Everybody Knows with Dr. Bob and Dan-o

Demand the Release of Rep. Cynthia McKinney, the SPIRIT OF HUMANITY, all aid workers and supplies NOW! Last night, Israeli Occupation Forces attacked and boarded the Free Gaza Movement boat, the SPIRIT OF HUMANITY, abducting 21 human rights workers from 11 countries, including Noble laureate Mairead Maguire and former U.S. Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney. The passengers and crew are being forcibly dragged toward Israel. The seizure of humanitarian supplies and abduction of human rights workers is an act of piracy, a crime under international law. When the boat was attacked, it was not in Israeli waters and was on a human rights mission to Gaza. Israel's deliberate and premeditated attack on an unarmed boat in international waters is a clear violation of international law. The U.S. government and corporate media has largely ignored or buried this story due to racism against Cynthia McKinney and the people of Palestine. It is up to us to get the word out.

Our current private health insurance system is the most costly, wasteful, complicated and bureaucratic in the world. Today, 46 million people have no health insurance. Even more are underinsured with high deductibles and co-payments. Close to 20,000 Americans die each year because they don't have regular access to a doctor.
The time is now for our nation to address the most profound moral and economic issue we face. The time is now for our country to join the rest of the industrialized world and provide cost-effective, comprehensive quality health care to every man, woman and child in our country. The time is now to take on the powerful special interests in the insurance and pharmaceutical industries and pass a single-payer national health care program.

Send a message to Congress, sign the petition:
Petition

The Petition reads:

Whereas:
46 million Americans are currently without health insurance;

Dear ACLU Supporter -- The evidence of the Bush administration’s illegal torture program continues to mount. And today, we’re seeking your help to get that evidence in front of Attorney General Eric Holder. You can help submit evidence and demand accountability by using our new Accountability for Torture action center. At this comprehensive and resource-filled new site, you can also view videos that make a powerful case for accountability…see profiles of the main architects of the Bush torture program…and use a search engine to examine the mountains of evidence the ACLU has obtained through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigation.

Click here to visit our new action center where you can submit evidence to Attorney General Holder

Obama plans to take a larger role in the health care reform issue.
Website If you think that single payer health care should at least be on the table then take 3 minutes to link to The White House web page and demand that it be included in the debate. Please forward this to as many as possible. Let's take control of our government.
Contact the White House

Almost a month has passed since the Senate Foreign Relations committee approved Harold Koh to serve as Legal Advisor (head lawyer) at the State Department. As Dean of Yale Law School and an expert in international law with a long track record of human rights work, he is the perfect person to help our nation move forward with international legal affairs.
However, despite strong support from fair-minded lawyers all across the political spectrum (including lawyers he opposed in his inspirational work to help Haitian refugees in the early 1990s - see
Yale Alumni Magazine
Koh's nomination is bottled up and needs your help.
Senators Collins, Snowe and Voinovich are Republican senators whose support is needed to bring a vote on Koh's nomination.
Would you mind taking 5 minutes right now to help Harold? Here is a phone script you can use:
Phone script

Here is contact info:
* Collins:

Last week, President Obama sent his FY2010 budget request to Congress and, as expected, included in it $2.775 billion in military aid for Israel, an increase of $225 million from this year's budget. The budget request now goes to the Senate and House Appropriations Subcommittees on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs for hearings and "mark-ups".This request for an increase in military aid to Israel comes despite the fact that Israel consistently misuses U.S. weapons in violation of the Arms Export Control and Foreign Assistance Acts. During the Bush Administration, Israel killed more than 3,000 Palestinian civilians who took no part in hostilities, including more than 1,000 children.During its December-January war on the Gaza Strip alone, Israel killed nearly 1,200 Palestinian non-combatants. Especially during this acute economic crisis, is this how you want Congress to spend your taxes? If not, then take action below.

The Ohio State University is once again trying to stop the OSU Hempfest from happening. This time they have tried to intimidate their own students by first saying we needed to put a $10,000 deposit down UP FRONT if we wanted to have the festival this year. We called their bluff, and they were forced to lower their demand to $5,000. We are up against the wall this year, and we need to raise $5,000 or the festival WILL NOT HAPPEN. We are asking students to donate between $5-10. If there are just 500 students that can pledge $10 each, the festival will be saved.
Donations can be made directly to SSDP on the Main Oval every Tuesday and Friday until the day of the festival from 10AM-4PM. You can also write a check and mail it to 83 West 9th Ave., Apt #2.

President Obama could soon have the power to regulate dangerous greenhouse gases himself should Congress fail to do what’s necessary. It’s up to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and YOU to decide.
Here’s the deal: The EPA has concluded that there is overwhelming evidence that greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels endanger our health and welfare -- which means that by law they have the ability to regulate those emissions under the Clean Air Act. But, before they make a final decision they’re giving the public a chance to comment. Make sure that the EPA knows how you feel by submitting a comment today.

Tell the EPA to give President Obama the power to rescue the climate.

These comments really do make a difference. The more people who tell the EPA to finalize these findings the better chance we have of giving President Obama the tools he needs to be a leader on global warming. It really is that simple.

Based on the global capitalist economic crisis which is wreaking havoc on the lives of hundreds of millions of people world wide, United Nations General Assembly President Miguel D'Escoto-Brockman is organizing an urgent Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis and its Impact on Development, to take place on June 1-3 at the United Nations in New York City. This international gathering, sometimes called the G-192 because every member nation of the UN will participate, is virtually tenfold the participation of nations in the G-20. This summit of world leaders will for the first time give an equal opportunity to those who represent the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people, those who are suffering the most but who have been left out in the decisions which have caused this systemic failure, to express their people’s needs to the world and make known their suffering caused by arbitrary acts and excesses of rich nations. The powerful financial institutions that have long been entrusted to manage national and global financial and economic systems have failed. It is time to give all the others a voice and a choice.

After 13 years of detention, Nobel Peace Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi has been jailed again on trumped up charges by the brutal Burmese regime. Call on UN Secretary General to secure her and all political prisoners' release. Burma's democracy leader and Nobel Peace prize winner, Aung San Suu Kyi, has been locked up on new trumped up charges, just days before her 13 years of detention was due to expire. She and thousands of fellow monks and students have been imprisoned for bravely challenging the brutal military regime with peaceful calls for democracy. Risking danger to speak out for their jailed friends, Burmese activists are demanding the release of Aung San Suu Kyi and all political prisoners and calling on the world to help. We have just six days to get a flood of petition signatures to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon calling on him to make their release a top priority -- he can make this a condition of any renewed international engagement. Follow the link to sign the petition, and forward this email on to friends to ensure Aung San Suu Kyi and all political prisoners are freed. Burmese activists will present the global petition to the media on May 26th: