keep the TV ad on the air.

Thank you for all you do,

–Tom, Matt, Eli, Rosalyn and the MoveOn PAC Team
Wednesday, June 29th, 2005

P.S. Can’t contribute for an ad? Write a letter to the editor about Bush’s speech at:

http://www.moveon.org/r?r=764&zip=&id=5724-5514896-oxnPy3SJZ5JiNDWJXU97Dw&t=6

Source:
1. “Hit by friendly fire,” U.S. News & World Report, June 27, 2005

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/050627/27bush.htm

PAID FOR BY MOVEON PAC
Not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.

ROBERT F. KENNEDY URGED LIFTING TRAVEL BAN TO CUBA IN ’63

Attorney General cited inconsistency “with traditional American liberties” State Department overruled RFK proposal to withdraw prohibitions on travel

http://www.nsarchive.org

For more information contact:
Peter Kornbluh – 202/994-7116 – pkorn@gwu.edu

Washington, D.C., June 29, 2005 – Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy sought to lift the ban on U.S. citizens traveling to Cuba in December 1963, according to declassified records posted today by the National Security Archive. In a December 12, 1963, memorandum to Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Kennedy urged a quick decision “to withdraw the existing regulation prohibiting such trips.”

Kennedy’s memo, written less than a month after his brother’s assassination in Dallas, communicated his position that the travel ban imposed by the Kennedy administration was a violation of American freedoms and impractical in terms of law enforcement. Among his “principal arguments” for removing the restrictions on travel to Cuba was that freedom to travel “is more consistent with our views as a free society and would contrast with such things as the Berlin Wall and Communist controls on such travel.”

According to Peter Kornbluh, who directs the Archive’s Cuba Documentation Project, the documents “shed significant light on the genesis of the travel ban to Cuba” which, he said, “was more about not appearing hypocritical while twisting the arms of other Latin American nations to keep their citizens from visiting Cuba than about preventing U.S. citizens from going there and spending money.” The documents, he noted, “reflect that the debate over travel to Cuba, both inside and outside of government, has continued for more than 40 years.”

Please follow the link below to read the documents posted today:

http://www.nsarchive.org

By Liza Featherstone, Women’s eNews. Posted June 30, 2005.

Wal-Mart continues to keep Plan B, the “morning-after pill,” off its shelves. The megastore’s policy, catering to its rural base, complicates its pursuit of new markets.

The political battle over the “morning after pill” is raging, with proposed legislation in 15 states that would protect a pharmacist’s right to refuse to fill prescriptionS on “moral” grounds.

Wal-Mart has already laid down its own law. America’s largest retailer and one of its largest pharmacies doesn’t stock emergency contraception at all.

Emergency contraception, known as Plan B, is 89 percent effective in preventing pregnancy if taken within 72 hours of intercourse, according to its manufacturer, the Women’s Capital Corporation, which last year was acquired by Barr Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Woodcliff Lake, N.J. It is even more effective if taken within 24 hours of unprotected intercourse.

“For many rural women, Wal-Mart is their only pharmacy,” says Ted Miller, a spokesperson for NARAL Pro-Choice America. “That’s what makes Wal-Mart’s refusal to carry emergency contraception so disconcerting.”

While some large chain pharmacies, such as Rite-Aid and Winn-Dixie, allow individual pharmacists to refuse to fill prescriptions, Wal-Mart, based in Bentonville, Ark., is the only one to bar Plan B. Wal-Mart refers every customer seeking emergency contraception to another pharmacy.

But as the retailing behemoth pushes into urban and coastal markets–retail analysts say it has virtually saturated rural and small-town America–its position on Plan B may become increasingly awkward as pro-choice groups continue to protest stores that hinder access to emergency contraception.

Political battles over proposed Wal-Mart stores in New York City, Los Angeles and Chicago have demonstrated that what’s acceptable in Arkansas isn’t necessarily embraced everywhere. While the objections focused on the retailer’s low wages, hostility to unions and damage to small businesses, the discount giant’s antagonists also pointed to its stance on Plan B as an issue.

“The company’s indifference to their workers is increasingly well-documented,” says Tracy Sefl of Wal-Mart Watch, a Washington, D.C., group. “But this indifference to women’s health adds insult to injury.”

Eager to Expand

Wal-Mart officials say they are eager to expand far beyond Wal-Mart’s traditional rural base and they are not backing down from these fights.

Pro-choice groups, meanwhile, are pressing the Plan B-access issue.

Washington, D.C.-based NARAL and Planned Parenthood Federation of America are targeting Wal-Mart and other major pharmacy chains that aren’t doing enough to ensure Plan B access.

Planned Parenthood is conducting a “Fill My Pills” letter writing and picketing campaign designed to pressure companies and spread the word about their policies.

In June NARAL celebrated the 40th anniversary of Griswold v. Connecticut–the Supreme Court decision that barred states from making contraconception illegal–picketed stores in 45 states and those protests will be ongoing, says NARAL’s Miller.

Lawmakers have also entered the fray. This spring, responding to Wal-Mart’s refusal, as well as that of individual pharmacists, congressional representatives Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-FL), Christopher Shays (R-CT) and Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) introduced the Access to Legal Pharmaceuticals Act, requiring pharmacies to fill prescriptions for all forms of legal birth control, including emergency contraception.

Some pharmacists–as well as a small but influential pressure group called Pharmacists for Life–object to Plan B on moral grounds, saying that it is an abortifacient, or pill that terminates a pregnancy. The drug’s manufacturer says Plan B prevents implantation and, in some cases, ovulation and that it cannot end a pregnancy.

Cultural Tightrope

The Plan B controversy comes at a time when 44-year-old Wal-Mart which has topped the Fortune 500, the definitive list of the world’s largest companies, four years in a row, is trying to walk a wobbly cultural tightrope.

The company’s success has been achieved in rural areas by appealing to low-income, often very religious customers. This base has made it an easy target for far-right pressure groups, with Wal-Mart often giving in to their demands.

Raunchy men’s magazines such as Maxim, for instance, were banished from Wal-Mart’s racks after years of pressure from groups like the Family Research Council, based in Washington, D.C., and the Timothy Group, an organization of evangelical mutual fund investors based in Grand Rapids, Mich.

In many other ways, Wal-Mart lets evangelical Christians know this is a store for them. One example: When the latest installment in Tim LaHaye’s apocalyptic “Left Behind” series was published, the retailer gave away the first chapter for free.

Top-selling books that you won’t find in Wal-Mart stores include “America: The Book,” by The Daily Show cast which Wal-Mart dropped because of a graphic rendering of naked Supreme Court justices and George Carlin’s “When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?”

Urban, Coastal Territory

But to expand into urban and coastal areas, Wal-Mart seems to know that it should avoid being seen as simply a store for the religious right.

The company’s policy on sexually explicit women’s magazines like Cosmopolitan reflects that effort. Managers appeased right-wing pressure groups, as well as people who enjoy the magazines, by inventing a new kind of rack, which covers up the offending cover headlines, while revealing the name of the magazine to potential readers. Some books forbidden in the stores–Carlin’s, for example–are sold on the company’s Web site.

Wal-Mart’s official statement about its decision not to sell Plan B says it is not a moral stance but simply a business decision, a reflection of customer demand. Wal-Mart spokespeople reiterate this message every time they are asked about emergency contraception.

By framing its refusal to sell Plan B as a purely economic, Wal-Mart may avoid the appearance of being influenced by religious extremists at the expense of its other customers.

But some Plan B advocates think that as the company probes new territory its policy on emergency contraception could give in to new market pressures.

“Perhaps as Wal-Mart attempts to reach out to new consumers,” says Tracy Sefl of Wal-Mart Watch, “they will reconsider this ‘business decision’ of actually denying consumers a safe and legal means to prevent unintended pregnancies.”

Liza Featherstone is a New York City-based journalist. She is the author, most recently, of “This Woman’s Work: Poverty, Discrimination, and the Nation’s Largest Private Employer,” a book about sex discrimination at Wal-Mart, published by Basic Books in late 2004.

http://www.alternet.org/rights/23220/

Trimming a Health-Care Plan Creates Accounting Gains, Under Some Arcane Rules

A Shield Against Rising Costs

By ELLEN E. SCHULTZ and THEO FRANCIS
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
March 16, 2004; Page A1

The loud message comes from one company after another: Surging health-care costs for retired workers are creating a giant burden. So companies have been cutting health benefits for their retirees or requiring them to contribute more of the cost.

Time for a reality check: In fact, no matter how high health-care costs go, well over half of large American corporations face only limited impact from the increases when it comes to their retirees. They have established ceilings on how much they will ever spend per retiree for health care. If health costs go above the caps, it’s the retiree, not the company, who’s responsible.

Yet numerous companies are cutting retirees’ health benefits anyway. One possible factor: When companies cut these benefits, they create instant income. This isn’t just the savings that come from not spending as much. Rather, thanks to complex accounting rules, the very act of cutting retirees’ future health-care benefits lets companies reduce a liability and generate an immediate accounting gain.

Continued . . . http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112000236709572252,00.html

Write to Ellen E. Schultz at ellen.schultz@wsj.com2

Dear Working Families e-Activist,

We Call for a Moratorium on Pension Dumping

Tell Congress to support a six-month hold on bankrupt companies like United Airlines dumping their pension plans.

(Click here.)

http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/Pension_Dump/s3guse4y76jtii?

More than 120,000 United Airlines employees will suffer retirement benefit cuts if the company succeeds in unloading its pension plan on the federal government.

Hundreds of thousands more of us will suffer if other companies facing bankruptcy follow United’s example. But we can do something about it.

Co-sponsored by more than 100 members of Congress—Democrats and Republicans—a new bill on Capitol Hill would place a six-month moratorium on companies in bankruptcy, including United, to keep them from dumping their pension plans on the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. (PBGC). This bill, H.R. 2327, would give independent analysts time to sort out what’s really going on with United’s pension plans. And it would give United employees the chance to negotiate over their retirement benefits—we hope while Congress gets busy and passes pro-worker pension funding reform.

Please take a moment now to urge your members of Congress to support this important protection for our retirement security. Click on the link below:

http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/Pension_Dump

The United Airlines pension disgrace would cut United workers’ promised retirement benefits by 25 percent to 50 percent. These workers are trapped in what would be the largest pension failure in U.S. history. But it won’t be the last if United’s pension dump goes unchallenged and leaves a roadmap for other employers that want to dodge their pension obligations.

Please tell your members of Congress to support H.R. 2327 and protect our retirement security. Click on the link below:

http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/Pension_Dump

Thanks for working for working families.

In solidarity,

Working Families e-Activist Network, AFL-CIO
June 29, 2005

P.S. Plenty of people you know are concerned about retirement security. Please forward this e-mail to them and urge them to take action as well.

Agreement could yield a different Detroit team because salary-cap issues might force buyouts.

By Ted Kulfan / The Detroit News

DETROIT — The NHL lockout is creeping to an end.

Management and players association representatives have been working 80-hour weeks recently in hopes of reaching a new collective bargaining agreement.The agreement would end a lockout that wiped out last season and is approaching 300 days in length.

Reports of having an agreement in place by Friday appear to be overly optimistic.

But few in the NHL — team employees, players or agents — doubt a resolution is near.

While most people are eager to see the NHL re-emerge, the implementation of a salary cap will greatly affect the Wings and other big-market, free-spending teams.

The cap is expected to be in the neighborhood of $36 million to $40 million. The Wings’ payroll was $78 million last season.

Even with players accepting a 24 percent reduction in salaries, which is expected, the Wings will have about $32 million committed to 12 players. (That figure assumes that Brendan Shanahan will exercise a player option, which is likely.)

The Wings would have to make decisions on Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg, who are restricted free agents; Steve Yzerman, if he chooses to return for one more season; Chris Chelios, Curtis Joseph and Mathieu Schneider.

Red Wings general manager Ken Holland said he won’t begin to speculate as to what the Wings will do until the new CBA, with all of its wrinkles, is completed.

The Wings could find economic relief under the cap in the form of a one-time buyout option.

If reports of the buyouts are accurate, teams would be allowed to rid existing contracts at two-thirds of their total value. The deals would not count against the salary cap.

The Wings are likely to be active in this area.

Veterans Derian Hatcher ($20 million left over three years, before the 24 percent reduction) and Ray Whitney (due $3.5 million this season, plus a player option next season) would appear to be buyout candidates.

Players bought out will not be able to re-sign with the team, meaning they’ll be free to sign elsewhere.

Still, with a young core of players such as forwards Datsyuk and Zetterberg, defensemen Jiri Fischer and Niklas Kronwall, and several good prospects waiting to make their debuts, the Wings have a base whenever the NHL begins playing again. Don’t be surprised if an agreement is announced around the baseball All-Star break (July 11-13), so it will gain maximum media attention.

“If everything I’m hearing is true, we should get something done here in the next few weeks,” said Manny Legace, the Red Wings player representative.

Holland sees it as a positive sign that both sides have hunkered down in recent weeks and focused on reaching an agreement. “I’m cautiously hopeful,” he said.

Commissioner Gary Bettman and Bob Goodenow, the players’ association executive director, haven’t made themselves available for interviews in weeks.

A string of official statements after marathon negotiating sessions have been the lone link between the sides and the media.

You can reach Ted Kulfan at (313) 223-4606, or ted.kulfan@detnews.com.

http://www.detnews.com/2005/wings/0506/30/E01-233161.htm