ERRIN HAINES
Associated Press

ATLANTA - Coretta Scott King, who worked to keep her husband's dream alive with a chin-held-high grace and serenity that made her a powerful symbol of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s creed of brotherhood and nonviolence, died Tuesday. She was 78.

The "first lady of the civil rights movement" died in her sleep during the night at an alternative medicine clinic in Mexico, her family said. Arrangements were being made to fly the body back to Atlanta.

She had been recovering from a serious stroke and heart attack suffered last August. Just two weeks ago, she made her first public appearance in a year on the eve of her late husband's birthday.

The Bias Breakdown
Asians and Blacks Lead in Perceived Discrimination at Work

By Amy Joyce
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 9, 2005; D01


Fifteen percent of all workers say they have been discriminated against in their workplace during the past year, according to a new Gallup Organization poll.

"Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America"
Jonathan Kozol
Feb. 23, 2006 at 8:00 PM
University Union Ballroom at CSUS
$10 General

Tickets at 278-4323 or at tickets.

We finally have a REAL PROGRESSIVE candidate to run against Dan Lungren!! Bill Durston, past president of Physicians for Social Responsibility, was the moderator of our recent Out Of Iraq Town Hall forum with Charles Brown, Cindy Sheehan, David Dionisi, Norman Solomon and Sean Penn. We can't thank Bill enough for stepping up to represent to citizens of CD 3. Please do whatever you can to help Bill in his efforts. Our first need is to gather signatures for him in-lieu-of the candidate filing fees. You can contact Ron Platt at calaveras_democrat@comcast.net for a petition form and rules.

I doubt you need any reasons as to why we need to replace Dan Lungren, but just in case, here are some good reasons:
http://www.takebackcd3.org/incumbent.htm

Ex - President Carter: Eavesdropping Illegal

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: February 6, 2006
Filed at 10:30 p.m. ET

HENDERSON, Nev. (AP) -- Former President Jimmy Carter criticized the Bush administration's domestic eavesdropping program Monday and said he believes the president has broken the law.

''Under the Bush administration, there's been a disgraceful and illegal decision -- we're not going to the let the judges or the Congress or anyone else know that we're spying on the American people,'' Carter told reporters. ''And no one knows how many innocent Americans have had their privacy violated under this secret act.''

Betty Friedan, Who Ignited Cause in 'Feminine Mystique,' Dies at 85
By Margalit Fox
The New York Times
Sunday 05 February 2006



Betty Friedan, the feminist crusader and author whose searing first book, "The Feminine Mystique," ignited the contemporary women's movement in 1963 and as a result permanently transformed the social fabric of the United States and countries around the world, died yesterday, her 85th birthday, at her home in Washington.

Has Wal-Mart declared war on women?

• 2 million female employees suing Wal-Mart for gender discrimination
• Pregnant Wal-Mart worker fired in Connecticut
• Massachusetts women suing Wal-Mart for being denied legal medicine

Now it looks like Wal-Mart's right-wing war room is at it again. And, this time, they are attacking a woman's right to make her own medical decisions.

Yesterday, three women in Massachusetts sued Wal-Mart and filed a complaint with the state because Wal-Mart refuses to sell legally-approved emergency contraceptive pills. In fact, Wal-Mart chooses not to sell this medication in every state except Illinois, where it is mandated by law.

Wal-Mart has a pattern of right-wing censorship, including banning certain lyrics and artists from selling DVDs and movies, but Wal-Mart's latest move to try and stop women from having legally available emergency contraceptive pills is an attack on our court system and women everywhere.

We need your help. Sign our petition and tell Wal-Mart's CEO Lee Scott to stop Wal-Mart's right-wing war on women and make these legally approved medications available to women.

http://www.wakeupwalmart.com/feature/waronwomen

This is not about whether or not you support abortion. Wal-Mart's policy, if left unchecked, means corporations (in this case the largest seller of goods in the U.S.) can inflict their own political agenda and values onto their customers.

Women deserve better. If women have the legal right to buy emergency contraceptive pills, then Wal-Mart should have to carry and dispense these pills. In many small towns, Wal-Mart is the only place where women can get these pills. In these cases, Wal-Mart's policy is effectively a ban on the sale of emergency contraceptive pills.

Wal-Mart's decision not to sell these pills is nothing short of a war on women and women's reproductive rights. It is an attempt to undermine a woman's ability to make a choice in consultation with her doctor. Which legal medicines any women may choose to take is a decision between herself and her doctor, not between herself, her doctor, and Wal-Mart.

Wal-Mart's radical right policy must cease immediately, and Wal-Mart should make these pills available to their female customers.

Now is the time for action. Tell Wal-Mart's CEO Lee Scott to let women make their own choices.

http://www.wakeupwalmart.com/feature/waronwomen

In the coming months, we will be mobilizing our 176,125 supporters to expose Wal-Mart's real agenda, document Wal-Mart's record of exploiting its workers, and build the most powerful grassroots campaign to change a corporation in history.

Wal-Mart needs to change and, with your help, we are building the movement that will change Wal-Mart and build a better America.

Please forward our petition to all of your women friends using the form below.

http://www.wakeupwalmart.com/feature/waronwomen/send.html

Thank you for all that you do.

Paul Blank

California for Democracy endorses State Senator Debra Bowen for Secretary of State

The results are in from our recent membership vote on the Secretary of State's race, and we've endorsed Senator Bowen for Secretary of State with an overwhelming show of support from our membership.

Of the 131 ballots cast, Senator Bowen received 124 (or 94.7%) of the votes, Senator Ortiz received 4 votes (or 3.1%) and "postpone the vote" received 2 votes (1.5%) and "no endorsement" received 1 vote.

Please vote in this MSNBC poll if you believe in freedom of speech.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/11121444/#survey



What Really Happened.
by CindySheehan
Wed Feb 01, 2006 at 01:19:44 AM PDT

Dear Friends,

As most of you have probably heard, I was arrested before the State of the Union Address tonight.

I am speechless with fury at what happened and with grief over what we have lost in our country.

The Alito Betrayal
By Bob Fertik
Created 2006-01-30 17:18

We, the voters who elect Democrats in every election, were utterly and completely betrayed today by 18 Democratic Senators that we elected.

Akaka (HI), Baucus (MT), Bingaman (NM), Byrd (WV), Cantwell (WA), Carper (DE), Dorgan (ND), Inouye (HI), Johnson (SD), Kohl (WI), Landrieu (LA), Lieberman (CT), Lincoln (AR), Nelson (FL), Nelson (NE), Pryor (AR), Rockefeller (WV), Salazar (CO)

In Martin Luther King Day address, Gore compares wiretapping of Americans to surveillance of King
01/16/2006 @ 12:08 pm Filed by RAW STORY

In an address delivered in Washington to multiple standing ovations, Vice President Al Gore repeatedly attacked the Bush Administration for the expansion of executive power -- the ability of the government to wiretap its own citizens without legal authority and kidnap Americans abroad.

His speech -- which compares the wiretapping of Martin Luther King to the broad surveillance now imposed on Americans by President Bush -- called on Congress to resume its oversight responsibilities, and enjoined Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to appoint a special prosecutor. Gore was to be introduced by former Rep. Bob Barr, a Georgia Republican who has advocated for the constitutional right to privacy. The full text of his speech follows.

Reuters summarizes the speech in an article here. You can also watch video highlights of Gore's remarks here.

Direct link to C-SPAN's RealVideo file of the speech.

Full text of his speech is here:
http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Text_of_Gore_speech_0116.html

New Zogby Poll Shows Majority of Americans Support Impeaching Bush for Wiretapping

By a margin of 52% to 43%, Americans want Congress to consider impeaching President Bush if he wiretapped American citizens without a judge's approval, according to a new poll commissioned by AfterDowningStreet.org, a grassroots coalition that supports a Congressional investigation of President Bush's decision to invade Iraq in 2003.

I'm assuming this means she will vote NO. I hope our Republican-lite Senator Feinstein will also vote NO (I'm not holding my breath) --Bill

Statement of U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer on the Nomination of Judge Samuel Alito

Washington, DC – U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) today made the following statement on the nomination of Judge Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court:

CLEAN MONEY BILL PASSES FIRST COMMITTEE!

Assemblymember Loni Hancock's AB 583, the California Clean Money and Fair Elections Act, passed through the Assembly Elections Commitee on a vote of 4-3 on Wednesday.

It will now be heard in the Appropriations Committee next Wednesday, and, if it passes there, will be debated in the full Assembly the following week.

I thought the spying was a response to the attacks on 9/11? --Bill

Bush Authorized Domestic Spying Before 9/11
By Jason Leopold : t r u t h o u t | Perspective : Friday 13 January 2006

The National Security Agency advised President Bush in early 2001 that it had been eavesdropping on Americans during the course of its work monitoring suspected terrorists and foreigners believed to have ties to terrorist groups, according to a declassified document.

The NSA's vast data-mining activities began shortly after Bush was sworn in as president and the document contradicts his assertion that the 9/11 attacks prompted him to take the unprecedented step of signing a secret executive order authorizing the NSA to monitor a select number of American citizens thought to have ties to terrorist groups.

Democrats Took No Money from Abramoff. Don't let them tell you otherwise.



Click the picture then scroll down to watch the video.

We are inching ever closer to total fascism... -Bill

Bush's misuse of Presidential power
By DALE McFEATTERS Jan 13, 2006, 06:48

Over White House objections and by convincing, veto-proof margins, Congress voted late last year to ban the torture of anyone in U.S. government custody.

When President Bush signed that ban last month, he added a disclaimer, saying that nothing in the ban affected his prerogatives in a time of national emergency to fight the war on terrorism how he chose. In other words, he reserved the right to torture even though Congress explicitly outlawed it.

And he used the same justification for bypassing the courts and ordering the National Security Agency to conduct warrantless eavesdropping on American citizens.

Must Read: Pentagon Study Links Fatalities to Body Armor

Washington, DC * The New York Times this weekend published a report on a secret Pentagon study showing that approximately 300 hundred American soldiers killed in combat in Iraq could have survived if the Pentagon had provided them with sufficient body armor. The report found that up to 80% of the Marines killed from upper torso wounds could have been saved if troops had been provided with additional protection that commanders in the field began requesting "almost from the beginning" of the war.

The report also found that, because the Pentagon failed to provide the requested body armor, troops desperate for protection began "hanging their crotch protectors under their arms" and buying their own sets as early as early as Fall 2003.

Sacramento's Out Of Iraq Forum Rocks The Capital City
By Nancy Tronaas, Sacramento for Democracy

Sacramento, CA - January 7, 2006--On Saturday, January 7, anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan, author David Dionisi, 4th Congressional District candidate Charles Brown, and surprise guests--academy-award winning Sean Penn and author Norman Solomon spoke to a packed SEIU hall in Sacramento, California. With nearly 200 people inside and a large overflow crowd gathered out on the sidewalk listening to loudspeakers, Sacramentans demonstrated their impatience and frustration with U.S. involvement in Iraq. The event was part of a national campaign sponsored by After Downing Street, Progressive Democrats ofAmerica, Backbone Campaign and many others. As California for Democracy is an ADS coalition member, Sacramento for Democracy has taken a proactive role in promoting a public dialogue about the need to exit Iraq, with the intention of strengthening a higher visibility of public support for the idea. For more information about the coalition, see: http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/about and read about other successful events on January 7th: http://www.pdamerica.org/