[Mb-civic] Michael, this is it.

[Eli Pariser, MoveOn PAC]

Dear active MoveOn member,

I know we've sent you lots of emails asking you to act in the last few
weeks, as we've geared up to prevent the impending Republican judicial
takeover.  Now we're pretty much down to the wire, with the vote on the
"nuclear option" to pack the courts with radical judges coming in the next
few days, and thought to be too close call.  So we really are pulling out
all the stops, and I have one big request: as a final attempt to sound the
alarm about Republicans' plans, we're organizing 24-hour "Citizen
Filibusters" in front of courthouses from coast to coast.  Will you post a
location, and call the media, so other MoveOn members in your area can
join you for this critical action?

http://www.moveonpac.org/event/citizenfilibusters/?id=5548-615480-H32yZ.DrPHvGS20EsKMzzA&t=3

If Republicans succeed, they'll have complete power to reshape the Supreme
Court, appointing justices who oppose worker protections, women's rights,
and environmental laws.  This could be the most important decision the
Senate makes this decade, because the impact of these lifetime
appointments will be felt for a generation.

The round-the-clock citizen filibusters begin nationwide on Tuesday, May
24 starting at 12 Noon. Will you help? Please click below to get started.
If you can't sign up as a host look for an event in your community that
you could attend. All we really need is for you to select a location if
there isn't one setup in your community.

http://www.moveonpac.org/event/citizenfilibusters/?id=5548-615480-H32yZ.DrPHvGS20EsKMzzA&t=4

We'll provide a detailed guide to help you organize and invite other
MoveOn members to participate as citizen filibusterers. The citizen
filibusters will simulate the Senate filibuster that has been a critical
part of our democratic system of checks and balances for more than 200
years.

We're following an inspiring example. At 11:00 a.m. on April 26, a group
of students at Princeton University in New Jersey started a
round-the-clock mock filibuster outside a campus building named for the
family of Senator Frist. Through rain, exams and the dead of night their
speeches continued for more than two weeks non-stop with visits by
distinguished professors including a Nobel Prize-winning physicist,
congressmen, senators and lots of students -- Democrats, Republicans and
Independents.

The citizen filibusters are an important way to demonstrate broad
opposition to the Republican drive for absolute power. Organizing a
citizen filibuster might sound like a lot of work but we've got all the
information you need. All you really need to do is post a location.  We'll
invite other MoveOn members in your area to join in. Then, if possible,
you alert the media or ask one of your attendees to do it.

We know you might have to take off work, school or find child care but
this is one of those moments when we really need your help. Please make a
commitment to organize a 24-hour citizen filibuster now.

http://www.moveonpac.org/event/citizenfilibusters/?id=5548-615480-H32yZ.DrPHvGS20EsKMzzA&t=5

The Senate is currently debating the nominations of two judges -- Janice
Rogers Brown and Priscilla Owen. Here is a summary of how bad they are and
why it is important that they don't become federal judges.

Janice Rogers Brown, a Justice on the California Supreme Court, would
threaten the most basic protections for workers and the environment that
have kept our country strong since the Great Depression. She follows a
radical judicial philosophy, (often called "Constitution in Exile") that
says courts have a duty to block Congress from interfering with a
corporation's "right" to profitably pollute, or an employer's "right" to
demand unlimited hours at any wage from their employees. On the state
Supreme Court she has attacked California's anti-discrimination statute,
affordable housing laws, fees levied against major urban polluters, and
laws that protects whistleblowers from retaliation by their employers and
consumers from corporate fraud.

Pricilla Owen, a Justice on the Texas Supreme Court, has been repeatedly
admonished by her own conservative colleagues for what Attorney General
Alberto Gonzales described as her "unconscionable judicial activism." As a
candidate for the Supreme Court job Owen defied ethics standards by
accepting substantial campaign contributions from giant corporations
including Enron and Halliburton and then later issuing rulings in their
favor. In case after case where individual rights came into conflict with
corporate profit, Owen has sided with the latter  -- including cases
where a liquor vendors' negligence left a nine-year-old with permanent
brain damage and where major companies have argued their right to
unfettered profit should exempt them from all local environmental laws.

Thanks for all you do.

--Eli Pariser
  MoveOn PAC
  Friday, May 20th, 2005

P.S. Check out the Filibuster for Democracy website started by the
students at Princeton who organized the mock filibuster outside the Frist
building on their campus.

http://www.FilibusterFrist.com/

Here are some key points to talk about if somebody asks you what is going
on.

  * Constituents urge our senators to protect our system of checks and
    balances by voting against the so-called "nuclear option"  -- which
    would break a two hundred year old senate rule.

  * The "nuclear option" is an attempt to stack the courts with extremist
    judges. It's a power grab for one-party rule.

  * We know that absolute power corrupts and so we have to resist this
    attempt by some Senate Republicans to pander to their right-wing
    religious base and big corporate special interests.

  * The extremist judges some Republicans want to appoint would threaten
    bedrock protections that make America great  -- the minimum wage and
    40-hour week, women's rights and environmental laws like the Clean Air
    Act. They would also intervene in life and death family decisions (as
    in the Terri Schiavo case).



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Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.


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