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Oil and Gas Companies Announce Record Profits Again
Communities Rally in Response
Press Advisory
For immediate release, August 5, 2008
Contact: Michael Huttner, 303-931-4547
Where: West Steps of the Colorado State Capitol
When: Wednesday, August 6, 12:15 pm
Why:
Representatives of low-income communities, communities of color, environmental and health care advocacy organizations call on the oil and gas industry to stop putting profits ahead of the people of Colorado.
In this era of jaw-dropping profits - ExxonMobil announced last week they made $11B in the second quarter of this year - the oil and gas industry is leaving everyday Coloradans behind. Coloradans are suffering under staggering costs that hurt everyone - from sky high gas prices to budget busting home heating costs.
The oil industry's "Drill more, pay less" message is irresponsible, untrue, and endangers Colorado communities.
Who:
ACORN
Colorado Conservation Voters
Colorado Environmental Coalition
Defenders of Wildlife
Mi Familia Vota
New Era Colorado
Progressive Democrats of America
ProgressNow
Photo Op - Visuals Depicting Massive Oil and Gas Industry Profits
How many times have you seen a billboard or bumper sticker and thought you could do better?
Well, here's a chance to use your creativity for a good cause - educating people about John McCain.
Public perception of John McCain is very different than his right-wing record and questionable ethics. The media is giving him a free ride but we can't. It's up to all of us to help our fellow Americans understand who McCain really is.
That's why ProgressNowAction is launching a national contest to find the best description for McCain in five words or less. Click the link below to submit your idea:
http://www.ProgressNowAction.org/Billboards
http://www.ProgressNowAction.org/Billboards
Thank you, in advance for your creativity.
Let's tell our leaders what we want in 2008!The Colorado legislative session begins TODAY, January 9th. Join ProgressNow members from across the state in a conference call next week with House Speaker Andrew Romanoff and Senate President Peter Groff to kick off the session.
Click below to learn more. You can also submit a question you'd like to ask our leaders about any issue--from healthcare reform or renewable energy, to education funding or election reform:
http://progressnowaction.org/PeoplePower2008
If you can't make the call, you can still participate! Use this form to tell leadership what's on your mind. We'll deliver your comments to the both the House and Senate leadership before the conference call next week:
http://progressnowaction.org/PeoplePower2008
With more progressive leaders in state government, we have a real opportunity to move Colorado forward. But change won't come easy. Powerful corporate interests with high-paid lobbyists will fight every day to keep the status quo.
We need change now, and that's where we all come in. We're kicking off a historic citizen lobbying campaign throughout the legislative session to make sure that the voices of ordinary Coloradans are heard at the Capitol--joining this call is the first step.
I have been forced to delete a couple of recent blog posts that were engaged in the kind of overt electioneering that is prohibited by the IRS. Be assured we do not "censor" content based on our own political preferences, but we have no choice but to be compliant with the federal laws governing our organization.
You are free to express your opinions on any subject here at ProgressNowAction, even those you might consider unpopular with the staff or other members--but please be mindful of our restrictions regarding the endorsement of political candidates. We will have no choice but to continue to remove content posted to our forum in violation of the law.
Thanks,
Alan Franklin
IT Manager, ProgressNow
A generous donor has agreed to match every donation to ProgressNow.org from now through midnight on December 31. If you donate to ProgressNow.org, every dollar will be matched. It's a fantastic, and generous offer. You can donate to ProgressNow.org at:
http://www.ProgressNow.org/Donate
Note that ProgressNow.org is a 501(c)3 organization, and donations to ProgressNow.org are deductible for federal income tax purposes.
One of the services many of you may enjoy from ProgressNow.org is our Daily News Digest. Having substituted for Alan on a few occasions, I can tell you that it's hard work producing that service. And it's just one of the many things ProgressNow does to inform Coloradans and promote progressive ideas. If you haven't signed up for the "daily clips", you can do so at http://www.ProgressNow.org/GetTheClips
We had our first successful RootsCamp in February and are excited to make the second RootsCamp even better.
For those who weren't able to participate in February, RootsCamp is a self organizing conference with no preset schedule, everyone is a presenter, and you only go to sessions you find interesting. It is for people to share their innovations, failures, and wisdom.
We've added some great things this time around. We'll have a vendor hall so that you can plug in and volunteer for progressive organizations. And on Sunday there will be intensive breakout sessions to learn new skills like how to make a YouTube Video, how to blog, how to organize around community issues, among others. For more information and to sign up visit:
http://www.progressnowaction.org/page/event/detail/wdj
We look forward to seeing you on December 1st and 2nd in Denver.
This is a display of users in the me.dium community who are visiting our site and "neighboring" sites like our good friends at Squarestate.net. Signing up for me.dium is free, and once you do you'll be able to chat and exchange information will other site users as well us the staff here at ProgressNowAction! It's a very simple interface that requires only Microsoft Internet Explorer and a reasonably modern computer.
Learn more about how the me.dium system works by clicking here, then click here to download your me.dium widget and create your own free account in seconds.
It's just another tool we can all use to network with each other and make our use of this as well other progressive sites more fulfilling and successful. Feel free to chat with myself or any of the ProgressNow staff you see roaming around there once you're set up!
http://media.progressnowaction.org/clips
New features include searchability (huge), as well as individual RSS feeds for every issue category (also huge).
Many thanks to our own Mike Ditto for his coding assistance on the new clips site. If you don't already get the Digest by email each morning, sign up below:
Get the clips
Thanks again for your support, 4:30AM is no time to be up every morning unless it's for a good cause. :)
Join special guest Governor Bill Ritter and ProgressNowAction members on Thursday July 26, on the rooftop of Club Vinyl in Denver for the first annual Progresstival happy hour. The fun kicks off at 5:30pm and ends at 7:30!
The first 250 people who respond get in for the screamin' deal of a $10 donation. For everyone else, it's $15. So, RSVP ASAP! Click on the link to make your donation:
Link
Vinyl is located at 1082 Broadway (map).
We're planning some surprise Progresstival festivities. We can't tell you what they are, but you can bet they'll be talked about for years to come.
In the past 18 months, the ProgressNowAction network has become established as a force for change in Colorado. If you signed one of our petitions or wrote a letter to your newspaper or elected officials through ProgressNowAction.org like tens of thousands of your fellow Coloradans have since 2005, you helped make that happen. Now, we need your help to decide what comes next.
In the months ahead, we have an opportunity to work together to take big steps forward for our state on many issues that we all care about. As we plan for the rest of 2007 and beyond, we want to hear from you.
What issues are most important to you? How do you want to be involved? Click on the link below to weigh in with your thoughts:
Link
Thank you for everything you have done and will do for Colorado.
We've had a great two years at ProgressNow, and we want to recognize our members for all the things they do every day.
To that end, we're pleased to announce "Progress Points", our new system for rewarding you our constituents for participating together with us in achieving our goals to grow an even larger Progressive community here in Colorado.
Starting today every action you take within the ProgressNowAction community automatically accumulates points in your Progress Points account.
Earning points is easy! (Heck, just logging in is worth 100 points).
Here's some other of the ways to earn points:
Sign Up
Register - 1000 points
Create a Profile - 500 points
Blogging
Create Blog Post - 200 points
Add Blog Post to a Group - 100 points
Comment on a Blog Post - 200 points
Rate a Blog Post - 100 points
Groups
Create a Group - 1000 points
Join a Group - 100 points
Become Administrator of a Group - 500
User Joins Your Group - 250
Receive a Rating on a Post You Created - 100 points
Events
Create an Event - 1000 points
Someone Signs Up to Attend Your Event - 200 points
Sign Up to Attend Someone Else's event - 500 points
Grow Your Network
Invite Another User to Your Network - 500 points
Befriend Another User Who Invites You to Their Network - 500 points
LetterRip
Send a Letter to the Editor - 300 Points
Send a Letter to the Elected Official - 300 points
RSS
Subscribe to an RSS Feed - 100 points
You can keep track of your points total within your "My Progress" page. It even displays your current rank and how many additional points you need to move up in the overall rankings.
We know that some of you (those who are "highly competitive" . . . and you know who you are) will "jump right in" and start taking action to grow your point totals. For others the right incentive might do the trick.
Some ideas that have been submitted are:
Bring a bag lunch with The Governor or other Political Official
Tickets (i.e. next time Jon Stewart is in town, Al Franken, etc.)
Fee waived to be sent to a conference
Please leave your suggestions in the comments (ummmm . . . you'll earn 200 points each time you do!)
Some facts for the "Lawyers" out there:
ProgressPoints is not a contest and we may or may not offer incentives for achieving the highest point totals in a given period of time . . . We probably will, but we may not.
Any previous points achieved have been added to your account . . . there will be no further updating of previous points earned.
We hope you enjoy Progress Points and that you will use them to help us grow our community!
A couple of suggestions.
First, for a few minutes each morning for the next few days, start off by visiting this page. You'll find that you can get a quick read on the days news in just minutes so you're better prepped for the water cooler talk at work. Each morning by 9 a.m. Alan posts his "Daily News Digest", a summary (with links) of all the top newspaper stories in Colorado and the country. You'll also see a few posts about stories that may not have been covered well enough in the mainstream press. Then, when that right wing nutcake with whom you work spouts off, you'll be armed with info to shut him down.
Second, if you see a story about which you have something to say, take a minute to click on the "comments" link and say what's on your mind. Share your information and your opinion. Change begins with dialogue, and one of the best things about blogs is that they help important information spread more quickly so that we can change minds and change direction.
(Alexa's overall traffic rankings, 12/21/05)
ProgressNow Action: 298,935
Independence Institute: 830,636
Focus on the Family Action Fund: 746,412
Bell Policy Center: 1,752,239
Bighorn Policy Center: 1,353,538
Colorado Democrats: 2,433,632
Colorado Republicans: 742,547
Coloradopols.com: 697,995
5280 Magazine: 346,737
Getting out the vote is the responsibility of us all. We each are responsible for doing everything we can Monday and Tuesday to remind everyone we know to vote.
One simple thing that each of us can do is email 10 friends right now. Tomorrow morning we're going to send an email out to the entire network inviting everyone to join our Internet GOTV Email Tree. You can get a jump on that right now by going to:
ProgressNowAction.org/GetOutTheVote
Be part of the largest Internet get out the vote push in our state's history. Click on the link, add your name, and invite 10 others to join you.
I love the fact that someone sent one of them to Dave Pearson at the Club for Growth.
As Huttner said in the article, Jen is a genius when it comes to audio and video production. She was a producer at CNN in Atlanta for 5 years, but now she's putting her talents to use with ProgressNow.org and ProgressNow Action to help move Colorado in a more progressive direction.
We're lucky to have Jen on the team. You're going to be seeing a lot more great work from Jen in the months ahead.
Check out her C&D ads and tell all your friends to go to visit the ProgressTV link on the left side of this blog to watch for themselves.
Also check out some of the great podcast interviews Jen has done by clicking on the Progress Radio link on the left. Read More »
Dear Network Member,
Last week, former Lt. Governor Gail Schoettler wrote you about www.ProgressNowAction.org - an exciting new website to help get your voice heard on important issues. Now you have a chance to use this new site for the first time to speak out for Referenda C & D.
On Wednesday October 19th, Coloradans across the state will gather together at house parties and write letters to voters in support of C & D.
In just one night, working together, our small groups will have a big impact for C & D. Together, we can write thousands - perhaps even tens of thousands - of letters to Colorado voters. And we can have a great night with our friends!
Will you host a house party? It's easy, just click here and follow the simple instructions.
Colorado is our state. Its future is in our hands. Will you take just one night to make that future a better one for all of us? If we have 100 house parties, with 10 people at each party, and each of us writes just 10 short letters, we can contact 10,000 people who might not otherwise vote. That could be enough to push C & D over the top, and it will show clearly what we can all accomplish when we work together.
If you have any questions about hosting or attending a house party, please call us at 303-991-1900 or email maria@progressnowaction.org. We're here to help!
Thank you for standing with us to support Referenda C & D, and have a great house party on October 19th!
Sincerely,
Maria Handley
Outreach Director
P.S. If you can't host or attend a house party, you can still write letters at any time. Click here and follow the instructions for downloading voter names and addresses. And don't delay - it's important to get letters out to voters as quickly as possible.
This is going to be a lot of fun and we can have a big impact for C&D. Host your own house party!
In the meantime, something new about this blog that is really cool is that it is a community blogging system, sort of like DailyKos or MyDD. So anyone can actually post a blog entry. You do have to register to post your own blog entries. You can register by clicking on the "MyProgress" tab in the header. From your MyProgress dashboard you can post your own blog entries. Every entry you post will be published here on the blog under the "All Network Posts" tab.
The headlines for all your blog posts will appear on your public profile so that anyone who sees your profile can click on a link to view your blog posts. In addition, you can publish headline links for your blog entries to the profile pages for any groups on this site to which you belong so that anyone who visits the profile pages for any of those groups also will see a link to your blog posts.
If you have any questions about registering or posting your own blog entries please email us at info@progressnowaction.org.
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Why Not a "Bailout" that Restructures Health Care to Benefit All?
Posted Nov 23, 2008 10:33pm
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