People For the American Way is looking for some great haikus about John McCain and Sarah Palin. Three winners will receive prizes such as having their haikus published in the Nation magazine! Join our McPalin Haiku Hysteria contest now.

Find out more and enter >

As you may have noticed, there have been some changes in People For the American Way's online presence. In order to better serve our valued supporters, we've overhauled our web site, we will be sending out a newly redesigned monthly newsletter (of which this is the first) and, of course, my weekly notes every Friday have been generating a dialogue that is both vitally informative and incredibly inspiring. Thank you for your activism, your creativity and your continued support!

-- Kathryn Kolbert, President 

People For the American Way Foundation released two new reports on the Federal Courts this month:

More Rights at Stake: A Preview of the Court's 2008-2009 Term -- In the 2008-2009 term, the Supreme Court is set to consider a number of important cases involving voting rights, employment discrimination, free speech and access to justice.

The Human Toll: How Individual Americans Have Fared at the Hands of Bush Judges -- This report looks at a selection of cases with an eye to the human cost of a federal judiciary dominated by an ideology that is all too willing to sacrifice individual rights and legal protections.

You can download both reports here >

People For the American Way Foundation is leading a multi-pronged effort to ensure that Americans can cast a vote and have it count. Working with the NAACP, National Education Association and SEIU we are waging a special campaign in 15 states: Training poll and campaign workers about the impediments created by government sponsored voter identification laws and other suppression tactics. And we are distributing wallet cards and tool kits in 15 states to ensure that voters will have the knowledge and means to cast their votes.

On Wednesday, September 24, People For the American Way and the Student Association for Voter Empowerment (SAVE) joined congressional leaders to call attention to the myriad of barriers to the polls that students will face between now and November.

And we're helping to recruit volunteers for Pollworkers for Democracy, a nonpartisan effort by CREDO Mobile to train and network citizen pollworkers for the November 4, 2008 election and beyond. Well-trained pollworkers who respect voters' rights are more important than ever to running a fair and accountable election.

This year, the front line of the battle against homophobia and for gay equality is in California. That's where People For the American Way Foundation is running a massive nonpartisan effort to combat homophobia in the African American community -- particularly in the black church. And that's where the Right is waging war on legal equality for same-sex couples. People For the American Way has been closely tracking their strategy and exposing their tactics.

In a very positive ruling for anyone who cares about separation of church and state, the Florida Supreme Court ruled unanimously that two proposed state constitutional amendments People For the American Way Foundation fought cannot appear on the November ballot.

"Sarah Palin Doesn't Speak For Me"

We asked People For supporters to submit photos of themselves with signs saying "Sarah Palin Doesn't Speak For Me" -- her anti-gay, anti-choice, pro-book-banning views aren't in line with what mainstream Americans think. Here's a video compilation of a selection of the photos -- too many to include them all!

September 19-21, People For the American Way Foundation's Young Elected Officials (YEO) Network teamed up with Justice Matters to host a policy retreat focused on racial justice in public education. Using innovative research and training, young elected officials deconstructed the concepts of "racial justice" and "racial injustice" in public education in an effort to help them create racially just education policies in their communities.

The Young People For fellowship is a leadership development program focusing on identifying, engaging and empowering young progressive leaders. The one-year fellowship equips college students with the skills and resources necessary to create lasting change on their campuses and in their communities. Know a college-age leader who would be a good fit for the program? Nominate him or her for the program before the October 26 deadline.

People For the American Way liveblogged the presidential debate on Friday night and will continue to liveblog all the debates, including next week's vice presidential debate between Joe Biden and Sarah Palin.

Civil right groups nationwide are up in arms about a reported Michigan GOP scheme to challenge voters on Election Day using the list of foreclosed homes as the basis for the challenge.

The Family Research Council's annual Values Voter Summit took place this month in Washington, DC. And as always, People For the American Way's Right Wing Watch blog didn't miss a beat in its coverage.

We're still looking for a name for our new blog (which can be found at http://blog.pfaw.org/). Have any clever suggestions? We'd love it if you could e-mail them to us at blogtalk@pfaw.org. Thanks!