Sheldon Whitehouse | Be a Seed for Change

I have an idea for how to stop the right-wing war on women: Elect more women and fewer right-wingers.

That’s why, in 2012, my Midwest Values PAC is standing with longtime champions like Dianne Feinstein, Claire McCaskill, Kirsten Gillibrand, and, of course, Minnesota’s own Amy Klobuchar. And it’s why we’re fighting to elect more women like Tammy Baldwin and Shelley Berkley and Elizabeth Warren to the Senate, and women like Christie Vilsack and Tammy Duckworth to the House.

And, just to be clear, by “standing with” and “supporting,” I mean “giving money to.” Kind of a lot of it, actually. But don’t thank me — thank your fellow MVP members. Your contributions — yes, even the little ones — are going straight to great candidates facing tough fights in 2012. Click here to make one of those contributions today!

Electing more women is a big part of what we need to do in 2012. But great progressives across the country — from Sheldon Whitehouse and Bernie Sanders to Sherrod Brown and Jon Tester — are on ballots this year, and MVP is right there with them.

The same goes for the terrific Democrats who represent Minnesota in the House — Tim Walz, Keith Ellison, and Betty McCollum. We’re there with them, too.

And I’m proud that MVP is fighting to take back the Minnesota legislature and defeat the anti-marriage equality ballot amendment in my home state.

That’s a lot of important causes. And MVP is giving out a lot of money to them. And that’s all because people like you clicked on links like this one and helped us build this organization into a powerful progressive force.

I want to do more — much more. I want to elect more women, support more progressive champions, win more races. But it all depends on you.

Will you make a contribution right now to help MVP do more in 2012?

Thanks for making me look good.

P.S.: I am also looking forward to employing more “extra asks” in the P.S. section of emails. But I need you to help me prove that it works. Won’t you click here to make a contribution today?

Tell Sens. Murray and Cantwell: Support the Social Security Protection Act of 2011.

Take Social Security off the chopping block.

Clicking here will add your name to this petition to Sens. Murray and Cantwell:

“Social Security is one of the most popular and most effective social programs in our country’s history. We cannot allow its opponents to undermine it.

Help take Social Security off the chopping block by co-sponsoring the Social Security Protection Act of 2011.”

Click here to add your name

http://act.credoaction.com/r/?r=7242&id=17410-2591629-SdISt_x&t=9

We need to take Social Security off the table as a bargaining chip in talks about the budget deficit and federal spending.

Social Security is one of the greatest anti-poverty programs in our country’s history and is wildly popular. In addition, despite fearmongering to the contrary, Social Security is currently running a surplus, is fully solvent for decades, and is prohibited by law from adding to the deficit.

In fact, the only crisis facing Social Security is caused by opponents of the program who are crying wolf about a crisis in order to justify undermining one of the most popular social programs in our history.

Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont is introducing a bill today called the Social Security Protection Act of 2011. The bill would take Social Security off the chopping block by requiring a two-thirds super majority to reduce benefits, raise the retirement age or privatize the program.

Tell Sens. Murray and Cantwell: Support the Social Security Protection Act of 2011. Click here to automatically sign the petition.

Make no mistake, enemies of Social Security are trying to sabotage it even as they try to bamboozle the rest of us about their real aims. And we already know that some plan to use the prospect of a government shutdown or the fight around the debt ceiling as leverage to undermine Social Security.

We’ve seen how this works before. Time and again, conservatives have ginned up fake emergencies to justify far-reaching and deeply unpopular legislation. And all too often, we’ve seen Democrats in office do nothing to stop — or worse, actively enable — these conservative power-grabs.

We can’t let this happen with Social Security, which for 75 years has withstood both the test of time and the active efforts to undercut it.

Tell Sens. Murray and Cantwell: Support the Social Security Protection Act of 2011. Click here to automatically sign the petition..

Ten senators are already co-sponsoring the Social Security Protection Act. As a number of the co-sponsors of the bill wrote in a Dear Colleague letter:

http://act.credoaction.com/r/?r=7242&id=17410-2591629-SdISt_x&t=9

“Our legislation does not prohibit Congress from cutting Social Security benefits, raising the retirement age or privatizing this important program. It simply ensures that if Congress takes any of these actions, a super-majority vote is needed…”

This is precisely the type of leverage we’ll need in the upcoming fights. It will help stop conservatives from ramming through cuts or privatization as some sort of grand compromise on “must pass” legislation.<

Once we do this, we banish the false specter of crisis, and have a real discussion about how to make changes to Social Security to keep it successful for another 75 years.

Thank you for standing up for Social Security.

Matt Lockshin, Campaign Manager

CREDO Action from Working Assets

P.S. The co-sponsors for the Social Security Protection Act of 2011 are: Bernard Sanders (VT), Daniel Akaka (HI), Sheldon Whitehouse (RI), Sherrod Brown (OH), Barbara Mikulski (MD), Barbara Boxer (CA), Debbie Stabenow (MI), Mark Begich (AK), Richard Blumenthal (CT) and Frank Lautenberg (NJ).