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a message from Gov.Jay Inslee

12/12/2013 Nativegrl77

This year, we saw the JayInslee.com community play a critical role in some of our biggest successes.

As the year winds down, my team and I are gearing up. The next legislative session is a little more than a month away, so we don’t have much down time as we prepare for another round of budget negotiations and fight for our key priorities: good jobs, excellent schools, and quality health care.

And that means we need you to gear up, too.

This Friday at midnight, we have to close down fundraising for our ongoing political operations — the same operations that helped us fight and win our key budget priorities this year — until the legislative session ends next spring.

So I’m asking for your help to raise the additional $25,000 we need to keep going strong and send the message that we’re ready for anything as we head into the legislative session.

Will you contribute $5 now to help us raise an urgent $25,000 before Friday’s midnight deadline?

This year, we saw just how difficult our job can be. But we also saw the JayInslee.com community play a critical role in some of our biggest successes.

With your help, we made an unprecedented investment in the future of our education system. We protected vital services for our seniors. We expanded Medicaid and changed the lives of hundreds of thousands of Washingtonians. We put in place Results Washington, a data-driven effort to measure and constantly improve the performance of state government every day. And our work getting the Washington Health Plan Finder up, running, and helping Washingtonians find excellent health care coverage has been the envy of the nation.

I’m proud that we’ve had such success in just our first year. But none of that came easy, and our work will only get tougher as we strive to protect what we’ve accomplished while continuing to move Washington forward.

That’s why your support now is so important. Just like when I ran for governor — just like when we fought for the successes of this last year — the grassroots community we’ve built is a powerful force that can carry us forward and help build a working Washington.

We need your help today — before our early end-of-year deadline — to keep our community strong and make sure we can keep working together for the future we all want for the state of Washington.

Will you contribute $5 now to reach our $25,000 goal and help support our work throughout the legislative session?

I can’t tell you how helpful it is to know that, when I’m working hard in Olympia, I have you and tens of thousands of activists like you standing with me across the state.

We’ve already accomplished so much. With your support today, we can keep our momentum going and build a working Washington.

Let’s go get ’em!

Jay Inslee. Governor

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Extinction for palm oil

12/12/2013 Nativegrl77

We must act fast to stop rainforest destruction and save the last home of the Sumatran tiger.
Donate today to save the Sumatran tiger

Make an urgent gift today to help us reach our goal of $150,000 by December 31st and support all the work we do to protect the environment. Donate button EOY

A century ago, thousands of Javan, Bali and Sumatran tigers roamed the rainforests of Indonesia.
Not any more. The Javan and Bali tigers have been driven to extinction. And only a few hundred Sumatran tigers — the last survivors of their kind — remain. Every day they have less forest to hunt, to raise their cubs, to evade poachers. Every day brings them closer to extinction.
But we have the power to swing the balance back in the tigers’ favor.
Greenpeace just launched a new campaign to transform the single biggest threat to Indonesia’s rainforests: the palm oil industry. Changing the industry means saving the Sumatran tiger’s remaining habitat from the bulldozer. Reversing this century of destruction can only happen with your support.
Carmen, if you have been waiting for the right time to make your first gift to Greenpeace, this is it. Please chip in 5 dollars or whatever you can today. Make an urgent gift to help us reach our goal of $150,000 by December 31st to support our campaigns to stop environmental destruction worldwide. Help save the last home of the Sumatran tiger.
In just two years, an area of Sumatran tiger habitat twice the size of Los Angeles has been destroyed to make way for palm oil and pulp and paper plantations. The companies behind the destruction are only thinking about profit and have been allowed to get away with it, no questions asked. Until now.
With your help, Greenpeace is exposing companies that buy palm oil linked to rainforest destruction. And using public pressure to convince these companies to end their role in deforestation. So you never have to wonder if the palm oil in your cookies or your shampoo was grown on former tiger habitat.
After the progress we’ve made this year, it’s clear that we are on the verge of something BIG. Just last week, Wilmar — a company that buys and sells over a third of the world’s palm oil — committed to stop trading palm oil linked to rainforest destruction because of Greenpeace’s research and campaigning. This, less than a month after major company Mondelez (formerly Kraft) committed to a zero-deforestation palm oil policy for its products.
But we are only part way there. We need more big companies to start demanding accountabilityin order to change the palm oil industry as a whole. This is a pivotal moment for the forests of Indonesia. We can’t back down now. For Greenpeace to keep the pressure up, we need your help.
Help us protect the Indonesian rainforest and home of the endangered Sumatran tiger by making an urgent donation in support of our campaigns to end forest destruction and all the work we do to protect the environment. Our goal is to raise $150,000 by December 31st.
Greenpeace is dedicated to doing whatever it takes in 2014 to reverse the march towards extinction for the tigers of Indonesia, and to save the crucial rainforests there from destruction.
We are committed to tracking dirty palm oil from its source on destroyed rainforest land in Indonesia all the way to your supermarket shelf. And then exposing the supply chain so that everyone — from the palm oil trader, to the consumer company, to the customer — knows that a product is tied to habitat destruction. Make a donation to help us expose rainforest destruction in products we use everyday, and for all our work protecting the environment.
But it isn’t enough just to shine the spotlight on dirty deeds. Just last week, almost 50,000 supporters sent messages to the Consumer Goods Forum — an organization of over 400 consumer goods companies — demanding that the organization require its member companies to end their part in deforestation. And we won’t stop putting palm oil companies and consumer companies in the hot seat until they commit to no deforestation palm oil.
The rainforests in Indonesia, like all forests around the world, are critical for our planet to thrive. The species that live in forests — and the carbon that the forests hold — keep our world rich with life and our climate stable.
2014 can be a year for action and promise for our world’s forests. But only if you join in.
Make a donation today to support all of Greenpeace’s work on the frontlines of environmental injustice, and to help stop the destruction of tiger habitat for palm oil.
Greenpeace has a goal of zero global deforestation by 2020. It’s ambitious, but with your support I know it’s possible. Thanks for all you do.
For the tigers,
Dr. Amy Moas Greenpeace Senior Forests Campaigner
P.S. Time is running out to save the Indonesian rainforest and the Sumatran tiger. Donate today to Greenpeace’s campaigns to protect the environment and stop rainforest destruction.

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Nina Pillard … Urge Your Senators to Confirm Nina Pillard

12/11/2013 Nativegrl77

When it comes to judicial nominations, it often feels like we’re in a time warp – and not in a good way.

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, the second-most important federal court in the country, has not been fully staffed in over a few years. This court hears some of the most complicated cases, from vital national security challenges to reviews of federal regulatory agencies, and the court is hearing them without a full slate of judges. Nominees to fill the vacant seats – including three well-qualified female jurists – have been obstructed at nearly every turn.

What’s worse is that one of those female nominees is being attacked with accusations that quite frankly sound like something out of the 1950s or 1960s. Georgetown Law Professor Cornelia “Nina” Pillard is a “scary feminist,” a “radical feminist,” they’re saying.

Pillard’s detractors are wrong. Their comments are offensive, and U.S. senators should know better than to fall for hyped-up, false attacks on a nominee’s gender. Urge your senators to support Pillard’s nomination when it comes up for a vote this week .

Pillard has a distinguished career of working with lawyers on both sides of the aisle. She has argued nine cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, and is best known for her argument that convinced a nearly unanimous Supreme Court to open the Virginia Military Institute to women. She worked alongside Bush administration attorneys to successfully defend the Family and Medical Leave Act in the courts. She has consistently opposed government policies that treat men and women differently based on outmoded stereotypes that harm both sexes.

When the Senate adjusted its rules for considering judicial and executive nominations last month, it paved a path forward for the up-or-down confirmation vote that had previously been denied to Pillard. The Senate is expected to reconsider Pillard’s nomination this week, which gives your senators a chance to confirm this outstanding jurist who is uniquely qualified because of her work on AAUW priority issues.

Please, urge your senators to vote for Nina Pillard’s nomination to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. The seats on the D.C. Circuit Court have been empty for far too long, and Nina Pillard is exactly the right kind of person to seat on the bench.

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A moving tribute to a legendary figure

12/11/2013 Nativegrl77

Nelson Mandela’s struggle against South African apartheid inspired millions. And his great call for justice and equality continues to resonate around the world, as new generations of young people pursue the ideals he embraced.

Earlier today in Johannesburg, President Obama paid tribute to a hero and a leader — and spoke about the path that’s still ahead.

It’s a powerful, moving speech. Watch this tribute to Nelson Mandela: