Daily Archives: 04/29/2014

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We Stand with Texas Women


WPThisIsPersonallogoThe situation in Texas is dire — women are being forced to travel hundreds of miles to seek care, some are crossing into Mexico, and recent reports describe women harming themselves in attempts to self-abort.

It’s been almost a year since thousands of women rallied to stop one of the most sweeping packages of abortion restrictions in the country. Despite their efforts, the legislation passed, causing clinics across the state to close and providers to stop performing abortions. By the time all the provisions take effect, it is estimated that more than two-thirds of Texas clinics will have been forced to stop performing abortions or close their doors completely.

Now more than ever, we need passionate advocates who will continue to fight for women in Texas and across the country. One of these women is Candice Russell, winner of the Generation Personal Community Choice Award. She and countless others, like local groups Nuestro Texas and the Lilith Fund, are working hard to ensure that women in Texas are able to get the care they need, despite the hurdles and barriers politicians erected.

Tell Your Friends — The fight in Texas is far from over. It’s time to take a stand for women in the states.

Texas is just one state where new abortion restrictions have put women at risk. Across the country in places like Louisiana, South Carolina, Alabama and others, legislatures are considering and passing laws that could have similar outcomes for women. In addition to closing clinics and imposing other barriers to care, many are working to ban abortion altogether.

Visit State Your Action to see if your home state needs help and tell your friends to act now.

Our community was moved by Candice’s testimony to the state legislature, her work with the NARAL Texas Next Generation Board, and by her desire to get involved. Now is your chance to show that you’re committed to the fight for women’s health in Texas, and in states across the country. As Candice said, “We might have lost the battle, but the war is far from over and we can only win if we are all fighting together.”

Visit State Your Action and spread the word — we’re not going anywhere. The fight is not over.

Thanks for keeping it personal,

Thao Nguyen
Campaign Director
This Is Personal

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Urgent plea


Rainforest Action NetworkThe message below comes to you from Rudi Putra, a longtime ally and hero of RAN’s and winner of the 2014 Goldman Environmental Prize – the world’s most prestigious award for grassroots environmental activism.Dear friends,

My name is Rudi and I feel like the luckiest person alive.

I grew up in a place teeming with wild orangutans, elephants, tigers, sunbears and Sumatran rhinos. My family and I lived in balance with the mountains, forests and rivers surrounding us. From an early age, I knew I had to take care of the beauty that surrounded me. But as huge multi-national companies expand their reach and palm plantations spread, I know that I can’t protect these pristine places alone. That’s why I’m asking you to join me in telling PepsiCo to eliminate the Conflict Palm Oil from its products.

I have worked much of my life to protect the 6.4 million acres of prime tropical rainforests in the Leuser Ecosystem. I fell in love with the Sumatran rhino, the smallest and the most critically endangered rhino of all – and have spent years tracking, researching and protecting these special creatures from poachers.

I have left my home in Indonesia to come to yours to deliver a very important message. I need your help to protect the last rhino’s and rainforests of Indonesia’s Leuser Ecosystem from Conflict Palm Oil.

I have witnessed vast areas of forests destroyed to make way for palm oil plantations, forests I knew were the homes of endangered species. I’ve removed traps from the forest corridors used by the last Sumatran elephants and tigers. I have even found animals poisoned, speared, and burned alive by poachers and plantation workers.

And still, the plantations keep growing across Aceh, always feeding the demand for Conflict Palm Oil. It must stop. We must protect the world’s rainforests. We must stop powerful and wealthy international corporations from exploiting and destroying irreplaceable Indonesian ecosystems for profit.

My community and I work tirelessly to shut down and destroy illegal palm oil plantations inside the federally protected Leuser Ecosystem, using chainsaws and uprooting illegal oil palms. We do this to protect our families from the floods that result from the destruction of the forests on the hillsides that surround our homes. But we can not do this alone. We need your help.

It is with great honor that I am here in the US and receiving the Goldman Prize. But it is an even greater honor to know that YOU will stand with me and hold PepsiCo to account for the impact of its products.

For the rhino’s and our life,
Rudi Putra
_______________________________________________
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Keep In Mind


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11 Things The Senate Should Remember While Voting On The Minimum Wage

After returning from a two-week recess, the Senate is planning to vote on raising the minimum wage to $10.10 this Wednesday. The bill, called the “Minimum Wage Fairness Act,” needs 60 votes to advance thanks to the de facto GOP filibuster threat. And while in the past we have used this space to outline many of the different benefits of raising the minimum wage to $10.10, in anticipation of this important vote we wanted to go over some of the most important reasons one more time. Here they are:

1. Increasing the minimum wage to $10.10 and indexing it to inflation would raise the wages of 28 million workers by $35 billion. Raising the minimum wage would provide Americans who work hard a better opportunity to get ahead while giving the economy a needed shot in the arm.

2. In 2013, CEOs made 774 times the pay of minimum wage workers. While the top CEOs made an average of $11.7 million in 2013, full-time workers making the minimum wage took home only $15,080 a year.

3. Nearly two-thirds of all minimum wage workers are women. Raising the minimum wage to $10.10 would benefit 15 million women.

4. One million veterans would benefit from a minimum wage increase. After risking their lives to protect our country, 1 in 10 veterans working in America today are paid wages low enough that they would receive a raise if the minimum wage is raised to $10.10.

5. Raising the minimum wage will cut government spending on food stamps. Millions of workers earning the minimum wage make so little that they qualify for food stamps (SNAP benefits). This, in effect, amounts to taxpayers subsidizing corporations paying low-wages. Raising wages for low-income workers would actually cut government spending on SNAP by $4.6 billion a year, or $46 billion over the next 10 years, as workers earn enough on their own to no longer rely on the program.

6. Minimum wage workers are older than you think. Nearly 90 percent of minimum wage workers are 20 years or older. The average minimum wage worker is 35 years old. A higher minimum wage doesn’t just mean more spending money for a teenager, it means greater economic security for the millions of Americans who rely on it as their primary income.

7. Businesses see the value in increasing the minimum wage. Nearly 60 percent of small business owners recognize that raising the minimum wage would benefit businesses and support raising it. In fact, 82 percent of those surveyed don’t pay any of their workers the federal minimum wage of $7.25.

8. It won’t hurt job creation. States have raised the minimum wage 91 times since 1987 during periods of high unemployment, and in more than half of those instances the unemployment rate actually fell. Over 600 economists signed a letter agreeing that a minimum wage increase doesn’t hurt job creation.

9. In polls, nearly three-quarters of Americans support a minimum wage increase to $10.10. Pew Research found that 73 percent of Americans back a minimum wage increase.

10. Millions of children will be more secure. If we raise the minimum wage to $10.10, 21 million children will have at least one parent whose pay will go up.

11. A $10.10 minimum wage means a $16.1 billion boost for people of color. Raising the minimum wage is a matter of racial justice: people of color are far more likely to work minimum wage jobs and those who do are far more likely to be in poverty. A $10.10 minimum wage would lift three and a half million people of color out of poverty and add $16.1 billion to their incomes.

BOTTOM LINE: Over the next few days, as Senators take to the chamber floor to debate and then vote on this legislation that would help the economy and millions of American workers, they should make sure they keep in mind these vital facts on why the minimum wage should be raised to $10.10. A vote against increasing the minimum wage is quite simply a vote against working Americans.

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50 Million


Campaign for America's Future
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Sent to Prison for using a restroom?

Gary D. Young: Drop felony charges against Joquan.

Allow him to graduate with his sister at Paris High.

Stop the school to prison pipeline.

On Feb 2, Joquan Wallace, a student at Paris High School in Paris Texas, asked and got permission from his teacher to use the restroom. Joquan was profiled and followed by the school police officer Joey McCarthy. McCarthy peeped at Joquan under the bathroom stall and when Joquan was returning to class, McCarthy interrogated him as to why he wasn’t using the bathroom closer to his classroom. Joquan told him because he had to do number 2. Joquan had permission to go to the restroom. He was not breaking any school rule, nor was he committing a criminal act. The incident ended in Joquan being assaulted and injured by both McCarthy and Paris High Principal Gary Preston. Both said they told Joquan to go to the office and he didn’t do what he was told. Both Preston and McCarthy claim they were hit when they were placing Joquan under arrest. Numerous witnesses say Joquan never hit anyone. Joquan ended up with two felony charges and a trip to the emergency room with visable injuries. Neither Preston nor McCarthy had any visable injuries according to Joquans parents. Joquan was a good student with no discipline problems. He had no prior arrests. He excelled in sports and had won sports awards for the school. He was up for scholarships from numerous colleges. He was suspended from school. He will not be allowed to walk the stage to graduate with his class. He may not receive any college scholarships. People should support Joquan because its time to end the School to Prison Pipeline. A students future should not be destroyed over an incident that school officials instigated. Hold School officials accountable for bad behavior. It can help prevent this from happening to other students.