ActBlue is Hiring!

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Wednesday November 07, 2007 · 2:17 PM PST

2007/11/07 · 14:17

ActBlue is on the hunt for some kick-ass individuals to join the team and transform the Democratic Party: a communications genius, a legal mastermind, a blogger's blogger, and entry-level folks ready to learn the new tools of the trade.

If any of these sound like you, please read on. And if any of them sounds like someone you know, please send them this post and point them our way.

More info in the extended text, and full job postings at http://actblue.com/...

brahn for Daily Kos

Community

Thursday August 31, 2006 · 10:16 AM PDT

2006/08/31 · 10:16

(From the diaries. The DLCC gets no love, yet are doing some of the most thankless yet important work in DC -- helping Democrats win state legislatures around the country. And that's not the "DLC". The DLCC is the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee -- kos)

A HUGE thank-you to the 1159 of you who left ActBlue tips as part of the netroots push, totalling $7300 over the past ten days. That's two out of every three donors who, in addition to supporting these kick-ass candidates, are helping to build strategic infrastructure for the Democratic movement. Two developments we wanted to share with everyone:

Help extend the netroots reach by becoming a top-notch fundraiser yourself! Please join ActBlue on Thursday, Sept. 14, 7pm Pacific Time (10pm Eastern) for our next rapid-fire Fundraising 101 conference call -- e-mail rsvp7@actblue.com for call-in information.
In the past year, we've started to meet some people in DC who really get what we're trying to do -- the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC). The DLCC is focused on precisely the things we've all been talking about for so long: creating lasting infrastructure, building Democratic strength at the most local levels, and identifying points of leverage in the strategic landscape. These are folks the blogosphere should get to know -- read below the fold to learn more.

brahn

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Wednesday August 09, 2006 · 2:04 PM PDT

2006/08/09 · 14:04

Ready for the next challenge? Fundraise for your favorite Democrats at ActBlue!

In 30 days we'll be sending copies of An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore's phenomenal new book (and companion to his phenomenal movie) to everyone who uses ActBlue to raise at least $600 from at least 6 donors by September 6th. (Just in case being part of the tidal wave of Democratic victory isn't motivation enough!)

Learn how to get started.

To help you reach this goal, we'll be hosting conference calls this week and next to share strategies for effective and fun fundraising, and to answer any questions about ActBlue that you may have.

The calls (approximately 30 minutes) will take place at

10pm EDT (7pm PDT) on Thursday, August 10th
7:30pm EDT (4:30pm PDT) on Tuesday, August 15th

For call-in information, please RSVP to rsvp (at) actblue (dot) com at least 12 hours before the call you'd like to join, and please specify whether you'd like to join the Thursday call or the Tuesday call.

Hope to talk to you soon — now get going!

(I've posted answers to some frequently asked questions below.) Read More

ActBlue now in Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Texas

brahn

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Tuesday July 18, 2006 · 10:04 AM PDT

2006/07/18 · 10:04

I'm proud to announce that you can now use ActBlue to support Democratic candidates for state office in Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Texas! Special thanks to Annatopia and the TexRoots who pulled in the remaining funds we needed for Texas.

(For those who missed it, last month we activated Active Blue in Indiana, Iowa, Maine, South Dakota, and Wisconsin.)

So now what?

Fundraise for state candidates! Just visit the directories (IN | IA | ME | OR | PA | SD | TX | WI), choose a candidate, and click "start fundraising".

Spread the word by alerting your contacts in these states that we're now up and running. You can also help by contributing to Texas candidates — a check in the mail is a great way to let campaigns know how they can use ActBlue.

Help us expand to more states — Please contribute here and start fundraising here, and see the extended text for details.

brahn

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Tuesday October 18, 2005 · 11:46 AM PDT

2005/10/18 · 11:46

Last week Chris Bowers at MyDD ran this poll to decide where ActBlue should go next, and the results are in! We're now focusing our fire on Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Florida, and Montana. (We had planned on just four states, but we've got a statistical tie between FL and MT.)

Check out the the full background, but in brief, when we've activated ActBlue in these states:

Every Democratic candidate for every state legislative and executive office can immediately accept contributions online.
Every supporter can immediately fundraise online for the Democratic candidates and party committees of their choice.

There's just one catch: we need about $10k/state for the legal work to do this right. So we're asking: can you help make it happen?

This isn't like supporting a single candidate: funds invested now will be returned many times over to candidates in crucial races across the country. So this is about leverage. This is about building a lasting piece of infrastructure for online politics, and bringing lasting strategic advantage to Democrats where it matters most.

Please support these states today.

Vote now: which states' 2006 elections are most important?

brahn

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Thursday October 13, 2005 · 8:56 AM PDT

2005/10/13 · 08:56

This cycle one of ActBlue's biggest projects is to expand its fundraising beyond the House and Senate to state legislative and executive races across the country. We're aiming for all fifty, but we need to prioritize. So we're asking: where should we focus our fundraising first? Which states' 2006 races are most strategically important? Where are the races that matter most? VOTE NOW.

Chris Bowers at MyDD created this poll to help determine where ActBlue should focus its fundraising. Please vote, chime in below with your thoughts on priority states, and thanks for all you do to make the Democratic difference.

Background brief: ActBlue helps you fundraise online for the Democrats of your choice. We helped hundreds of bloggers and grassroots activists including Daily Kos, Atrios, and Swing State Project bring in over $850,000 for Dems last year, and already over $1 million this year, including $500,000 for Paul Hackett. See http://actblue.com for more about us and how to ActBlue.

Details after the jump...

brahn

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Tuesday August 16, 2005 · 8:59 PM PDT

2005/08/16 · 20:59

For your consideration, a policy proposal that combines moral imperitive and strategic politics.

Over at Working for Change, Andrew Boyd points to a Washington Times story (yeah, yeah, it's okay) about the tragedy facing physically and mentally injured Iraq vets:

U.S. veterans from the war in Iraq are beginning to show up at homeless shelters around the country, and advocates fear they are the leading edge of a new generation of homeless vets not seen since the Vietnam era...

[A returning vet] said he felt pushed out of the military too quickly after getting back from Iraq without medical attention he needed for his hand -- and as he would later learn, his mind.

"It was more of a rush. They put us in a warehouse for a while. They treated us like cattle," Arellano said about how the military treated him on his return to the United States...

An Army study...showed that 17 percent of service members returning from Iraq met screening criteria for major depression, generalized anxiety disorder or PTSD.

Read the rest to get angry. Read below for what we can do. Read More

Sticking it to Santorum and the weather thugs

brahn

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Sunday April 24, 2005 · 6:57 AM PDT

2005/04/24 · 06:57

Recently kos wrote about how Santorum wants to give Accuweather and other corporate weather thugs a monopoly on weather data by banning the U.S. government from publishing weather data.

So I say we stop using Accuweather, weather.com, and all the other corporate providers of slow, bloated, advertising-driven web pages and instead use NOAA.gov.

But how do we popularize the U.S. government's site when it has no marketing budget? That's where the blogosphere comes in.

In the extended text I've included a snippet of HTML that creates a simple form for people to get their local forecast. All you have to do is paste it into the sidebar of your website, and you're off and running!

If we can push enough people away from the corporate sites, we can punish the weather thugs for manipulating the legislative process. Consider it a a small act of protest in the face of monstrous daily corruption -- one that proves bad behavior can backfire. Read More

Bush to appoint FEC? McCain's worst idea ever.

brahn

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Thursday April 07, 2005 · 1:12 PM PDT

2005/04/07 · 13:12

Over at Soft Money, Hard Law Bob Bauer (big Democratic lawyer) points to this disastrous idea:

"We'd like to see a process where the White House does the screening" (of FEC candidates), McCain said, in order to select Commissioners that are more independent of the party establishments on both sides of the political aisle.

"McCain Urges Action on 527 Bill
BNA Money and Politics Report (April 6, 2005) [subscription only]

I'm hoping that the rest of the article continues "McCain paused, then guffawed loudly and said 'But seriously folks...'" But sadly this is completely serious.

More snark after the jump...
Read More

Maintaining a Beachhead Against Theo-cons, Supporting Stem Cell Research

brahn

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Wednesday March 30, 2005 · 1:38 PM PST

2005/03/30 · 13:38

The latest outrageousness from the "pro-life" movement, currently the top headline on the Boston Globe website:

Romney's ads blast stem cell measure
Governor Mitt Romney will launch a radio ad today describing the state Senate's stem cell measure as a "radical cloning bill" and urging its defeat.

Romney and the theo-cons are ready to stop research that might lead to cures for diabetes, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's diseases, and spinal cord injury. This is research supported by Nancy Reagan, former President Ford, 41 Nobel laureates, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Orrin Hatch (yes, that Orrin Hatch).

Just how radical is this "radical" bill from our fair liberal commune of Massachusetts?

About as radical as you might expect from a bill supported by a coalition including the most respected hospitals and instituions in town (Mass General, Beth Israel Deaconess, the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, the Whitehead Institute, Harvard Medical School -- you know, where all the hippies hang out)...and the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce.
Read More

Contribution limits bumped to $2100

brahn

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Friday February 04, 2005 · 1:42 PM PST

2005/02/04 · 13:42

From yesterday's FEC announcement (sorry if this has already been covered, I didn't see it).

WASHINGTON -- The Federal Election Commission today approved new contribution limits for the 2005-2006 election cyle. The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA) [aka McCain-Feingold] indexed certain contribution limits for inflation. Limits for contributions made in 2005 and 2006 are as follows:

Individuals to Federal Candidates: $2,100 per election (previously $2000)
Individuals to National Party Committees: $26,700 per year (previously $25,000)
Two-year Cycle Limit to Candidates: $40,000 (previously $37,500)
Cycle limit to other committees: $61,400 (previously $57,500)

(Somehow the $5k/PAC/year limit isn't in there. If I recall correctly that's because this limit wasn't touched by McCain-Feingold, and therefore didn't get lumped among the limits that were to be inflation-indexed.)

I assume not many of us are influenced by these limits personally, but it's good to keep an eye on this stuff nonetheless.

Show the Senate Dems We've Got Their Backs

brahn

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Friday November 05, 2004 · 7:29 AM PST

2004/11/05 · 07:29

With just 45 in the Senate, I suspect we're going to have to wield the filibuster like a club -- against extremist Court appointments, rules and conference committee shenanigans, and policy atrocities across the board.

We need to show the Senate Dems tnhat we've got their backs -- that we support, and demand, that they stand strong against political pressure to cave to Bush's mythical mandate.

Therefore, I propose the Books for Harry project: Send new Minority Leader Harry Reid books you'd like read into the Senate record during filibusters.

Recent works like those from Richard Clarke and Kevin Phillips are great, but send whatever you like: Tom Paine, Dr. Seuss, Charles Darwin, etc., as well as less politically-motivated favorites. At least keep our guys entertained -- no Senator should be stuck with the phone book.

After the books are read, they'll be donated to libraries in need.

Thoughts? If there's significant interest we can contact Senator Reid's office to work on practical details :-)

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ActBlue is Hiring!

HUGE THANKS for the tips, and some DC folks you should know

Onward to November! Fundraise with ActBlue, win Gore goodies

ActBlue now in Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Texas

The next five ActBlue states: OH, PA, TX, FL, MT

Vote now: which states' 2006 elections are most important?

Good medical care for vets: good policy, good politics

Sticking it to Santorum and the weather thugs

Bush to appoint FEC? McCain's worst idea ever.

Maintaining a Beachhead Against Theo-cons, Supporting Stem Cell Research

Contribution limits bumped to $2100

Show the Senate Dems We've Got Their Backs