Category Archives: ~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

National Museum of African American History and Culture

I can’t begin to thank you enough for your past support of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. Getting involved so early with something of this magnitude requires faith and vision, and everyone at the Museum truly appreciates your support and engagement with this historic endeavor.

As with any major undertaking, the first steps are always the most important. Building on the National Mall in Washington DC requires fine attention to detail. Our goal is to create a place worthy of the Museum’s mission and its prominent location on the National Mall – adjacent to the Washington Monument and near the White House.

As you read these words, our award-winning architectural team is working to design this signature new museum; our curators are creating state-of-the-art exhibitions that reflect the rich history and culture of the African American community; and our educators are developing innovative educational curricula and public programs.

Of course, you do not have to wait until the Museum opens in 2015 to experience what we will offer. You can see it now! We have programs and exhibitions currently underway — and as a Museum supporter you are already receiving special, early notices and invitations via email. That is just one of the benefits of your helping us raise the funds we need to build this much-anticipated Museum. Your special “insiders” look is one way we have of showing you just how much we appreciate your support.

As the end of the year approaches, I wanted to remind you of three things:

The overarching mission of the Museum is to use African American history and culture as a lens into what it means to be an American and that the African American experience is interwoven with, not separate from, the American experience. Together they create one, powerful American story.
The Museum will cost $500 million, half of which, $250 million, we must raise from Americans, like you, from around the nation.
The end of the year is the perfect time to make a tax-deductible gift to the Museum.

There are many good reasons to support the Museum: the powerful history and culture that will be on exhibit; the opportunity to add your name to something that will inspire and educate future generations; and the presentation of this important story in the grand tradition of a Smithsonian museum.

Whatever your reasons, we are honored by your commitment to the Museum. Our campaign to build the Museum continues to gain momentum, thanks to supporters like you. The bottom line is that we need your steadfast support and are very grateful to receive it.

So, please, take a moment right now to make a contribution to the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Again, thank you very much.

All the best,

Adrienne C. Brooks
Director of Development

P.S. I just want to underscore the great tax benefit your contribution to the Museum represents. Whatever amount you are able to generously contribute today is tax- deductible to the full extent of the law.

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Watch the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” Message for John McCain

11/16/2010 Nativegrl77

It Gets Worse PSA

As Sen. John McCain stalls to keep “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” alive while his wife Cindy goes on television to counter bullying against LGBT teens, The Daily Show and special guest Sean Hayes create their own PSA with a message for John McCain: “It gets worse.”

Watch Now!

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Follow the Money, Close the Floodgates

11/16/2010 Nativegrl77

Renew today
to help close the floodgates!

Fighting for better judges and against the Corporate Court
Undoing Citizens United
Exposing the interests behind the spending

Support the work of People For the American Way today to help take our democracy back for the People.

The story of this past election is one of unprecedented, unrestricted and undisclosed spending by wealthy corporate interests and their shadowy right-wing front groups.

We cannot allow that to be the story of future elections. PFAW is leading the movement to take our democracy back for the people. But we need your help.

Please renew your membership with a donation today to help us make sure there are rules about corporate spending in elections … and that corporations play by them.

Many of the same newly elected members of Congress who have been bought and paid for by corporate interests share an extreme right-wing agenda to roll back decades of progressive gains in civil rights, religious liberty, women’s rights, LGBT equality and more. This is the result of the reckless judicial activism by the Roberts Supreme Court in its 5-4 Citizens United v. FEC ruling, which overturned long-settled campaign finance law.

That decision opened the floodgates for unlimited corporate spending to influence our elections. And it set the foundation for an unholy alliance between far-right Tea Party candidates and powerful corporations that swept a tidal wave of radical Right Wing politicians into office.

Carmen, there is a solution … one that includes undoing Citizens United with a constitutional amendment and changing the balance on the Supreme Court. PFAW is leading the charge on both of those efforts. But the solution begins with passing the DISCLOSE Act, and we have only a limited window of opportunity to do it.

Your renewal will help People For the American Way work with our allies who are still in control of Congress to pass the DISCLOSE ACT.

Americans deserve to know who is behind the mountains of mysterious cash and the often-misleading TV ads that dominate the airwaves in an election year. This election showed that knowing who is behind the spending makes a huge difference. When voters know the agendas behind the messages, they are much more likely to reject them.

The DISCLOSE Act is the first big step in stopping corporations from drowning out the voice of the average voter. We must get it passed and signed into law in the next few weeks, before the Tea Party-dominated Republican majority — the very people who benefited from undisclosed corporate money — takes over the House in January.

Please renew your membership with a contribution right now to help us win this fight.

PFAW has released a series of reports documenting what happened during this election cycle with corporate spending and exposing the sources of the money where we can, and we’ll be issuing a final report within the next few days. We’ve identified the scope of the threat … winning this critical battle on the DISCLOSE Act is the first step toward solving the problem.

Carmen, this is a battle for the soul of our nation and democracy itself, and I need YOU in the fight.

Please renew your membership with People For the American Way now.

Thank you,

Michael Keegan, President

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Tell Congress: Help Jobless Workers Not Millionaires

11/16/2010 Nativegrl77


	Congress: Stand Up for Struggling Women and Families



	Your Members of Congress need to hear that they should extend unemployment benefits and let tax cuts for millionaires expire.

	Call 1-866-606-1189 today!

It’s hard to believe — but Congress is considering cutting taxes for the rich at the same time they discontinue unemployment insurance benefits for the millions of people who are out of work!

The emergency unemployment insurance program expires at the end of November. If Congress fails to extend it, this lifeline will be cut for 2 million workers in December alone. And, because these families won’t have income to spend in their communities to support their families, more jobs will be lost.

Yet, some of the same Members of Congress who are saying that they can’t afford to extend emergency unemployment benefits for another year insist on extending tax breaks for millionaires.

Will you stand up for your neighbor and call your Members of Congress? Calling is easy to do.

Call 1-866-606-1189
Tell the operator who answers the phone the name of your Member of Congress. (Not sure? Look it up here.)
Once you are connected to the office of your Member of Congress, tell the staff person who answers:
- Your name, that you are a constituent from (city, state).
- Stand up for struggling families by extending unemployment benefits for a year and allowing the tax provisions that only benefit the wealthiest two percent of households to expire on schedule.
- Thank you.
Hang up and ask your friends or coworkers to make a call as well. (To reach all three of your Members of Congress, you will have to dial 3 times. Thanks for your support and for making this extra effort.)

The Bush-era tax cuts and recent improvements in tax credits for working families will expire on December 31 unless Congress acts to renew them. Tax breaks for millionaires are also set to expire this year. Congress should extend tax benefits for middle- and lower-income families and not waste $700 billion giving tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans.

We have a limited amount of time to take action. Please take a stand for justice by calling 1-866-606-1189 today.

Thank you for your continued support.

Sincerely,

Joan Entmacher
Vice President, Family Economic Security
National Women’s Law Center

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Free Sex Trafficking Victim Sara Kruzan

11/16/2010 Nativegrl77

November 08 – November 15

TOP ACTIONS THIS WEEK

Help Stop Wage Theft – Workers Should Get the Pay They’ve Earned

by Interfaith Worker Justice

Sign the Petition »

Help the Final Push to Repeal “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” Before Anti-Equality Lawmakers Take Control

by Human Rights Campaign

Sign the Petition »

Tell Boehner: We’re Watching You. Don’t Attack Our Right to Choose.

by NARAL Pro-Choice America

Sign the Petition »

THIS WEEK on CHANGE.ORG

Free Sex Trafficking Victim Sara Kruzan

Plus: Deporting Disabled Children • Police Threaten Rape Victim • Halliburton Fracking Controversy • Fighting Racist Mascots • Recovering from Wrongful Imprisonment

At Change.org, we encounter a lot of stories of tragedy, injustice and triumph. None is more heart-wrenching than the story of Sara Kruzan.

Sara, who was once her elementary school’s student body president, met the man who would become her pimp when she was just 11. After acting as the father figure she never had for two years, he raped Sara at age 13 and trafficked her into the commercial sex trade.

For the next 3 years, from 6pm to 6am, strangers would pay Sara’s pimp to rape her and other adolescent girls he recruited and preyed upon.

Finally, physically and psychologically traumatized, Sara snapped. She shot and killed her pimp.

Her punishment? Life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The sentence was handed down by a judge in 1994 against the recommendation of the California Youth Authority, and before there was much awareness about the violence of child trafficking or an appreciation for the trauma of adolescent sexual and physical abuse.

The sentence was extreme and unjust. And it can now be overturned by one man: California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Governor Schwarzenegger is leaving office at the end of the year, and will soon be considering clemency petitions. In response, there is a grassroots movement building to call on Governor Schwarzenegger to commute Sara’s sentence to time served.

Join the movement to ask Governor Schwarzenegger to free Sara Kruzan now.

Tragically, the sexual exploitation Sara suffered is not unique. But what makes her case especially poignant is not just the injustice of her life sentence, but her response.

Rather than descend in hopelessness, Sara has found redemption in jail and become an inspiration to all those around her. She has graduated from high school, is on her way to completing her college degree, and started the prison’s Committee for Youth to serve as a mentor to younger women. She was recently voted “Woman of the Year” at her prison.

However, without intervention from Governor Schwarzenegger, Sara will likely die in prison.

Don’t let this happen. Sara has more than paid her debt to society with 16 years of incarceration. It’s time to set her free.

Call on Governor Schwarzenegger to free Sara Kruzan now.

For more information on Sara’s case, click here. And for more news and opportunities for action from this week in change, see the summaries from your favorite causes below.

Deporting Disabled Children in IMMIGRANT RIGHTS

Hee Chun Kang’s parents are legal permanent residents who came to the United States when their son was 10. But he and his brother face deportation to Korea because of the snail’s pace of the immigration system: by the time the Kang parents received green cards, their children had turned 21 and aged-out of the family petition. Hee Chun also has Down syndrome, so he needs the support of his family looking after him, something he can’t get in Korea. Taxpayer dollars should not be spent on tearing children in need from their parents. Read more »

Police Threaten Rape Victim in WOMEN’S RIGHTS

A South Carolina woman who reported being raped by a Marion police officer was subject to another assault when the officers who responded to her call threatened to put her in jail if she didn’t recant her story. Instead, they forced her to write the following: “Though I didn’t agree or consent to it (it) was not rape.” Non-consensual sex is rape – there’s no getting around it. And while the accused rapist has thankfully been sent on leave, the two officers who threatened to throw the victim in jail are sitting pretty. These officers need to be suspended for gross police misconduct pending investigation before they harass any other victims. Read more »

Halliburton Fracking Controversy in ENVIRONMENT

To help the EPA complete the first-ever federal health and safety study of the dangerous gas drilling practice called “fracking,” 8 of 9 gas companies have voluntarily complied with a request to disclose their chemical brews. These formulas are a secret in the first place because Dick Cheney pushed through a provision called the “Halliburton loophole” in 2005. Take a wild guess which of the nine companies now won’t pony up the data. Halliburton wants us to trust it with our health. Will we say yes? Read more »

Fighting Racist Mascots in EDUCATION

The University of Illinois retired Chief Illiniwek, the college’s costumed, dancing Native American mascot, in 2007 after pressure from the NCAA. But more than three years later, his ghost remains on campus. The administration has not named a new mascot and students still stage unofficial “chief” rallies, resurrecting a caricature that Native American groups have found offensive, racist and misleading. A coalition of student and community groups is pushing for a new mascot, saying this will help heal racial tensions and allow the campus to move on. Read more »

Recovering from Wrongful Imprisonment in CRIMINAL JUSTICE

Gloria Killian spent more than 16 years behind bars for a murder she didn’t commit, a victim of prosecutorial misconduct and admittedly false testimony from a man who had struck a deal with the state for a shorter sentence. Her conviction overturned in 2002, Killian has gone on to campaign on behalf of other women unjustly imprisoned. But her activism is not a choice, she tells Change.org. “I’m compelled to do it,” she says. “If I don’t use my experience to help the women that I left behind, then that means my life was destroyed for no reason, and I’m not about to let that happen.” Read more »

Have a great week,

– The Change.org Team