Category Archives: ~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

100,000 Demand Thomas Recusal


Because of you, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas got 100,000 messages last week telling him to do the right thing.
We carried those 100,000 messages to the court’s front door in a petition demanding that Justice Thomas disqualify himself from the big health reform case that will be decided by June.
Health Care for America Now and The Other 98% went to the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., and delivered a 334-foot long petition demanding that Thomas recuse himself because of his blatant disregard for legal ethics.
Click here to view a one-minute video of the delivery.
Justice Thomas’s wife has been employed as an agitator on behalf of conservative groups hostile to health reform. He has also been involved socially and politically with groups militantly opposed to the law.
Many who signed the petition are lawyers and retired judges, government officials and prosecutors. They are disgusted and appalled that Justice Thomas doesn’t see how he’s hurting the reputation of the Supreme Court.
Our 100,000 voices are trying to tell Justice Thomas to do the right thing and avoid ruling on a case that has already put more than $600,000 in the Thomases’ bank account.

We aren’t giving up.

Thank you for your support.
Will O’Neill

Health Care for America Now

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

AFL – CIO – Can Apple be ethical and innovative ?


Apple is under intense scrutiny right now. But rather than genuinely addressing the problems in its supply chain, we believe the company is trying to stop the outcry by brushing its problems under the rug.We’re demanding that Apple do what it takes to ensure the people who manufacture its products are treated ethically.And we’re joining a global movement to deliver hundreds of thousands of petitions from activists worldwide at Apple’s annual shareholder meeting this Thursday.Sign our petition: Tell Apple to transform its industry by being ethical and innovative.

Not that long ago, I switched from a BlackBerry to an iPhone. It’s been a great switch. The iPhone is intuitive and powerful—it’s an incredible piece of machinery. If you don’t use an Apple product yourself, you probably have friends or family who do.

When it comes to technology, Apple has revolutionized its industry and set a standard other companies aspire to meet. The company has been richly rewarded for its success. It is now the biggest publicly traded company in the world, worth a whopping $465 billion. The company made $17.5 billion in the fourth quarter of 2011 alone—just shy of a 40 percent profit margin.(1,2)

But Apple’s record-breaking success comes at a back-breaking price. According to news reports, workers who assemble iPhones, iPads and iPods at Foxconn, Apple’s largest supplier in China, have needlessly suffered lifelong injuries and even died from avoidable tragedies, including suicides, explosions and exhaustion from 30- to 60-hour shifts. And there are stories of workers suffering such awful repetitive motion injuries that they permanently lose the use of their hands.(3)

Sign our petition to Apple’s CEO Tim Cook. Tell him to ensure that people integral to Apple’s success—workers who manufacture Apple’s electronics—are treated fairly.

Apple is under intense scrutiny right now. But rather than deal with that by genuinely addressing the problems in its supply chain, we believe the company is trying to stop the outcry by brushing its problems under the rug.

Recently, Apple joined the Fair Labor Association (FLA) to arrange for inspections of its factories. We believe these inspections will not expose—or begin to solve—Apple’s problems. The FLA is funded and controlled by the multinational corporations it oversees, which means it is not at all independent. As Scott Nova of the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC) recently said, independence “means an organization is not funded and governed by the companies it is charged with investigating.”(4)

A couple days ago, Foxconn also announced a recent raise for some of its workers. But we believe that, too, is a PR smokescreen. According to Students & Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior, “The new basic wage…only applies to the workers in Shenzhen. In inland provinces, where two-thirds of production workers are based, basic salary remains meager. Given that the inflation in China is high, Foxconn is just following the trend of wage increase in the electronics industry in China.”

We call on Apple to immediately allow genuine unions, with truly independent factory inspections and worker trainings. Trying to brush this under the rug—or hide behind a front group like the FLA—only will make Apple’s PR problems worse.

Tell Apple’s CEO Tim Cook: Get to work to ensure people who manufacture Apple electronics are treated ethically.

One anonymous Apple executive told The New York Times there’s a trade-off between working conditions and innovation: “You can either manufacture in comfortable, worker-friendly factories,” or you can “make it better and faster and cheaper, which requires factories that seem harsh by American standards.”(5)

We disagree with the idea that Apple can’t be both ethical and innovative. Apple needs to ensure the quality of its working conditions matches the quality of its products.

As one anonymous Apple executive told The New York Times, “[s]uppliers would change everything tomorrow if Apple told them they didn’t have another choice.”(6)

Please sign our petition to Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook, urging him to treat all of the workers who make Apple’s electronics fairly—no matter where they live.

Thank you for standing in solidarity with our brothers and sisters in China.

In Solidarity,

Richard L. Trumka
President, AFL-CIO
Twitter: @richardtrumka

P.S. What leaders do matters. And Apple is now the leader in its industry. That’s why the AFL-CIO will be watching Apple closely to make sure the company does right by the workers who make its products—no matter where they live.

Apple has the resources it needs to do this right. Manufacturing costs are only a very small portion of Apple’s expenses: Workers are paid just $8 to manufacture a $499 iPad, for example, while Apple pockets $150 of the retail price. And the company is sitting on nearly $100 billion in cash.(7,1)

Sign our petition to Apple’s CEO Tim Cook, telling him to make Apple’s products ethically.

(1) www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ:AAPL&fstype=ii
(2) http://money.msn.com/top-stocks/post.aspx?post=f7428a06-dd15-4076-bec0-4204c437c814
(3) http://sumofus.org/campaigns/ethical-iphone/
(4) www.cnn.com/2012/02/17/opinion/nova-apple-foxconn/index.html
(5,6) www.nytimes.com/2012/01/26/business/ieconomy-apples-ipad-and-the-human-costs-for-workers-in-china.html
(7) www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2012/02/15/chinese-workers-get-only-8-from-each-apple-ipad-2/
~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Tell Turkish Court: Rape Is Never Consensual


care2 petitionsite actionAlert

  Take action now.Tell Turkish Court: Rape Is Never Consensual
I know I send a lot of messages asking you to take action against injustice. But a Turkish court ruling against the testimony of a raped woman because she didn’t scream during the assault makes me absolutely sick to my stomach.

Stand up against this bizarre and unjust ruling! »A judge in Diyarbakir, Turkey has ruled that the sexual abuse of a woman with mental disabilitieswill go unpunished because the woman did not scream.The woman, known by the alias “E.B.,” was repeatedly raped for two years by her 24-year-old neighbor, Ibrahim T. DNA proved Ibrahim T. to be the biological father of E.B.’s child.E.B. later said she was too afraid to report the abuse because her neighbor was from a wealthy family and threatened to kill her and her children if she said anything.

This sounds pretty nonconsensual to me. But because E.B. didn’t fight back, the judge decided her word wasn’t good enough.

Join me in speaking out against this horrific display of injustice. Tell Turkey that rape is NEVER consensual. »

        Thanks for taking action!Kathleen
The
~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

USA.gov


Six new apps have been added to the USA.gov Mobile Apps Gallery :

View the 2013 federal budget with GPO’s Budget of the U.S. Government mobile site.

Get stories about advanced space with the NASA Visualization Explorer iPad app.

Stay on top of everything with the U.S. Marines by reading the Marines Magazine app, available on both iPad and Android.

Explore the deserts of Southern California with the CA Desert app by the Mojave Desert Ecosystem Program, available on iPhone and Android.

Use the Mojave Desert Tortoise app to learn interesting facts and submit findings of this rare species, available on iPhone and Android.

Use the QuitSTART app from National Cancer Institute to help track your cravings and moods and learn other tips in becoming and staying smokefree.

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Have You Benefited from the Health Care Law? …Judy Waxman, National Women’s Law Center


National Women's Law Center
Join Our Story Blog
                Tell us how the health care law is helping you by sharing your story on our story blog today.
Share Your Story

Eighty-six million. That’s the number of people who have received at least one preventive health care service without having to pay a deductible or co-pay in the last year. That’s 54 million people with private insurance and over 32 million Medicare recipients who are already benefiting from the health care law.
Who are these people? It’s a mother who didn’t have to pay a co-pay for her last mammogram, a child who received a flu shot without her parents having to pay a deductible, and millions of people like you who had pap smears, prenatal screenings, or diabetes counseling without having to open their wallets.
Are you one of the millions of people who have benefited from the new health care law? We want to hear from you — join hundreds of others on our story blog and tell us your story.
The story blog is an open forum where people can upload their photos and write about how the law is helping them. On the story blog we’ve heard from people with children under age 26 who, instead of falling among the uninsured, were able to stay on their parents’ health plan. We’ve heard from people on Medicare who are paying less for prescription medication, saving them from having to choose between buying medicine or groceries. We’ve heard from people who would have bumped up against their insurance company’s lifetime limit for coverage but now, thanks to the new health care law, are able to focus on their illness instead of worrying about medical bills.
And, later this year, even more people will benefit from the health care law. That’s when millions of women will have access to birth control and other preventive care services without paying deductibles or co-pays for the first time. Join our story blog today and tell us how you are gaining from this critical law.
Thank you for all you do to ensure women and their families get the health care they need.
Sincerely,
Judy Waxman Judy Waxman Vice President for Health and Reproductive Rights National Women’s Law Center   

P.S. Your generous support allows us to keep the health care law strong and do other critical work on behalf of women and their families. Please consider making a contribution today.