Weekly News- Some Good!

1. Good news! 

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson announced a strong new clean air rule that will slash air pollution from power plants, save lives, and make the air healthier to breathe for 240 million people across the eastern U.S.

Activists Won! Thanks to Roots Action and other groups the Senate has removed language from a bill that would have given the president unchecked power to authorize war. Back to the Constitution Sen McCain, who wanted to have Congress abdicate its authority to be the only body that can declare war.

Limbaugh Loses Third of His Audience in 6 months!

2. From The Other 98%

We're writing because we face an emergency. There are reports that Obama is considering cuts to Social Security and Medicare benefits as a giveaway to Republicans on the debt ceiling - and the White House has yet to convincingly respond.

This is simply not acceptable. This President needs to know that he was not elected to threaten the New Deal - he was elected to help us craft a Better Deal. If we can't expect him to stand up for the most basic progressive achievements of the last 100 years, then it's going to be tougher and tougher to stand up for him.

Sign our emergency letter to President Obama today: Protect Social Security and Medicare benefits - or don't ask for grassroots help.

Also, please sign up for a Rebuild the American Dream house party near you for next weekend. It is time for the Other 98% of Americans- those of us without lobbyists and oodles of cash stand up to the growing plutocracy in this country. Save working families and the middle class!


Van Jones is leading this movement and has an article on it here.


3. The Assault on Women's Health
Republican governors.and legislators across the land are waging a wholesale assault on women's reproductive health. In Indiana, Gov Mitch Daniels and Indiana Republicans are excluding all Medicaid patients from seeking any care at Planned Parenthood facilities; including cancer screenings, HIV tests and physical exams. NO federal funds are used for abortion services. Eight Planned Parenthood clinics have been forced to close in the last month. Stand up for poor women's health!

4. Emergency Labor Network RATS Tax Program

While the nonsense in DC continues- with the Republicans threatening economic Armageddon unless Dems cave to draconian cuts to vital services and keep their hands off tax loopholes and subsidies that benefit the super rich- it's good to see some common sense remedies to our economic woes from the Emergency Labor Network, a new group in the American labor movement.

For example, in 1980 corporate income tax made up 20% of federal tax revenues- today it accounts for only 10%. Many corporations with billions in profits pay little or NO taxes! In the meantime over the same period, individual income tax has doubled (representing 40% of federal tax revenue, instead of the 20% of 1980).

Also, according to the IRS, the rich in this country have $4 trillion in offshore tax havens! Repatriate that money and make them pay their fair share.

Tax burdens have shifted dramatically to the middle class, but Republicans and the moneyed elite they represent, want even more tax cuts for themselves! It is time to stand up for  hard working American families- join a house party to Rebuild the American Dream today!

5. Rupert Murdoch's scandal widened even more today- as "as new reports emerged that papers beyond the News of the World were also involved in criminal behavior." Murdoch is head of News Corp the parent company of Fox News. There were also allegations that News of the World journalists tried to hack into the phones of victims of the 9/11 attacks.