Today’s Downsizer Dispatch . . .
Please share with concerned friends . . .
Quote of the Day:
“Simply having rules does not change the things that people want to do. You have to change incentives.”
— Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia
Subject: Victory plus urgent action needed
We won another one. The provisions related to the National Animal Identification System were stripped out of the agriculture bill!
See, pressure works!
Better yet, President Bush says he will veto the agriculture bill because it does not cap subsidies for millionaire farmers. Finally, a good veto from the Decider!
But we can’t savor our victory for long. More votes are coming in Congress and we need to take urgent action.
Congress is slated to vote tomorrow on its secret ethics bill. Because this bill is secret we don’t know what’s in it. (We need the “Read the Bills Act!”) This ethics bill probably doesn’t contain provisions that would regulate groups like DownsizeDC.org, but it could. How would we know?!
We’ve beaten these regulations several times now, and we can’t afford to let down our guard now. Please send Congress a message opposing any regulation of grassroots groups that organize citizens to communicate with Congress. In your personal comments tell them you also oppose secret legislation that taxpayers can’t see before it comes to a vote.
You can send your message here.
But that’s not all. We need to do double duty today. Congress is about to recess, so they’re voting on a lot of things very quickly. The Defense appropriations bill is back, just as we predicted. This means the amendments to restore habeas corpus and dismantle the military tribunals are also back in play.
Please ask Congress to pass . . .
* S. 576 to dismantle the military tribunals
* S. 185 to restore habeas corpus
You can send your message here.
Please send messages on both of these issues. We’ll be able to relax a little once Congress leaves, but for now, we have to keep our foot on the gas.
Thank you for being a DC Downsizer.
Jim Babka
President
DownsizeDC.org, Inc.