Tag Archives: black people

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

A License To Kill


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As Florida Governor, Jeb Bush Pioneered The Nation’s First “Stand Your Ground” Law

This Friday, Jeb Bush is scheduled to address the National Urban League, one of the nation’s oldest and largest civil rights organizations. He is going to be on the hot seat – and deservedly so. As Governor of Florida, Jeb worked hand in hand with the NRA to pioneer the nation’s first Stand Your Ground law, brought to national attention when George Zimmerman killed Trayvon Martin. The results, detailed in a new CAP Action report, have been devastating. Here are a few of the findings outlined in the report:

1. Since the passage of the law, Florida’s gun homicide rate jumped above the national average – and has stayed there. In the 6 years prior to the law‘s passage, the rate of gun homicides in Florida was 3.7 per 100,000 residents, below the national average rate of 4 murders per 100,000 residents. After Stand Your Ground was passed in the state, the average gun homicide rate jumped to more than 4.5 murders per 100,000 residents in Florida while going down nationwide. In the two years following the enactment of the Stand Your Ground law, the number of gun-related homicides in Florida increased by more than 200 cases.

2. Florida’s Stand Your Ground law appears to have a disparate impact on black communities. A study by the Tampa Bay Times of nearly 200 Stand Your Ground cases in Florida found that defendants seeking to avoid criminal liability for a homicide by mounting a Stand Your Ground defense were significantly more likely to be successful if they killed a black victim than a white victim. In fact, from 2005 to 2012, defendants who raised a Stand Your Ground defense in Florida were 24 percent more likely to avoid criminal liability for a homicide if they killed a black victim.

3. The impacts of Stand Your Ground have translated to an additional 600 homicides per year across the country. Within one year of Gov. Bush’s signing, 21 other states had introduced the legislation and 13 had enacted expanded self-defense laws. A 2012 study by researchers at Texas A&M University found that Stand Your Ground laws led to more homicides: States that enacted such laws saw an 8 percent increase in homicides, which translated to an additional 600 homicides per year across all states with these laws. National Urban League’s own 2013 study found that in states that enacted Stand Your Ground laws between 2005 and 2007, the rate of justifiable homicides increased by 53 percent.

A new op-ed drawn from CAP Action’s report and written by Ben Jealous, former president and CEO of the NAACP, highlights how Florida’s Stand Your Ground law poses an even larger threat in Florida because the states gun laws are so weak. In fact Florida’s gun laws remain so lax that George Zimmerman, who in addition to shooting and killing Trayvon Martin, was arrested for assaulting a police officer, the subject of a domestic violence restraining order, arrested 3 times for domestic violence, and threatened to kill a man during a road rage incident, is still permitted carry a gun in Florida.

BOTTOM LINE: America has Jeb Bush to thank for Stand Your Ground. And as research continues to suggest, America has this NRA-backed law to thank for hundreds more gun homicides every year and a disproportionate impact on communities of color.

 

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

what a successful Presidency looks like

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The following sponsored message was sent to you by AlterNet on behalf of DCCC:

To be sure the numbers have shot upward

This is what a successful Presidency looks like:

President Obama Took Office
(January 2009)		 Today
7,949 The Dow Jones Index 17,573
7.8% Unemployment 5.8%
-5.4% GDP Growth 3.5%
9.8% Deficit GDP % 2.8%
37.7 Consumer Confidence 94.5

In 6 years under President Barack Obama, we’ve made incredible progress as a country.

Often in the face of incredible obstruction, the President has continued to fight for us and lead us forward.

Will you add your name now and say that you’re still standing with President Obama in his final two years in office?

Sign your name to say you’re standing with President Obama:
http:// action.dccc.org/i-stand-with-obama

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Pursuing transformative technology with the Google Impact Challenge: Disabilities ~ a repost


GOOGLeWhen Laura Palmaro was 10 years old, she woke one morning to find that the central vision in her left eye had all but disappeared. She was not ill and had no genetic issues—it was completely out of the blue. When she was 14, the same rare condition struck her right eye, and she began her freshman year of high school legally blind. Suddenly she was forced to depend on other people to read everything aloud, from school assignments to menus. The toughest part, according to Laura, was losing her sense of independence—and not knowing when or how she would get it back.

Laura has since adopted technological solutions to her vision challenges, using a combination of screen-readers and magnification software to read, work and more. Now a program manager at Google, she is following her passion, helping Chrome and Chrome OS teams make their products more accessible. “Technology has truly transformed my life,” she says. “Assistive technology can tear down boundaries, and empower people to find their independence and fulfill their dreams.”

We agree with Laura about the power of technology to change lives. And in order to support more people like her—people who see obstacles as opportunities—we’re launching the Google Impact Challenge: Disabilities. We’re putting $20 million in Google.org grants behind nonprofits using emerging technologies to increase independence for people living with disabilities, and today we’re issuing an open call to identify new areas of opportunity at g.co/ImpactChallengeDisability.

We’re kicking things off with support for two remarkable organizations. Each of these organizations is using technology to dramatically reduce the cost of and access to prosthetic limbs and auditory therapy, respectively—which could be transformative for hundreds of millions of people.

  • The Enable community connects people who want prosthetics with volunteers who use 3D printers to design, print, assemble, and fit them, for free. This dramatically cuts costs, increases speed of distribution, and meets unmet needs. We’ll support the Enable Community Foundation’s efforts with a $600,000 grant to advance the design, distribution and delivery of open-source 3D-printed upper-limb prosthetics.
  • Diagnosing auditory challenges can be a struggle in low income communities—the equipment is expensive, bulky and unrealistic, particularly in the developing world. With our support, and a $500,000 grant, World Wide Hearing will develop, prototype and test an extremely low cost tool kit for hearing loss using smartphone technology that’s widely available—and affordable—in the developing world.

The Google Impact Challenge: Disabilities will seek out nonprofits and help them find new solutions to some serious “what ifs” for the disabled community. We will choose the best of these ideas and help them to scale by investing in their vision, by rallying our people and by mobilizing our resources in support of their missions.

But of course, we realize there’s always room to improve our products as well. We have a team committed to monitoring the accessibility of Google tools; and we provide engineering teams with training to incorporate accessibility principles into products and services. That doesn’t just mean improving existing Google tools, it means developing new ones as well. For example, Liftware is a stabilizing utensil designed to help people with hand tremors eat more easily, and self-driving cars could one day transform mobility for everyone.

Historically, people living with disabilities have relied on technologies that were often bulky, expensive, and limited to assisting with one or two specific tasks. But that’s beginning to change. Thanks to groups like Enable and World Wide Hearing, and with tools like Liftware, we’re starting to see the potential for technologies that can profoundly and affordably impact millions. But we’ll all get there sooner if we make it a team effort—which is why we’re launching Google Impact Challenge: Disabilities today. Together, we can create a better world, faster.

Posted by Jacquelline Fuller, Director, Google.org

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Roadless forests under attack–help stop new coal mining on roadless lands!
Give today!

Our roadless forests are under attack!
A thicket of aspen in the Sunset Roadless Area. (Ted Zukoski / Earthjustice)

Arch Coal just got the go-ahead to bulldoze for dirty coal in one of our pristine roadless national forest areas.
Help us fight back!

Arch Coal is at it again.

On April 6, the Forest Service announced it was paving the way for the second-largest coal company in the United States to bulldoze across thousands acres of pristine roadless forests in order to mine up to 350 million tons of coal.

When final, this deal will allow Arch Coal to reap huge profits while adding hundreds of millions of tons of climate pollution to our atmosphere—all at the expense of thousands of acres of beautiful, wild and public roadless forest.

I’m furious. And today, I’m asking for your help.

We’ve successfully stopped Arch Coal in the past. We can do it again.

Will you help us stand up to dirty industry with a gift of $5 or more?

As someone who has hiked in the Sunset Roadless Area for over a decade, I can tell you that this land is beautiful, and it provides important habitat for wildlife such as black bears and rare lynx in addition to beaver ponds, aspen stands, and giant spruce.

But unless we fight back and win, Arch Coal will soon turn this special place into an industrial zone of drill pads and roads—destroying wildlife habitat and valued recreation and hunting areas—all to benefit a single corporation.

Additionally, burning the 350 million tons of coal the company would extract would dramatically undercut efforts to slow the pace of climate change.

My team and I are determined to protect this critical habitat and ensure vital long-term protections for our other national forests…but we need your urgent gift today to see this and other difficult legal battles through.

For decades, Earthjustice has taken the lead to fight dirty energy and protect roadless forests across the country, but today we need your help.

We’ve stopped Arch Coal before. Help us win once again.

Thank you,

Staff photo

Ted Zukoski
Attorney
Earthjustice, Rocky Mountains Office
~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

30,000 for infrastructure jobs


Rebuild our infrastructure!

Click here to sign the petition.

 

Americans need jobs. America’s roads and bridges are in crisis. And our communities need more high-speed Internet and clean energy.

All of these problems have the same solution: We need big ideas that invest in America’s infrastructure and create jobs.

Today, I’m introducing the Rebuild America Act — a bold trillion-dollar infrastructure bill that is endorsed by the American Society of Civil Engineers, the AFL-CIO, and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee.

Some in Congress will be fearful of a proposal this big. I need your help to show my colleagues and the entire political world that the American people are not afraid of big ideas, are not afraid to create the millions of jobs we desperately need, and are not afraid to rebuild America.

Can you sign the petition saying Americans want a big infrastructure jobs program? Click here to sign.

I met with the PCCC team last week to discuss infrastructure and other big ideas. And I’ll need your activism to push big ideas like this to the center of the national debate.

When the Progressive Change Institute did a national poll this month, major investment in infrastructure was popular by 71% to 18%. That’s a bipartisan landslide.

The public enthusiasm for big ideas is inspiring, and Congress needs to hear about it.

Thanks for being a bold progressive.

— Senator Bernie Sanders