In this week’s address, the President thanked Congress for its strong bipartisan support for efforts to train and equip Syrian opposition forces to fight ISIL. This plan is part of the President’s comprehensive counter-terrorism strategy to degrade and destroy the terrorist group, and does not commit our troops to fighting another ground war. America, working with a broad coalition of nations, will continue to train, equip, advise, and assist our partners in the region in the battle against ISIL.

In the coming week, the President will speak at the United Nations General Assembly and continue to lead the world against terror, a fight in which all countries have a stake.

Click here to watch this week’s Weekly Address.

Watch: President Obama delivers the weekly address.

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It’s On Us to Stop Sexual AssaultYesterday at the White House, President Obama joined Vice President Biden and Americans across the country to launch the “It’s On Us” initiative — an awareness campaign to help put an end to sexual assault on college campuses.

“It’s On Us” asks everyone — men and women across America — to make a personal commitment to step off the sidelines and be part of the solution to campus sexual assault.

This week, Congress passed and President Obama signed something called a Continuing Resolution, an important measure that ensures our government has the resources necessary to address key domestic and national security goals in the months ahead.

Want to learn what exactly a Continuing Resolution is and what this one includes? Here’s a few answers to some key questions that many Americans may be asking.

At the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta on Tuesday, President Obama discussed the Ebola outbreak in West Africa and announced a major increase in our efforts to help fight the outbreak.

While reiterating that the chances of an Ebola outbreak in the United States are very unlikely, the President emphasized that the outbreak is still a national security priority, and that the government has “devoted significant resources in support of our strategy.”

Who’s Up and Who’s Down

09/22/2014 Nativegrl77

By CAP Action War Room

Corporations Are Doing Great. Workers, Not So Much.

Burger King is the latest American-born company that is ditching corporate patriotism in favor of exploiting a tax loophole by moving its headquarters abroad. Companies like this and others insist that they make these decisions because America’s corporate tax rate is too much of a burden for them to be competitive. But the reality is that America’s corporations have never done better. It is America’s workers, with wages stagnating and prices increasing, that are having a harder and harder time to make ends meet.

Let’s look at corporations first. Corporations are capturing a greater share of the national income overall. In 1946, corporate profits accounted for 4.5 percent of all the money earned over the course of the year. Now they have more than doubled that share to 11.2 percent.

corps1

Meanwhile, corporate tax obligations make up a smaller share of federal revenue. In 1946, 30.2 percent of all taxes collected by the federal government came from corporations; now corporate income taxes only cover 9.9 percent of federal revenue.

corps2

Center for American Progress fiscal policy expert Harry Stein explains the backward logic of corporations complaining that taxes are too high: “The claim that taxes are somehow ‘crushing’ corporations gets it backward—corporations could not survive without taxes. To list just a few examples, federal taxes fund education and training for the American workforce, a national transportation network to deliver products to market, a navy to keep shipping lanes safe from piracy around the world, and a legal system to protect copyrights and patents.”

While corporations have been doing better than ever, workers have not been capturing their fair share of these profits. Simply put, trickle-down isn’t trickling. In 2013, the share of corporate income that went to workers hit its lowest point since 1950, according to an analysis from the Economic Policy Institute.

corpincome

Workers aren’t earning less because they’re working less. Oppositely, their productivity increased 8 percent between 2007 and 2012 while their wages actually fell.

BOTTOM LINE: These new economic numbers are more proof that our economy is not working for most Americans. Companies may point to the tax code as a reason for their corporate desertion, but the fact is they are doing better than ever. It’s middle and working class families, the real engines of the economy, that are left with less. We need an economy that works for them.

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

5 reasons to vote Democratic

09/22/2014 Nativegrl77

I know we spend a lot of time talking about how Republicans’ plans will hurt the middle class.

So today, I’m going to change things up a bit. There are so many reasons voters should vote Democratic in November. Here are 5 reasons that I wanted you to focus on to demonstrate why everyone should vote Democratic this November:

1. We’re trying to overturn Citizens United.
2. We’re fighting the Koch brothers.
3. We’re refusing to end Medicare as we know it.
4. We’re refusing to privatize Social Security.
5. We’re defending a woman’s right to choose.

If those sound like good reasons to you, I hope you’ll consider pitching in $5 to help my team reach our $200,000 goal before the FEC deadline at the end of the month.