Pax-salon Mailing List: Fwd: Message from Medea: Can you Help? Visiting Senator Franken

[Patty Guerrero (pattypax]

Hi,  i am forwarding this plea and petition drive from Coleen Rowley and from 
Medea Benjamin in hopes that you sign the petition for a "town hall" meeting 
from Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Sen. Al Franken.   PLease read and sign if you can.

Thanks,

Patty 

Begin forwarded message:

> From: "Rowley Clan" <rowleyclan [at] earthlink.net>
> Date: March 13, 2013 6:56:45 PM CDT
> To: "'Noor Mir'" <noor.codepink [at] gmail.com>
> Cc: <mike [at] mudpuppies.net>, <novitsky7 [at] aol.com>
> Subject: RE: Message from Medea: Can you Help? Visiting Senator Franken
> Reply-To: <rowleyclan [at] earthlink.net>
> 
> As background and if you didn’t know, we formed an ad hoc group comprised of 
> members of a variety of peace groups here in MN to lobby both Senators 
> Franken and Klobuchar about this beginning in late January.  The lobbying 
> consisted of personal visits of the maximum allowed (12 of us) to both of 
> their offices for hour plus telephone conference calls with their foreign 
> policy staffers in DC.  We followed up with a series of letters and e-mails 
> to their key foreign policy and war policy staffers that contained a number 
> of questions and demands that criteria for CIA Director confirmation be 
> considered.
>  
> As you certainly are aware, the staffers while nice and polite are, 
> unfortunately instructed to essentially pat you on the head and say they will 
> convey the message, that’s all. Klobuchar’s key staffer told us just days 
> before the Brennan vote was originally scheduled that he had not discussed 
> this at all with her but he implied she would automatically be voting for 
> (war criminal) Brennan. 
>  
> So just before the full vote, we commenced a petition for Klobuchar to hold a 
> town hall (pasted below along with my FB preface) which, despite her 
> overwhelming re-election (something like 65-70%) last Fall, she is absolutely 
> loathe to do. 
>  
> As is Franken.  Our group made a standing request to meet with Franken over 
> one year ago and he is now up for re-election, only having won by 300 votes 
> on a multi-million dollar “recount”.  (As an aside, I know Al Franken 
> personally as he came in support of a half-dozen of my own campaign events in 
> 2005-2006 in very strategic moves on his part.)   
> 
> We decided for strategic reasons, it would be better to petition one MN 
> Senator at a time so we started first with Klobuchar who has a significantly 
> worse voting record than Franken even though they are both bad on war issues, 
> especially when AIPAC is pushing war.)  I’ve never launched a petition before 
> so I went with my Change.org prior sign-on which makes it look like the 
> petition is only from my husband and me but really there is an ad hoc group.  
> But perhaps a petition like this could be added to what’s being suggested for 
> the “ten most liberal?”  Normally our peace groups—all 75 of them in 
> Minnesota Nice—are totally afraid of doing anything that looks “political” so 
> none of them would officially ever back such a petition for an elected 
> politician to hold a town hall with constituents although some members may 
> sign in their personal capacity. 
>  
> Anyway, to arrive at the bottom line, I think our “ad hoc group” might be up 
> to the task of continued efforts in March under the “Code Pink”  umbrella!!   
>  
>  
>  I am copying the main two on this e-mail and I’ll get back to you shortly. I 
> only speak for myself, however, in my praise and laud of Code Pink’s efforts 
> to stop the drone assassination policy! 
>  
> Coleen R.
>  
>  
> http://evergreenedigest.org/sites/evergreenedigest.org/files/Senator%20Klobuchar%20follow%20up%20on%20Brennan%20nomination..pdf
>  
> Petition via Coleen Rowley: 
> 
> Please sign and share! Over 200 people, mostly Minnesotans have signed our 
> petition. But it’s more important for us to speak out then ever! The vote 
> last week to confirm "Kill List Assassination Czar" John Brennan was 
> deliberately speeded up when the drone bombing filibuster started to get 
> traction on progressive news media like Huffington Post and with Amy Goodman 
> of Democracy Now. The calculated rush to confirm Brennan (and thus continue 
> drone bombing, etc.) was deliberately intended to stop us from questioning 
> our elected politicians further about the horrendous war policies which have 
> expanded US war to the "global battlefield" (the entire world!) on a 
> permanent basis. "Though the Authorization for Use of Military Force—a joint 
> resolution passed in the days following the 9/11 attacks—has been repeatedly 
> reauthorized by Congress, officials inside the White House reveal that the 
> Obama administration is having specific conversations about how to both 
> expand the law's authority and make certain aspects of the US "global war on 
> terror" permanent." Yesterday the NY Times wrote it's time to repeal the 
> Authorization to Use Military Force.
> 
> And now Amy Klobuchar just signed onto Lindsey Graham's and AIPAC’s push for 
> an even more disastrous pre-emptive war on Iran. She is as loathe to answer 
> why she voted for a war criminal as she is to explain why she favors more 
> disastrous wars and killing. But only if we can get hundreds more signatures 
> is she likely to pay attention.
> 
> http://www.change.org/petitions/us-senator-minnesota-amy-klobuchar-hold-a-town-hall-meeting-re-serious-concerns-re-john-brennan-and-gwot?utm_campaign=share_button_action_box&utm_medium=facebook&utm_source=share_petition
> 
> US Senator (Minnesota) Amy Klobuchar: Hold a "town hall" meeting re serious 
> concerns re John Brennan
> www.change.org
>  
> The nomination of John O. Brennan to be the next Director of the Central 
> Intelligence Agency raises profound concern among the peace and justice 
> community in Minnesota. His previous senior positions within the CIA, his 
> term as Director of the National Counterterrorism Center under President 
> George W. Bush, and his role as President Obama's chief counterterrorism 
> advisor mean he was present for, if not a principal architect of, the most 
> egregious excesses in the U.S. prosecution of the global "war on terror" 
> including torture (enhanced interrogation), extraordinary rendition, 
> indefinite detention, black prison sites, drone strike assassination, 
> launching of pre-emptive wars and disregard for the rule of law. Senator 
> Klobuchar, your constituents hold dear their American values and wish to 
> speak to the morality, legality, and efficacy of these practices in a "town 
> hall” forum where democracy can be practiced.
> 
>  
> From: Noor Mir [mailto:noor.codepink [at] gmail.com] 
> Sent: Wednesday, March 13, 2013 4:02 PM
> To: rowleyclan [at] earthlink.net
> Subject: Message from Medea: Can you Help? Visiting Senator Franken
>  
> Dear Colleen:
>  
> The CODEPINK team hopes to continue the conversation on Brennan by targeting 
> 10 of our most liberal Democrat Senators who confirmed him. We are looking 
> for constituents in these ten states who would organize a quick visit to 
> their Senator's local office and ask them why they supported the confirmation 
> and what they think about the drone program.
>  
> Some may want to simply express their discontent with Brennan's 
> confirmation/the drone program, while others could plan on asking Senators to 
> publicly state their position on the administration's killer drone program 
> (we have some sample language we could send to you). Another option is 
> something more dramatic, such as staging a die-in or sit-in at the office. 
>  
> We really hope that we can do this in March to keep it still relevant to 
> Brennan's recent confirmation.
>  
> Would you be willing to organize this action at Senator Franken's office in 
> Minnesota? If you wouldn't be able to do so, please let us know if you know 
> anyone in the state who would be able to help! We can help coordinate by 
> sending out an alert to people on our list in your city who may want to join 
> the visit and make calls. We hope to pair visits to local offices with visits 
> on the same day to their offices in D.C.! Do let me know if you are 
> interested.
>  
> Thank you!
>  
> Medea and Noor
>  
>  
> --
> 
> Noor Aized Mir
> Drone Campaign Coordinator
> www.droneswatch.org