SUPPORT COMPANIES THAT SUPPORT YOUR VALUES! BUY BLUE!! Go to
WWW.BUYBLUE.ORG to search for companies to buy from in your area!
LOOKING FOR GREAT, PROGRESSIVE MOVIES? Dear Activist,
Do you love to watch movies, but struggle to find what you want at the local megaplex or video store? Let's face it, the huge multi-national corporations that are cranking out the Hollywood "hits" aren't making movies for folks like us.
Well, our friends at Ironweed, the new progressive film club, have a solution for progressives looking for quality, independent films. We're proud to be able to give Democrats.com members the first opportunity to be charter members of this fun new effort to take back the media.
The idea is simple: sign up for the club and every month you'll get a DVD in the mail that contains an award-winning feature film, a short film, and free extras.
https://www.ironweedfilms.com/subscription
The films are yours to keep - add them to your library, show them to your friends, or pass them on. If you don't think the films are great, you can cancel with no hassles.
What kind of films do you get? Films like Power Trip, the tragicomic film that follows an American company that buys the energy system in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia and sends two bungling Americans to make the Georgians pay for power. The film won the Berlin Film Festival, but you can't see it anywhere except through Ironweed.
Or Wetback, the touching award-winner that follows two friends who leave Nicaragua to find their fortune and experience the untold story of American immigration as they face the vigilante Minutemen on the Arizona border.
Ironweed scours the world's best festivals and critics' circles to promote the "underdog films" that audiences love but the major Hollywood studios avoid. With your support, we can push these films - these powerful weeds that are so often ignored - into mainstream distribution. And Ironweed gives you the chance to join a local film club, or, start your own.
We hope you'll become an Ironweed charter subscriber and help make the studios stand up and take notice.
Together we can change the face of media in America.
WHO IS DONATING TO WHOM?
Who are the Financial Backers of the Political Candidates and Incumbents?
Find Out HERE!!
For example, if you check Phillip Morris, you'll see that almost all of their donations go to the Republicans. (Small wonder, Republican Presidential candidate,
Bob Dole, was spewing the lie that "there is no proof that smoking causes cancer." - how much did they pay him to say that?)
OPENSECRETS.ORG
Industry Links
Blue Chip Investors
You can easily find out who the top contributors are by going to the FEC
http://www.fec.gov
Up Front
Edited by Deborah Stead
Talk Show
"I'm patient, but enough is enough." -- Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, Citigroup's largest shareholder, recommending that investors sell their stock if the company doesn't rein in costs
POLITICAL CASH
Companies Are Showing Their Hands
General Mills (GIS ) has become the latest company to agree to disclose its political donations -- and the sixth this year. It joins Amgen (AMGN ), Bristol-Myers Squibb, Staples, Southern Co. (SO ), and McDonald's (MCD ) in yielding to shareholders' demands for more transparency in this area, especially in state and local politics.
Such investor resolutions are gaining momentum. Some 21% of stockholders supported them this past proxy season, up from 11% last year, according to the Center for Political Accountability. Last year five blue chips agreed to the disclosures, up from one (Morgan Stanley (MS )) in 2004, when the resolutions started surfacing.
The disclosures, typically posted on company Web sites, can make for compelling reading. (Corporate gifts to PACs are already made public in Federal Election Commission filings.) While Morgan made no political donations in 2005, Johnson & Johnson (JNJ ) made quite a few, including $9.8 million to PhRMA California Initiative Fund, an industry group opposing a state proposition to create a drug discount for low-income families. The proposition failed.
"Political spending has consequences," says the center's co-director, Bruce Freed. In a post-Abramoff, post-SarbOx world, he adds, "investors are sending a message that they want accountability."
By Nanette Byrnes
WHO IS CALLING YOU? Reverse Phone Lookup
WHO IS EXPORTING JOBS AND HURTING AMERICA?
Working America has a new Job Tracker On-Line Tool that allows you to search for businesses reported as exporting jobs from your area.
You can also see the companies which have been impacted by trade. In addition, you can find companies which have had violations of
safety and health regulations, workplace fatalities or catastrophic incidents, or high rates of workplace illness and injury since
2000. You can also find companies which have violated worker's rights under the National Labor Relations Act since 2000. These
lists are not all inclusive, so there are many companies who are in these categories, which have not made the list. You can report
companies that you know of by going to this link.
http://www.workingamerica.org/jobtracker/report.cfm
In Wisconsin as of May 27, 2006:
68 Companies made the list as exporting jobs.
175 Companies have been reported as having laid-off workers because of the impact of trade.
4501 Companies were found that have violations of safety and health regulations, or have workplace fatalities or catastrophic incidents,
or have high rates of workplace illness and injury since 2000.
107 Companies were found with cases involving violations of worker's rights under the National Labor Relations Act since 2000.
You can search the entire state or a zip code or a particular business, or search by industry. Job Tracker has 60,000 Companies
listed on their database nationwide.
Search here:
http://www.workingamerica.org/jobtracker/
Ask yourself.
If Conservatives are ranting about low paying jobs lost here in the U.S. because of immigration, why haven't they done anything about
the exporting of good paying jobs here in the United States, when they control trade agreements which give those jobs away to foreign
workers outside of the United States?
And, is it morally right to break the law and ignore workplace safety rules to cut costs, while endangering the health and lives of their workers?
Who is standing up for worker's rights? It certainly isn't Bush and the RepubliCON party.
Alfred McCoy: CIA Drug Trafficking & Mind Control
by DEMOCRACY NOW
(This is an edited transcript of an interview between Amy Goodman and Alfred McCoy from Democracy Now!. It originally aired on February 17, and is available for download from DemocracyNow.org.)
Here's the link to the Democracy Now! Archive at Pacifica if you
want to download and listen to the entire show.
http://www.pacifica.org/programs/dn/0602_index.html 2/17
Australian Report Reveals More Abu Ghraib Torture Photos, Drawing
Public Outrage; Salon.com Runs Abu Ghraib Torture Photos Leaked from
Internal Army Source; Professor McCoy Exposes the History of CIA
Interrogation, From the Cold War to the War on Terror
United Nations Association
Martindale Hubbell law directory. Free and allows searches by name, firm, corporate legal departments, government or faculty. Comprehensive listings, but not all lawyers and/or firms are necessarily listed.
http://directory.findlaw.com/ West Legal Directory. Allows searches by lawyer or by firm. West is similar to Martindale, but records are less comprehensive than Martindale Hubbell. Not all lawyers and/or firms are necessarily listed.
http://www.searchsystems.net/ SearchSystems links to 12,153 free searchable public records databases. Most states will allow a search for licensed professionals. Information available varies by state.
http://www.ama-assn.org/ American Medical Association online database. Searches can be conducted by name or specialty. Information provided includes specialty, medical school, residency, etc.
http://www.nasdr.com/2000aspNational Association of Security Dealer (NASD) BrokerCheck online database. Provides free information about the professional background, registration/license, and conduct of NASD registered firms and their registered brokers. Searches for individuals require require broker's name and firm name or broker's name and firm's CRD number.
http://bioguide.congress.gov/biosearch/biosearch.aspU.S. Congressional database - 1774 to present. Biographies are about a paragraph in length and provide date of birth, education and highlights of career.
http://www.state.WI.usGeneric site for state government. Substituting any state abbreviation in this URL will guide you to most state web sites. Drilling down from the "government" (or equivalent) link will take you to legislative and congressional biographies, in most cases. Results may vary by state.
http://www.loc.gov/law/public/law.htmlLaw Library of Congress Home Page
The Library of Congress Government Resources
The Library of Congress Webcasts
A Century of Lawmaking
U.S. CODE
Other Biographical Resources
Hoover's Online business information database. While some information is free, a subscription is required for access to more comprehensive information such as selected biographical profiles of officers and directors of public companies. Profiles are taken from companies' proxy statements.
http://mddi.dnb.com/mddi Dun & Bradstreet's Million Dollar Directory online. Subscription is required. Biographical information on principal executives varies but can include employment history and educational background. Companies must have annual sales of at least $1 million or twenty or more employees to be included.
http://www.iwave.com/ Prospect Research Online. Subscription is required. PRO's database specifically serves the nonprofit industry, providing information on foundations, corporations, and individuals. Individual research sections include officers and directors, executive alerts, attorney archive, hot prospects, sports figure archive, women in the spotlight archive, wealth and power archive, and top philanthropist archive. Subscription also provides access to 600,000 biographies taken from various Marquis Who's Who print titles.
http://www.tray.com/ Federal Election Commission's database. Among other things, this site provides a lookup of political contributions by donor name. By clicking on "View Image," user can access itemized receipts for political donations, where they exist. Receipts show employer name and title of donor.
Newspapers
http://www.newspaperlinks.com/home.cfm This site links U.S. daily and weekly newspapers, Canadian, international, and college papers. Search capabilities and fees to access full text articles vary with each paper, but most are $5 or less per article. Years covered by archives vary with each paper.
http://www.newspapers.com Marquis Who's Who. Citations for over 1 million individuals, searchable on a variety of fields. Records usually include personal, professional/career information, honors/awards, etc.
http://www.galegroup.com/
Biography and Genealogy Master Index. Citations from more than 2,500 editions and volumes of approximately 1,500 current and historical biographical sources. Citations refer you to the appropriate publication.
Assets
See above. Click on appropriate state, then select "property" or similar descriptor, for access to assessor databases. Availability and results will vary by county and state. Most searches are free.
http://www.pulawski.net/
This site provides direct links to assessor databases by state.
Property Comparisons
http://realestate.yahoo.comSearches return property sales in proximity of address provided by user. Coverage is spotty, however, and value of information is be limited without prior knowledge of the neighborhood.
http://www.domania.com/index.jspProvides access to general and profession-specific salary surveys. Information available may consist of a collection of discussion articles or charts with dollar amounts for specific entities.
http://www.ecomponline.com
Allows searches by public company name and returns salary information for highest paid officers.
Insiders
User can search for insiders by company or individual name. Searches on individual name list all companies for whom the individual is an insider, the amount of stock owned, and its value. A search by company will list all insiders for that company.
CORPORATE RESEARCH
Hoover's online database provides comprehensive company, industry, and market intelligence. Many company capsules are free and link you to SEC filings. Advanced features are available by subscription. E-mail news alerts are also available for tracking companies, industries, and individuals.
http://www.sec.gov Official site of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Provides free access to public company files. Hint: go to search company filines, then historical Edgar archives for quick and easy search.
http://bigcharts.marketwatch.com/ User can search for insiders by company or individual name. Searches on individual name list all companies for whom the individual is an insider, the amount of stock owned, and its value. Search by company lists all insiders for that company.
http://www.searchsystems.net/ Select "companies/corporations" to access and search secretary of state corporate filings. Most sites are free and allow searching by company name or agent/officer.
http://mddi.dnb.com/mddi Dun & Bradstreet's Million Dollar Directory online. Accesses approximately 1,600,000 U.S. and Canadian public and private businesses. Information includes industry information, sales, number of employees, type of ownership, principal executives, and biographies. Subscription is required.
http://dnb.com/US/
Dun & Bradstreet Business Information Reports. Individual company reports are available by credit card or subscription. Free searches on company names.
http://www.forbes.com
Home pages for Forbes Magazine. Access to lists produced by Forbes such as Wealthiest Americans, 400 Biggest Companies, and Largest Private Companies.
FOUNDATION RESEARCH
The nation's leading repository of philanthropic information. The Foundation Finder accesses information on over 70,000 private and community foundations. Information includes contact information, web site, assets, total giving and a link to the most recent IRS filing. Information is also available on CD ROM through a subscription.
http://guidestar.org Information available on approximately 850,000 IRS-recognized non-profits. Information includes contact information, web site, type of foundation, assets, total giving, and the most recent IRS filing. Must register.
http://www.philanthropy.com Web site for the Chronicle of Philanthropy. Electronic access to this publication is available to subscribers. Grant listings from 1995 to present are searchable to separate subscription.
Foundation/Company Web Site
Searches within a company of foundation web site for giving programs can be conducted using the advanced search on Google.
http://www.chronicle.com Web site for the Chronicle of Higher Education. Electronic access to this publication is available to subscribers. Grant listings from 1995 to present are searchable for subscribers.
http://www.bigdatabase.com Provides profiles on 67,000 foundations, corporate donors, matching gift programs, in-kind donations, and government grant makers in the U.S. Profiles provide some biographical information on officers and trustees.
http://www.nccs.urban.org The National Center for Charitable Statistics is the national clearinghouse of data on the nonprofit sector in the United States. NCCS is a program of the Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy (CNP) at the Urban Institute.
http://www.iwave.com
Provides information on individuals, foundations and corporations and is searchable by a variety of criteria. The company accepts requests for research on companies and foundations not listed.
Subscription is required.
ODDS AND ENDS
Access to public records nationwide, plus reverse phone lookups, area and prefix city finder, social security death index, zip+4 city and name search, and federal inmate lookup.
www.zipinfo.com/search/zipcode.htmLinks to various zip codes searches. Includes a link to University of Southern California's Wealthy Zip Code web site (lists top 100 wealthiest zip codes from communities listed in Worth magazine).
http://www.usps.gov/
Track a flight in progress graphically by entering an airline name and flight number.