Montgomery County Progressive Alliance: March 20, 2011

March 25, 2011

Progressive Coalition Meeting to plan future events and actions.

Progressive Coalition Meeting to plan future events and actions.

Tuesday, April 5 · 7:30pm - 9:00pm

Saigonese Restaurant, 11232 Grandview Ave
Silver Spring (Wheaton), MD 20902
Public Transportation: Short walk from Wheaton Metro (red line)
Google Map: http://maps.google.com/maps?q=11232+Grandview+Ave+Silver+Spring+MD+20902

Report on upcoming Progressive Summit in Annapolis, Progressive Conference in Arizona, progress in our county and state on Healthcare, Equality, the Environment, Education, Labor, Transportation, Energy and other issues. We're building up our coalition and lobby efforts on the state and national level, planning special events, forming a steering committee, and working on meetings with legislators, and other organizations.

PDA: Progressive Democrats of America began just after the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston. Bringing together people from the 2004 Kucinich and Dean Campaigns with other progressives, PDA adopted an "inside/outside strategy" uniting activists working inside the Democratic Party with those working in peace and justice movements. PDA's core issues include clean, accurate and transparent elections; environmental protection; single-payer healthcare; economic and social justice; and peace. See: http://www.PDAmerica.org/ You can sign up for PDA there.

MCPA: The Montgomery County Progressive Alliance is a result-oriented coalition working on local, state, national and international issues. MCPA includes more than 1,000 local activists, mainly in and around Montgomery County Maryland. The organization began in 2003 when Democracy for America Meetup members reached out to other Meetup groups and other groups. In 2004, 100s of Montgomery County for Kerry members and local Progressive Democrats of America members joined the MCPA. MCPA adopted a mission statement, organized special events, and has held meetings nearly each month since 2003.Please join the Montgomery County Progressive Alliance Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/mcprogressivealliance

DFA/DFMC: Democracy for America emerged from Gov. Howard Dean's presidential campaign in 2004, and has organized grass-roots activists to support socially progressive, fiscally responsible candidates. DFMC is Democracy for Montgomery County, a local DFA-inspired organization which is not directly or legally affiliated with DFA. DFMC has organized events and meetings; and endorsed and organized volunteers for several candidates. DFMC is currently seeking additional steering committee members. Please contact me, mikehersh@mikehersh.com if you're interested. You can sign up for DFA here: http://democracyforamerica.com/session/new

If you haven't already: Please contribute $15 for 2011 to keep this meetup going. Pay online: http://www.meetup.com/progressive-victory/dues/ or bring to a meeting.

When a Father Knows Best: Seeking More than Sympathy

When a Father Knows Best: Seeking More than Sympathy
Time Monday, April 4 · 7:00pm - 9:00pm

Location Wheaton Regional Library

11701 Georgia Ave Wheaton, MD
(large conference room downstairs)

Created By Montgomery County NOW

Our speaker is a forceful advocate for women — the father of a then fifteen-year-old daughter who was gang-raped. Coping with this, he encountered people who didn't help his daughter or him as they should have. He decided to use his energy to insist that women who find themselves similarly-situated are treated with respect by every institution with which they come in contact: hospitals, the police, the school system, the court-system, the juvenile justice system, as well as by those who have assaulted them.

Join us to discuss a fundamental issue: what we expect of officials in the most personal of crises who fail us when we most need them and how we in the community can insist on better.

For more information, contact info@mcmdnow.org

SOS! Senator Raskin's Independent Expenditure bill needs your help NOW!

SOS! Senator Raskin's Independent Expenditure bill needs your help NOW!

Urgent action: Please share this alert with your membership now. The session ends in two weeks and the Senate Education, Health, and Environmental Affairs Committee has not scheduled a vote on Raskin's Independent Expenditure Disclosure bill, SB 592. Time is running out, but we can make a huge difference if we act now! This is a priority issue for the Progressive Working Group.

-- Mike Hersh, Steering Committee, PWG

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From Jessica Sharp, fairandcleanmd@gmail.com

[T]he Senate EHE Committee pulled Senator Raskin's Independent Expenditure bill from the voting roster. This is a bill that would require corporations and special interest groups to disclose funds spent on electioneering communications. It was thought to be certain to pass this year, but now it's fate is in limbo. Without swift action, it may not make it out of committee, much less onto the floor.

Can you please follow the link below to send an email to EHE Chair Joan Carter-Conway's office?

Keeping pressure on her can help our cause. Please consider helping with this very quick, easy action.

Many thanks,

Jessica Sharp

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Equally important: Please contact your membership, and ask them to contact their State Senator to demand Chairwoman Carter-Conway schedule a vote on Senate Bill 592. In other words, act now, ask your members to call and email their state senator. Emails help. Calls help more. Specifically ask the staffer answering the phone to record their message that we want the senator to tell Sen. Carter-Conway their constituents want SB 592 passed this session. This is especially important for senators on the EHE committee (see membership below).

-- Mike Hersh, Steering Committee, PWG

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From Susan Wichmann at Common Cause:

Last year, the Citizens United decision made it so corporations and special interest groups can spend unlimited amounts of money on advertisements to influence the outcome of elections.

Maryland is currently only one of only six states that doesn't require this spending to be disclosed. It is time for this deplorable lack of disclosure to change. Senate Bill 592/House Bill 93 will fix the problem and require this much needed disclosure.

Urgent action is needed now! The legislative session ends in two weeks and the Senate Education, Health, and Environmental Affairs Committee has not voted to bring this legislation to the full Senate.

Email Senator Joan Carter Conway, and urge her to hold a committee vote for SB 592/HB 93 before time runs out.

SB 592/HB 93 will require disclosure of the money that corporations and special interest spend to influence the outcome of Maryland elections. If they spend $10,000 or more per election cycle to advocate for or against candidates or ballot measures, they would have report it to the State Board of Elections.

Corporations and unions would also have let their shareholders or members know about their attempts to influence the outcome of elections by putting a link to the report on their website or by including the information reported in their annual report.

Tell Sen. Joan Carter Conway Maryland voters deserve to know which special interests are trying to buy their votes!

Please forward this to your friends and family in Maryland who care about the excessive influence that corporate and special interest money has in our elections.

Sincerely,

Susan Wichmann
and the rest of the team at Common Cause Maryland

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Senate EHE Committee membership:
Joan Carter Conway, Chair (410) 841-3145, (301) 858-3145
Roy P. Dyson, Vice-Chair (410) 841-3673, (301) 858-3673

TONIGHT! 7 to 9 PM, Torture: From Kentucky to Abu Ghraib to Quantico

On Fri., Mar. 25, 7 to 9 PM, Torture: From Kentucky to Abu Ghraib to Quantico will be led by Susan Rosenberg and Ray McGovern at The Festival Center (main conference hall), 1640 Columbia Road NW, WDC 20009. Free-will offerings are welcome. Rosenberg is an author focusing on issues of social justice. In her new book, An American Radical: Political Prisoner in My Own Country, she draws on her experience in prison before President Clinton granted her clemency. (The book will be on sale at this event.) Call 202-328-0072,

Rosenberg was one of the first to experience the “High Security Unit” (HSU) in the basement of the federal prison in Lexington, Kentucky. The government used this unit as a laboratory to refine techniques like isolation, 24-hour surveillance, frequent strip searches, and sharply curtailed access to exercise and visitors. These dehumanizing techniques — and other refinements — were later used in Afghanistan, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, and now — for Army Pvt. Bradley Manning — at the Marine brig in Quantico.

Ray McGovern is a former Army infantry/intelligence officer and then a CIA analyst for a total of 30 years, Ray has been showing how our government lost its very soul when it blessed torture. Such abuse is one of the “accumulated evils” which the post-WWII Nuremberg Tribunal noted would inevitably flow from what the Tribunal called the “the supreme international crime, a war of aggression.”

March 23, 2011

Thurs. 3pm Annap.: March to Chamber of Commerce, Collect Unpaid Taxes

Thurs. 3-3:30 pm: Help Collect 'Past Due' Taxes at
Md. Chamber of Commerce, 60 West St., Annapolis

Union-community coalition seeks hundreds of millions in
unpaid taxes from Maryland corporations and millionaires

RSVP to join us 3/24 and email your lawmakers to demand
passage of Millionaire's Tax and Combined Reporting bills

Rally crowd photo Join your labor brothers and sisters Thursday 3 pm at the Maryland Chamber of Commerce for this short but important protest action to dramatize our state's desperate need to reclaim hundreds of millions of dollars in unpaid taxes from Maryland's large corporations and millionaires. We will deliver "Past Due" notices and demand the General Assembly pass bills to extend the Millionaire's Tax and enact Combined Reporting.

Corporate Income Tax – Combined Reporting: This would generate $100 million or more per year by requiring large multi-state corporations, half of whom now pay no income tax to Maryland, to pay their fair share of their corporate tax based on profits earned in the state. It will also end their unfair competitive advantage. For example, big chains like Pizza Hut and Domino's pay no Maryland income tax, but all local restaurants and small businesses do. [See our Corporate Tax Factsheet.]
Preserve the Millionaire's Tax: This measure that expired the end of 2010 also generates close to $100 million in badly needed annual revenue and should be extended. With the latest federal tax cut extension, which gave on average $77,000 in tax cuts to the average millionaire, Maryland's millionaire's tax on average only cost Maryland millionaires $9,995 on income over $1 million dollars. Maryland millionaires pay the same tax rate as the rest of us on all income below $1 million dollars, and a mere $6.25 for each $100 income above that. Given the mammoth $1 billion state budget deficit, it's a tiny sacrifice from our most affluent to preserve our schools, services, safety net, and future. [See our Fiscal Fairness Factsheet and Five Reasons to Preserve the "Millionaire's Tax".]