Below is an email from Mary Magnuson, a MoveOn member in Brookfield, Wisconsin, who created a petition on SignOn.org, the nonprofit site that allows anyone to start their own online petition.

Dear MoveOn member,

As a Wisconsin progressive working day and night for the recall of Scott Walker, I’m shocked: The Democratic National Committee still isn’t giving financial support to the recall fight in Wisconsin.

After more than a year of grassroots efforts, Wisconsin citizens have accomplished more than anyone thought possible. We now have a Democratic challenger to Scott Walker who is neck and neck in the polls, even though Tom Barrett is being outspent by Walker’s millions from out-of-state donations.

There is no more time for the Democratic National Committee to wait—if Walker wins, it would be a huge setback to Democrats in races across the country this year. We need the DNC’s support immediately!

That’s why I created a petition on SignOn.org to DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, which says:

Democratic National Committee and Debbie Wasserman Schultz, invest now in the crucial fight to remove Scott Walker from office in Wisconsin—the people have worked hard and it’s time to help.

Will you sign the petition? Click here to add your name, and then pass it along to your friends:

http://www.moveon.org/r?r=275536&id=41481-956185-bACvu_x&t=2

Thanks!

–Mary Magnuson

Source:

1. “EXCLUSIVE: Wisconsin Dems furious with DNC for refusing to invest big money in Walker recall,” The Washington Post, May 15, 2012 — http://www.moveon.org/r?r=275547&id=41481-956185-bACvu_x&t=3

Mark,

We’ve seen all the headlines: JP Morgan Chase took risky bets and lost two billion dollars in a matter of weeks.

CEO Jamie Dimon called the bets “poorly reviewed” and even “sloppy.” He added, ”We will learn from it, we will fix it, and we will move on.”

Frankly, I don’t think we should just trust Wall Street banks to regulate themselves. Because as we learned during the 2008 financial crisis, they are not just taking risks with their own money — they are taking risks with the whole economy.

That’s why today, with the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, I’m calling on Congress to put Wall Street reform back on the agenda and to begin by passing a new Glass-Steagall Act. This was the law that stopped investment banks from gambling away people’s life savings for decades — until Wall Street successfully lobbied to have it repealed in 1999.

Will you join us in calling on Congress to hold Wall Street accountable and pass a new Glass-Steagall Act? Click here to stand with us!

A new Glass-Steagall would separate high-risk investment banks from more traditional banking. It would allow Wall Street to take risks, but not by dipping into the life savings and retirement accounts of regular people.

And by making banks smaller, a new Glass-Steagall could also help put an end to banks that are “too big to fail” — further avoiding costly taxpayer bailouts.

Wall Street’s risky bets nearly brought the economy to its knees in 2008. But instead of taking responsibility, Wall Street lobbied to water down the Dodd-Frank financial reforms of 2010 and fought to weaken the reforms Congress passed.

It has become clear over time — and made even clearer this past week — that additional Wall Street reforms are needed. 

Please join us in urging Congress to put Wall Street reform back on the table — and pass a new Glass-Steagall Act today.

Thousands of Progressive Change Campaign Committee members have stood with me in my campaign for the Senate — and many were with me before that when I was fighting for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

If I’m elected to the U.S. Senate from Massachusetts, I promise this difference from my Republican opponent Scott Brown: I will be a reliable and strong champion for commonsense Wall Street reform. But we don’t have a moment to waste.

Together, we must urge Congress to act now.

Thank you,
Elizabeth Warren

How Corporations Like Monsanto Have Hijacked Higher Education
Academic research is often dictated by corporations that endow professorships, give money to universities, and put their executives on education boards.
May 11, 2012 | AlterNet / By Jill Richardson

Here’s what happens when corporations begin to control education.

“When I approached professors to discuss research projects addressing organic agriculture in farmer’s markets, the first one told me that ‘no one cares about people selling food in parking lots on the other side of the train tracks,’” said a PhD student at a large land-grant university who did not wish to be identified. “My academic adviser told me my best bet was to write a grant for Monsanto or the Department of Homeland Security to fund my research on why farmer’s markets were stocked with ‘black market vegetables’ that ‘are a bioterrorism threat waiting to happen.’ It was communicated to me on more than one occasion throughout my education that I should just study something Monsanto would fund rather than ideas to which I was deeply committed. I ended up studying what I wanted, but received no financial support, and paid for my education out of pocket.”

Unfortunately, she’s not alone. Conducting research requires funding, and today’s research follows the golden rule: The one with the gold makes the rules.

Read more.

Forty Acres and a Rule: Draft Federal Fracking Regulations Cover Only a Sliver of Land
Sunday, 13 May 2012 12:11 By Lena Groeger, ProPublica | News Analysis

Last week’s media coverage of the Obama administration’s newly-proposed fracking rules focused so heavily on how drilling companies would have to disclose the chemicals they use that it largely overlooked the toughest provisions: Drillers would be required to test the physical integrity of their wells, and more water would be protected from drilling. Since many wells fail because the cement and casings crack, the new tests could prevent dangerous leakages.

One major limitation: Although widely understood as “national” guidelines, the draft rules would in fact only apply to a sliver of the nation’s natural gas supply. That’s because they would apply to mineral rights managed by the Bureau of Land Management, which means areas beneath most BLM and tribal land, but scarcely any U.S. Forest Service, private or state-owned lands – where most drilling occurs. Industry has criticized the proposed rules as too restrictive.

The draft rules would require companies to conduct “mechanical integrity tests.” These include pressure tests to make sure that the well can withstand the highly pressurized fluid used for fracking. Ensuring that wells are properly sealed is considered critical for preventing water and ground contamination.

Read more.

Will Democrats Embrace “Austerity American Style”? Crash This Party And Find Out
By Richard (RJ) Eskow
May 11, 2012 – 7:31am ET

Heard about the meeting that’s being held to decide your economic future? If the answer’s “no,” don’t feel bad: That’s because you weren’t invited. But Tim Geithner was. So was Rep. Paul Ryan, the Republican member of Congress whose radical right-wing plans for cutting Medicare have made him the subject of a Mitt Romney “bromance.” So was Bill Clinton, who showed up last year and uttered the usual Beltway insider’s falsehoods about what’s really wrong with Social Security.

Hey, maybe your invitation to billionaire Pete Peterson’s “Fiscal Summit” got lost in the mail. Or maybe they really, really didn’t want you there. Who cares? That’s no reason not to go anyway.

Hey, Sen. Bernie Sanders wasn’t invited, and his proposal for Social Security was much more popular with the American people than anything that’s likely to be discussed at this little get-together.

Read more.

Dear Friends,

Please help protect the US, especially California, from a Chernobyl-like blast from the crippled Fukushima reactors. After reading the Reuters article dated May 12, 2012, which updates the conditions in reactor 1, please sign the petition to Senators Boxer and Feinstein if you haven’t already done so, and send out this message to your friends and contacts.

:: sign the petition ::

—————————————————————————————————

UPDATE 2-Fukushima reactor has a hole, leading to leakage
Thu, May 12 2011

By Yoko Kubota and Scott DiSavino

TOKYO/NEW YORK, May 12 (Reuters) – One of the reactors at Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant has a hole in its main vessel following a meltdown of fuel rods, leading to a leakage of radioactive water, its operator said on Thursday.

The disclosure by Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) (9501.T: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) is the latest indication that the disaster was worse than previously disclosed, making it more difficult to stabilize the plant.

The discovery of the leak provides new insight into the sequence of events that triggered a partial meltdown of the uranium fuel in the No. 1 reactor at Fukushima after the plant was struck by a massive earthquake and tsunami on March 11, officials said.

Read more.

Public Overwhelmingly Supports Large Defense Spending Cuts
By Jeffery Smith

While politicians, insiders and experts may be divided over how much the government should spend on the nation’s defense, there’s a surprising consensus among the public about what should be done: They want to cut spending far more deeply than either the Obama administration or the Republicans.

That’s according to the results of an innovative, new, nationwide survey by three nonprofit groups, the Center for Public integrity, the Program for Public Consultation and the Stimson Center. Not only does the public want deep cuts, it wants those cuts to encompass spending in virtually every military domain — air power, sea power, ground forces, nuclear weapons, and missile defenses.

According to the survey, in which respondents were told about the size of the budget as well as shown expert arguments for and against spending cuts, two-thirds of Republicans and nine in 10 Democrats supported making immediate cuts — a position at odds with the leaderships of both political parties.

Read more.

Seniors’ Social Security Garnished for Student Debts
Friday, 11 May 2012 00:00By Ellen Brown, Truthout | News AnalysisSocial Security

The Social Security program … represents our commitment as a society to the belief that workers should not live in dread that a disability, death, or old age could leave them or their families destitute. -President Jimmy Carter, December 20, 1977.

[This law] assures the elderly that America will always keep the promises made in troubled times a half century ago … [The Social Security Amendments of 1983 are] a monument to the spirit of compassion and commitment that unites us as a people. -President Ronald Reagan, April 20, 1983.

Read more.

http://youtu.be/JQ31Ljd9T_Y

http://youtu.be/6MYCcROvGS4