Texas residents continue to be the most likely in the United States to lack health coverage, with 27.2% reporting being uninsured in the first half of 2011. At the other end of the spectrum is Massachusetts, where 5.3% of adults are uninsured.
Category Archives: ~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture
a message from Ben Betz, People For the American Way
This is outrageous. A corporate-backed right-wing group fighting to dismantle workers’ rights in Ohio hijacked the words and image of a great-grandmother who had filmed an ad for our allies, distorting her message and making it look like she supported their position against workers.
Cincinnati resident Marlene Quinn had filmed a TV ad for our friends at the “No on Issue 2” campaign — the campaign to repeal Senate Bill 5, Ohio’s version of the Wisconsin bill that stripped public workers of their collective bargaining rights. In the ad, she told the story of her grandson and great-granddaughter’s rescue by firefighters, and rightly made the case that passage of Issue 2 on the ballot this November, affirming SB 5, would lead to less firefighters there to protect Ohioans.
In a shockingly underhanded move, a leading right-wing group in the fight, Building a Better Ohio, stole the footage of Marlene for its own ad, and presented it in a way that made it look like Marlene was for Issue 2!
Ten Ohio TV stations have already pulled the ad and we’re going to keep the pressure on the rest until do too. Help us by joining our petition to Ohio TV stations now.
In an email for our allies at the No on 2 campaign, Marlene said of the Right’s ad:
“It’s insulting to the brave firefighters who saved the life of my great-granddaughter. I’m outraged they are using my face and my words to push their harmful agenda. They certainly did not ask my permission. I feel violated.”
Watch a side-by-side video comparison of the two ads and sign our petition now.
We hope you’ll speak out against the Right’s latest dirty tactic, and then engage others to do the same.
Thank you for all your support and activism to fight the Right’s dirty tricks.
— Ben Betz, Online Strategy Manager
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Tell Congress: Start Creating Jobs, Not Cutting Them …Joan Entmacher, National Women’s Law Center
It’s about jobs. You know that the most urgent deficit facing this country is the jobs deficit. It’s time for Congress to do its job and pass a plan that creates jobs for the millions of Americans who are desperately looking for work.
We expect the Senate to vote tonight on whether to allow debate to begin on President Obama’s jobs plan. It couldn’t be more timely or important. Last week, we got some news about the job market, and it’s not a pretty picture. Women gained just 4,000 of the 103,000 jobs created last month. The main reason? Cuts in funding for public services are disproportionately eliminating jobs held by women. Since the recession officially ended in June 2009, women have actually lost jobs and their unemployment rate has risen.
President Obama has introduced a plan, the American Jobs Act, to put women and men back to work. Yet some Senators may block the plan from even being considered!
You can help. Tell Congress it is time to stop cutting jobs and start creating them! Please call 1-888-659-9401 TODAY and ask your Senators to support the American Jobs Act.
Please call 1-888-659-9401 today. When connected to your Senators’ offices, please tell them:Your name, where you are from, and that you are a constituent.
That millions of Americans are desperately looking for work and need Congress to act quickly on the American Jobs Act.
That you support paying for the Act’s investments in job creation by making millionaires pay their fair share of taxes and oppose paying for them with further cuts in funding for public services that will destroy more jobs and create greater hardship.
Once you place your call, please call back to be connected to the office of your other Senator.
The American Jobs Act would keep teachers and first responders on the job, invest in rebuilding our nation’s infrastructure, provide job training, create incentives to hire the long-term unemployed, provide subsidized employment for disadvantaged workers, extend emergency unemployment benefits, and prohibit discrimination against jobless workers. And it fully funds these urgently needed measures in a progressive way, by levying a surtax on incomes above $1 million.
Please call 1-888-659-9401 today and ask your Senators to support the American Jobs Act. Tell them Americans can’t afford to wait any longer.
Thank you for all you do!
Sincerely,
Joan Entmacher
Vice President, Family Economic Security
National Women’s Law Center
P.S. Please help us continue to advocate for policies that protect and improve economic security for women and their families by making a generous donation today.
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Trader Joe’s …Amanda Kloer, Change.org
Trader Joe’s: Sell slave-free tomatoes
A remarkable number of major supermarkets, restaurants and food service companies have joined farm workers to fight wage theft, widespread sexual harassment — even slavery — in Florida’s tomato fields. But not Trader Joe’s.
Burger King, Subway and others are on board, paying $0.01 more per pound of tomatoes to the farm workers who pick them and guaranteeing their tomatoes are slave-free. But Trader Joe’s, despite their progressive image, refuses to follow suit.
The Student Farmworker Alliance has started a petition on Change.org calling on Trader Joe’s to sell only slave-free tomatoes. The Florida tomato season starts in October, so getting an agreement from Trader Joe’s in the next few weeks would be a huge victory. Will you sign the petition to get Trader Joe’s to join the Campaign for Fair Food and sell slave-free tomatoes now? http://www.change.org/petitions/ask-trader-joes-to-sell-slave-free-food
More than, 1,000 cases of real-life slavery in Florida’s tomato fields have been investigated by the Department of Labor in the past 10 years. In these cases, workers were housed in overcrowded shacks on the fields, paid poverty-level wages, had their identification documents taken away and were robbed of their wages by employers who fabricated debts to keep them working.
Trader Joe’s works hard on its image and prides itself on responding to customers’ preferences. If enough customers (and potential customers) tell Trader Joe’s they’ll only buy slave-free tomatoes guaranteed through the Coalition of Immokalee Workers’ Campaign for Fair Food, it will have to join.
Sign the Student Farmworker Alliance’s petition to get Trader Joe’s to make sure its tomatoes are slave- and abuse-free by joining CIW’s Campaign for Fair Food now:
http://www.change.org/petitions/ask-trader-joes-to-sell-slave-free-food
Thanks for being a change-maker,
Amanda and the Change.org team
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Alabama
Last week, a US district judge in Alabama ruled on HB56, the anti-immigrant measure that allows police to detain anyone without documentation, and forces public schools to confirm every student’s immigration status.
The effects have been both immediate and devastating: schools across the state are already reporting many Hispanic children absent, for fear of their families’ undocumented statuses being discovered. Crops are rotting in the fields because of the sudden shortage of migrant workers. One local framer warned, “There won’t be no next growing season.”
The Center for American Progress compiled comments from business leaders, academics, legal experts and Alabamians on HB56. One of the most powerful responses came from Professor Silvia Giagnoni of Auburn University at Montgomery, who said:
“It is sadly ironic that the same day a federal judge upholds major sections of the Alabama immigration law — the most restrictive in the nation — the state also receives an ‘A’ on its educational work in teaching civil rights history. It’s ironic because this comes at a time when the most retrogressive forces in Alabama claim a victory, although it is unclear to me against whom.”
Congress’ decision not to act on the federal level and pass comprehensive immigration reform means that states like Arizona, Georgia, Indiana and Alabama can now legislate discrimination — and other states could soon follow their precedent. This moment must be used as a wake-up call for the entire country to rededicate ourselves to passing national reform. Keep checking the blog as we write more on how our movement is taking action.
UPDATE: A federal judge refused to block the law Wednesday afternoon. We will continue to update as more news comes in.
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