Washington State Presidents' Day Progressive Rally and Lobby Day is an opportunity for progressives to gather and rally for justice and fairness in government. The lobby day is two weeks from tomorrow, on Monday the 15th. If you want to rally for progressive causes like expanding basic health care to meet the needs of all 900,000 uninsured Washingtonians, as well as other matters of social and environmental justice, and if you can be available on Monday the 15th, then please consider signing up by following the links below.

The Fuse organization has more information and an opportunity to sign up in order to meet your legislators. Lobby to Protect Our Future! Feb. 15, 2010: Rebuilding Our Economic Future

The Presidents' Day Rally is also sponsored by a number of other organizations throughout the state, including the Sisters Organizing for Survival, the Washington State Labor Council, and the Washington Federation of State Employees. (If you're a union member, make sure to register for the event with your union.)

Poverty Action Network sponsored a Washington State lobby day yesterday. Activists converged on St. John's Episcopal church for an educational panel discussion, including testimonials about the problems people face in today's economy. Then there was a short but wonderful march to the Capitol Campus for a rally. After that, people broke into legislative district groups (and sub-groups) and fanned out to meet with legislators.

Turnout was huge. There were hundreds of people involved, probably between 4 or 5 hundred.

People advocated a variety of issues related to the problem of poverty, including maintenance of social services and social safety nets, and the need to make changes to existing policies and practices.

I saw this at the movie theater in Lacey:

Join the National Guard - it's practically like being a race car driver or a rock star.

Whoa, whoa, whoa! Hold it right there!

- Actually, when you join the military, you will be trained to kill human beings.

While there are some similarities with race car driving, the truth is that it's very, very different.