Jerry Northington, a great progressive candidate for Delaware's lone seat in the House of Representatives, recently signed America In Solidarity's pledge to support working families. Northington wants us out of Iraq, affordable health care for all, and living wages. He also states that we need to restructure our current trade deals that have cost millions of American jobs, not to mention worsening conditions for workers abroad.

See Northington's answers to our questionaire here.

Call your members of Congress while they are home for Presidents’ Day recess and ask them to oppose this move by taking a public position against the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement

Our collective energy has stopped the FTA for a year. This is a victory that could be dashed by the powerful all-out campaign launched by the Administrations of U.S. President George Bush and Colombian President Alvaro Uribe. With six official U.S. Congressional delegations already sent to Colombia to experience carefully staged tours highlighting the efforts supposedly undertaken to end the systematic assassination of Colombia labor leaders, five more are scheduled.

America In Solidarity volunteers participated in our "Lobby Day" where we engaged with pledge signers and other elected officials during the current session of the Washington State Legislature. We lobbied on issues like affordable health care, public financing of elections and worker's rights. Volunteers met with State Representatives, Tami Green, Troy Kelley, Dawn Morrell, Dennis Flannigan, Mark  Miloscia and Larry Seaquist and State Senator Derek Kilmer and dropped off our concerns letter to dozens more. Participating in the day were Mike Jagielski, David Johnson, Gail Ross, Todd Iverson, Jeff and Brianna Richardson and Mike and Cathy Collier.

President Bush released his FY 2009 budget that totaled over $3.1 trillion, $400 billion of that will be borrowed from the future. Within its details are the makings of a disaster for working families:

• His budget would make his tax cuts permanent -- at the cost of $2.4 trillion over the next 10 years, with millionaires pocketing tax breaks of about $150,000 a year.
• Removes 200,000 low income children from child care support, and does nothing to bring college within reach of working families.
• Freeze payments to doctors and hospitals under Medicare, and stunningly, cut support for the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, even as a global economy puts us at greater risk of importing global pandemics.
• Continues to cut domestic investment across the board, even reducing federal support for "first responders" -- police, fire and public health officials by 45% percent.
• Slashes housing vouchers, eliminating rental support for an estimated 100,000 low income families.
• And perhaps worse of all, when universal health care is in the conversation, the budget proposal cuts Medicare by $178 Billion (yes with a "b") over the next five years.

The Prescription Privacy bill (HB 2664) is likely to come up for a vote in the Washington State House this Monday (February 4th). We now need to make phone calls and send emails and faxes to our House Representatives asking them to vote in favor of this bill.


These phone calls, emails and faxes should begin today and take place throughout the weekend or early on Monday morning. Big Pharma and the pharmaceutical and bio-tech companies are strongly mobilizing against this bill. Therefore, we need as much response as possible in support of HB 2664.


Call Now! 1 (800) 562-6000 (toll-free)

(Hours: 8:00am-8:00pm M-F; 9:00am-1:00pm Sat.; closed Sunday)


Message: Support HB 2664 to prohibit the sale and use of prescriber-identifiable prescription data for marketing or promotional purposes.

This Prescription Privacy bill would stop pharmaceutical companies from using the prescribing histories of physicians for marketing purposes. Protect the privacy of the patient-physician relationship. Get doctors' prescription pads out of drug reps' sights and marketing efforts. Pharmaceutical companies spend $3 billion annually to purchase prescribing histories of physicians strictly for marketing purposes. This practice, called Data Mining, is usually done without physicians' knowledge or consent and is overwhelmingly opposed by physicians. Data Mining erodes patient-doctor privacy, leads to inappropriate prescribing, undermines
patient safety and drives up costs.

In January, the Washington State House voted 56-38 in favor of HB 1551 that would allow local jurisdictions to create their own programs of public financing for campaigns for local office. A companion Senate bill, SB 5278, is being considered currently. The bill is NOT a mandate - only permission. No state funds are involved. And, any local program must be approved in a referendum to local voters. America In Solidarity is in favor of election reform and embraces this concept as a way of reducing the corporate, big money influence upon our democracy and elections.

We encourage Washington State residents to contact your Senators either by email or by calling 1-800-562-6000 and tell them to support SB 5278.

Ranked Choice Voting Bill also on docket

SB 6000 (and House Companion bill 2202) would allow cities and local taxing districts to use ranked choice voting in counties where it is allowed. America In Solidarity supported Pierce County's passing of ranked choice voting in 2006. Ranked choice is commonly known as instant runoff voting.

At December's meeting, AIS's Executive Board announce the renewal of the essay-based Ottilie Markholt Scholarship and a new service-based scholarship. Over the past three years, AIS has awarded over $10,000 in scholarships to high school seniors and current college students.

"We had so many great student-activists apply last year, kids that are present and future progressive leaders, that we felt we needed to start a new category to award them for what they do," said AIS President Todd Iverson about the new service-based scholarship. AIS will award a minimum of two $500 scholarships in this category.

Students can also apply for the Ottilie Markholt Memorial Scholarship by answering an essay question. Previous winners have been chosen based on the quality of their essay, grades, scholarship and activities. This year's essay questions are different and designed to engage students to think about some of the key issues of the day like trade and union organizing.

Information about the 2008 Service Scholarship

Information about the 2008 Ottilie Markholt Memorial Scholarship

Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey, co-chair of the Progressive Caucus, called for a call to action for progressives to fill the vacuum with goodness.

"Grassroots action is the key, it must start on the ground," Woolsey said in her keynote address at America In Solidarity' s NW Progressive Convention on November 10. "We must be more visible and we must reach out to independents and Republicans that agree with us."

Woolsey's keynote hit on Iraq, poverty, war and moral leadership and set the tone for a day that included addresses by Congressman Adam Smith, retired General Paul Eaton, and panels and workshops on civil liberites, clean elections, trade, immigration and health care. Woolsey's and Smith's presentations were taped by TV Washington and can be seen online. In the presidential straw poll, Congressman Dennis Kucinich won 51% of the votes and far outdistanced John Edwards and Barack Obama who tied at 18%.

As part of America In Solidarity's NW Progressive Convention on November 10^th in Tacoma WA, all the attendees participated in a Presidential Straw Poll. Congressman Dennis Kucinich pulled a decisive victory winning with 51% of the votes cast, John Edwards and Barack Obama tied for second with 18% of the vote, and Al Gore captured 8% of the vote as a write-in candidate. Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton failed to garner one vote in the straw poll of the convention that had nearly 150 attendees.

The vote totals were:

1. Kucinich 51%

t2. Edwards 18% 

t2. Obama 18%

4. Gore 8%

5. Paul 3% 

6. Richardson 1%

No other candidates received any votes.

The straw poll was part of a day that included speeches from Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey, Congressman Adam Smith and retired General Paul Eaton. The day also included a series of workshops and panels on issues such as immigration, health care, civil liberties and trade. "The attendees sent a clear message all day that they want a new direction in Iraq," said Todd Iverson, President of America In Solidarity. "It was reflected throughout the day with their intense questioning of our speakers to the straw poll that there is a lack of progress in the Middle East. I think they see Kucinich as the only candidate that is bold enough to say America has had enough."
 

You and your kids can join schoolchildren across the US who are reversing the Halloween tradition by handing Fair Trade chocolate back to adults while Trick-or-Treating door-to-door. The candy will be accompanied by information about social justice issues in the chocolate industry, and how Fair Trade chocolate provides a solution to these concerns.

America In Solidarity is encouraging its volunteers to join us or call Stephanie Celt at Washington Fair Trade Coalition (206-227-3079) to do this in your own neighborhood.

While chocolate is sweet for us, it can be heartbreaking for the hundreds of thousands of child laborers that pick the cocoa that goes into some of our favorite treats. In 2001, the U.S. State Department, the International Labor Organization and others reported child slavery on many cocoa farms in the Ivory Coast, source of 43% of the worlds cocoa. Subsequent research by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture revealed some 284,000 children between the ages of 9 and 12 working in hazardous conditions on West African cocoa farms. Of these children, it was reported that some 12,000 child cocoa workers that had participated in the study were likely to have arrived in their situation as a result of child trafficking.

In 2001, this unacceptable practice caught the attention of the media and the government, and the American public began to voice their abhorrence of the use of child slave labor in the production of one of their most beloved treats: chocolate. In response, the US chocolate industry agreed (via the Harken-Engel Protocol) to voluntarily take steps to end child slavery on cocoa farms by July of 2005.