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#WeMatter

10/08/2014 Nativegrl77

What We All Can Do To Give Women And Families A Fair Shot At Getting Ahead

Fifty years ago most families were able to pay their bills, save for their children’s education and plan for their own retirement—all on one income. Now most women work outside the home and are either the sole breadwinner or share the role equally with their partner. Times have changed, yet many of our policies remain outdated and disconnected from the challenges women face.

Today, CAP Action, American Women, Planned Parenthood Action Fund, and the Service Employees International Union announced the launch of Fair Shot Action, a new resource that will focus on ensuring that policymakers and candidates for elected office are responsive to the increasingly pivotal role women are playing in the economic stability and overall well-being of families by advocating for concrete solutions that can improve women’s lives.

The pillars of the Fair Shot Action campaign consist of 21st century policies that are essential to the overall economic stability and well-being of families. They include:

1. Work-Life Challenges and Workplace Flexibility, such as paid sicks days, workplace flexibility laws, and paid family and medical leave which recognize the dual demands faced by today’s workers.
2. Fair Treatment in the Workplace, including ensuring equal pay for equal work, raising the minimum wage, and strengthening existing laws against pregnancy discrimination to help women and their families get ahead.
3. Healthy Families & Nondiscrimination, by closing the Medicaid coverage gap and getting all states to expand Medicaid, while at the same time working to make sure that women have access to preventative healthcare including contraception without co-payments.

Click here to become a fair shot voter today.

Fair Shot Action will continue to engage women and men across diverse constituencies, to ensure that voters are equipped with tools to push legislators and candidates to take actions in support of women’s economic security and women’s health, and to coordinate activity between other national and state organizations.

New resources include Fair Shot Voter, an online tool where voters can pledge support and commit to act on policies that affect women and their families. As part of the campaign, the website will also allow voters to share their story about why these issues matter to them, tactics that constituents can use to engage with legislators, and resources that help voters find information on state and local records on these issues.

BOTTOM LINE: It’s time for our workplace policies and public polices to keep up with our changing workplaces and families. We need women and their families to be at the center of our policy debates–and for politicians who forget to be held accountable. It’s time for all of us to become fair shot voters.

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“To Every Wounded Warrior, to Every Disabled Veteran — Thank You”

10/07/2014 Nativegrl77

Yesterday, President Obama spoke at the dedication for the American Veterans Disabled for Life Memorial, honoring the heroes who have sacrificed so much on behalf of our nation.

“To every wounded warrior, to every disabled veteran — thank you,” he said.

The President also made it clear that we must provide proper care for all of our veterans, noting: “When our wounded veterans set out on that long road of recovery, we need to move heaven and earth to make sure they get every single benefit, every single bit of care that they have earned, that they deserve.”

Watch the President’s full remarks here.

Weekly Address: We Do Better When the Middle Class Does Better

In this week’s address, the President highlighted that six years after the Great Recession, thanks to the hard work of the American people and the President’s policies, our economy has come back further and faster than any other nation on Earth.

On Friday, senior administration officials held a briefing on the U.S. government’s response to the Ebola epidemic.

At the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute’s 37th Annual Awards Gala on Thursday, President Obama spoke about the need to fix America’s broken immigration system.

Our Response to Ebola

10/07/2014 Nativegrl77

Yesterday, the President met with his senior health, homeland security, and national security advisors to review the United States’ Ebola response. They discussed the Ebola case in Dallas, the United States’ broader preparedness plans, and both domestic and international efforts to contain and end the epidemic.

President Obama made it clear that Ebola is a top national security priority, but reiterated that the chance of an Ebola outbreak in the U.S. is extremely low.

“It is important for Americans to know the facts,” he said. “Because of the measures that we’ve put in place, as well as our world-class health system and the nature of the Ebola virus itself — which is difficult to transmit — the chance of an Ebola outbreak in the United States is extremely low.”

Find out more about our response to Ebola here.

The American Dream Needs a Fair Minimum Wage

Lew Prince, the co-owner and managing partner of Vintage Vinyl in St. Louis, MO, explains why we can’t restore the American Dream without restoring the minimum wage.

READ MORE

Driving Development of Clean Energy

Since the President took office, we have made unprecedented progress transforming America into a clean energy economy built to last. And yesterday, the Department of Energy finalized a Presidential Permit for the Champlain Hudson Power Express, a transmission line that will deliver renewable hydropower from Quebec to meet New York City’s growing energy demand.

Last week, Vice President Biden and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan traveled to Joplin, MO to celebrate the reopening of Joplin High School, after it was destroyed in the deadly tornado that struck the town in May 2011.

Montanans for Lewis

10/07/2014 Nativegrl77

montanansforlewis.com

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The Latest Empty Gesture

10/07/2014 Nativegrl77

By CAP Action War Room

Republican Candidates Ignore Their Party’s Record When It Comes To Domestic Violence

Republican candidates facing persistent unpopularity with women continue to do whatever they can to muddy the waters on their anti-women policy positions. Last month, we documented how several GOP candidates for Senate came out in support of over-the-counter birth control–a move designed to look accommodating but in fact would be a tax on women.

Now they are at it again. This time, numerous conservative candidates are putting out advertisements highlighting their work to protect women from domestic violence. But just like before, these claims obscure the real records of many GOP officeholders, who have a consistent record of opposing common sense policies to further protect women from violence.

Here are some examples of positions that these candidates won’t be talking about in their new ads:

1. Voting Against Reauthorizing The Violence Against Women Act. A majority of the Republicans in the House voted to oppose renewing the Violence Against Women Act last year. After nearly a year of Republican obstruction on the measure, the House of Representatives finally voted to renew VAWA and pass a bipartisan Senate-approved version of the bill. But even as the bill passed, there were 138 votes against the bill, all from members of the GOP. Even a watered-down version of the bill offered by Republicans failed to gain the support of their conference.

2. Taking Away Free Screening And Counseling From Survivors Of Domestic Violence. Under the Affordable Care Act, survivors of domestic violence are now entitled to free screening and counseling as a preventative service, critical to improve both health and safety. Survivors of domestic violence are more likely to have chronic health conditions and use the emergency room more frequently, and are more likely to have HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases because they lack the power to negotiate condom usage. Identifying current or past violence can help prevent further abuse and lead to improved health status. But of course, with a party platform to repeal the ACA, Republicans would effectively remove that vital service.

3. Defending Easy Access To Guns By Domestic Abusers And Stalkers. Weak gun laws leave too many women facing a fatal end to domestic abuse. In all but nine states, you can be convicted of stalking and still walk into a store, pass a background check, and buy a gun. The consequences are horrifying: more women have been murdered by an intimate partner with a gun since 2001 than the total number of U.S. troops killed in action during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars combined. Several leaders have proposed laws to close these gaps, but conservative members of Congress beholden to the gun lobby refuse to help. The only time they seem to moderate their position defending stalkers is when it becomes too publicly humiliating — like when Gabby Giffords called out Arizona GOP Candidate Martha McSally.

BOTTOM LINE: The GOP candidates touting their work to prevent domestic violence on the airwaves are obscuring the truth about the GOP’s real record on Capitol Hill. The reality is that Republicans have disputed the reauthorization of VAWA, continue to support giving stalkers easy access to guns, and would remove preventative health services for survivors of domestic violence. The attempts to brush over those facts are just the latest empty gesture to appeal to voters during election season, and they won’t trick anyone.

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