Tag Archives: California

When veterans like me come home from war


VoteVets.org

After returning from Iraq, transitioning back to civilian life was a real challenge.

I struggled with anxiety, depression and an aversion to crowded areas. And while I have always found peace in the outdoors, it was never more evident than when I returned home. My road to recovery was not just spent in VA offices, but also on hiking trails and the cold water streams in some of our country’s national parks.

That’s why I eagerly testified before Congress last week in support of a bill that would allow all veterans with any disability rating FREE access to national parks for life.

For many veterans, the financial cost of accessing these parks is a prohibitive barrier to spending time alone, or with friends and family, hiking, rock climbing, rafting, camping, or just decompressing. But Congress is considering legislation to change that.

Can I count on you to send a message to your Representative telling them to support the bill granting free access to our national parks for veterans with any disability rating?

Sending a message using our tool will deliver it straight to your reps office, and it would mean a lot to the many veterans — including thousands of VoteVets members — who are counting on passage of this bill.

There’s also science to support why this legislation is important.

Last year, a University of Michigan study found that “Veterans participating in extended outdoor group recreation show signs of improved mental health, suggesting a link between the activities and long-term psychological well-being.”

This issue has bipartisan support in the notoriously partisan House of Representatives, and taking a moment to write your Representative today can push it across the finish line.

http://action.votevets.org/national-parks

Thanks for making your voice heard on this issue.

All the best,

Garett Reppenhagen
Iraq War Veteran
VoteVets.org

Chart of the Week: SHOP Marketplac​e Premiums Flat in 2015


whitehousebannerChart of the Week: SHOP Marketplace Premiums Flat in 2015

On November 15, the Health Insurance Marketplace opened for the 2015 enrollment season on HealthCare.gov. But November 15 also marked the beginning of online shopping through the Small Business Health Options Program (SHOP).

Historically, small businesses have paid as much as 18 percent more than their larger competitors for the same coverage. However, SHOP now tackles these problems by creating a competitive marketplace where small businesses can shop for coverage that meets their needs via a convenient online application.

Find out more about the Chart of the Week and SHOP here.

Find out more about the Chart of the Week.

 

 

Weekly Address: Immigration Accountability Executive Action

In this week’s address, the President laid out the steps he took this past week to fix our broken immigration system. Enacted within his legal authority, the President’s plan focuses on cracking down on illegal immigration at the border; deporting felons, not families; and accountability through criminal background checks and taxes. These are commonsense steps, but only Congress can finish the job.

READ MORE

The Faces of Health Care: Amy W.

Amy and her husband are self-employed, operating a semi-truck out of Augusta, GA. As self-employed Americans, they had to purchase health insurance on their own. Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, they were able to keep a significant amount of their business profits in their pocket by purchasing an affordable, quality plan on the Health Insurance Marketplace.

READ MORE

What You Need To Know: The President’s Actions on Immigration

Here’s what you need to know about President Obama’s new steps to fix our broken immigration system.

READ MORE

Get Over It


By

Republicans Are Mad That Other Republicans Are Debunking Benghazi

The right-wing Benghazi conspiracy has been thoroughly debunked numerous times, but now it is back in the news because Republicans are the ones that are debunking it.

Six different investigations in the past two years have found that, while the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi, Libya, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, were tragic and reprehensible, there was no evidence for any kind of cover-up by President Obama and his administration. There was also no evidence that the Obama administration stopped attempted rescues from the diplomatic compound or that it intentionally misinformed Congress or the American people. Despite the myriad conspiracy theories, these notions have been disproven time and time again.

Well, none of that changed with the release of the House Intelligence Committee’s latest report, the seventh of the genre, on what happened that night in Benghazi. According to the Associated Press, this Republican-led, bipartisan committee reported the following:

Debunking a series of persistent allegations hinting at dark conspiracies, the investigation of the politically charged incident determined that there was no intelligence failure, no delay in sending a CIA rescue team, no missed opportunity for a military rescue, and no evidence the CIA was covertly shipping arms from Libya to Syria.

While an investigation into the deaths at Benghazi was appropriate, conservative media, irresponsible right-wing politicians and pundits, and their enablers in Congress refuse to accept that these investigations have already concluded that there’s no controversy behind the tragic attack. Republicans have used this as a distraction for 2016 instead of treating the violence with the seriousness it has deserved.

Some Republicans are asking the GOP to move on from trying to prove something that does not exist. However, that has not stopped leading Benghazi conspiracy theorist Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., from calling the report inaccurate, “full of crap” and “a complete bunch of garbage.” Nor has this report stopped Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C. from continuing his $3.3 million investigation into Benghazi, with House Republicans choosing to spend more on an eighth investigation than on the committees for Ethics, Veterans’ Affairs, the budget, or science.

BOTTOM LINE: The latest Benghazi investigation – this one led by House Republicans – found more of the same, namely that there was no conspiracy. But amazingly, that hasn’t stopped some GOPers from continuing to push this non-story. And conservatives wonder why the Obama administration continues its work on moving the country forward through executive action with such unreasonable and hostile opposition in Congress?

This Month’s Jobs Numbers


The White House Sunday, July 06, 2014

You might be seeing a lot of news about the economy creating more jobs.

That’s because at the beginning of every month, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics releases a report on our country’s general employment situation for the previous month — and this month’s showed good news.

What’s it all mean, and why should you care?

There’s still much more to do to keep moving forward, but we’ve put together a few key points about how our economy is doing generally. Take a look — and if you learn something new, pass it on.

Our country hasn’t seen this kind of job creation since the 1990s — and we’ve been adding more than 200,000 jobs a month for five months straight.

The 1.4 million jobs added in the first half of this year are the most in any half since 1999. What’s more, this is the first time since September 1999-January 2000 that we’ve seen total job growth above 200,000 for five straight months.

GIF: Here's what our jobs growth looks like.

Auto sales in June are also the highest they’ve been since mid-2006 — before the financial crisis.

Let’s not forget that the American auto industry is continuing to bounce back — adding 18,000 jobs this past month for a total of 463,000 jobs added since Chrysler and GM came out of bankruptcy in June 2009.

Employment in Motor Vehicles and Parts Manufacturing and Sales

Meanwhile, we’re continuing to produce more oil at home than we’re importing from overseas.

In addition to doubling renewable electricity generation from sources like wind and solar, last October something big happened: For the first time in nearly two decades, we started importing less foreign oil than we were producing at home.

U.S. Crude Oil Production and Net Imports

It’s progress — but we’ve still got work to do.

Want a more in-depth look at what the jobs numbers mean, complete with more charts, numbers, and economist-speak?

Take a look at this post from Jason Furman, Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers.

And if you’re looking for more great charts and infographics related to the economy, visit our Shareables hub.

meet Wendy Davis …


and NOT Greg Abbott …

Texas is home to millions of hardworking people of all backgrounds. Every Texan deserves an economy that will provide a quality education, good paying jobs, adequate infrastructure, and is equipped to move our great state into the future.

I’m the only candidate in this race with a vision for an economy that works for all hardworking Texans regardless of where you are from or what you look like. My plan focuses on:

  • Creating good paying jobs for Texans;
  • Investing more in schools so children are better prepared for the future;
  • Making smart decisions on transportation and water;
  • Enacting equal pay for equal work;
  • Cracking down on payday lending;
  • Closing the loopholes that cost taxpayers – like tax breaks for country clubs.

Greg Abbott has a plan too, a plan that benefits his insider allies and not hardworking Texans. We are fighting for something bigger — an economy in which all hardworking Texans have the opportunity to thrive.

7/23 Below is some great information from Wendy and a Call to help make sure she WINS TEXAS … Contribute!

Texas is a big state. There are over 13 million registered voters, representing every perspective you can think of — and we’re registering new voters every day. Our democracy is better when all of those voices are heard.

This morning, on a call with Democratic allies and our volunteers across the state, our campaign unveiled our Voter Protection Program for the fall. We’re going to fight to make sure every eligible Texan has access to the polls. It includes four major priorities:

  • Make Registering Easy: It’s critical our volunteers are trained in voter registration rules so they can efficiently help voters get registered.
  • Educate Voters: Our communications efforts — on the air, on the ground, and online — are top-notch. We’re going to use that network to make sure every voter knows how to successfully cast a ballot.
  • Promote Early Voting: Early voting in Texas starts in less than 90 days. For any Texan able to do so, we want them to vote early. In October, we will launch a statewide Election Protection Hotline to monitor irregularities in in-person early voting and will place well-trained volunteers at the polls.
  • Protecting the Vote on Election Day: From having volunteers at the polls to answer questions to setting up command centers across the state, we’re planning a massive Election Day operation to ensure voters can make their voices heard.

But in order to run our program effectively and make sure every vote counts, we need your help to fund these grassroots efforts. Help us reach our $350,000 goal before July ends. Contribute $5.

===============================================

Texans have a clear choice in the race for the next governor.

We can elect someone who supports policies that favor political insiders at the expense of hardworking Texans and their families.

Or we can elect someone who fights for all Texans — regardless of their age, race or gender.

We can elect someone who believes that politics as usual works just fine in order to move Texas forward.

Or we can elect someone who knows that for Texas to lead in the future, we need to make sure all our kids get a 21st century education and we have an economy built for the jobs of tomorrow.

This is the choice. This is the contrast between my opponent, Greg Abbott, and me.

While Abbott has spent his entire political career looking out for political insiders, I’ve spent my career in public service fighting for hardworking Texans and their families.

There’s no better example than our views on education policy.

I launched my campaign talking about education because of the critical difference it made to my family and me.

That’s why I’ve provided specific proposals to ensure every Texas child has the chance to succeed in a 21st century economy. My “Great Schools: Great Texas” proposes:

  • Full day pre-K education to every eligible child in Texas
  • Incentives to recruit and retain the next generation of great teachers
  • Expanded college opportunities for Texas high school students
  • Less standardized testing and more teaching with the resources needed to do it

Meanwhile, Abbott offered up a pre-K proposal that picks and chooses winners and losers. His plan could force 4-year-olds to take standardized tests that determine whether they get the rug yanked out from under them by starving their pre-K classroom of critical resources. There is no clearer proof of how misguided Abbott’s views on education are than this proposal.

I fought to prevent more than $5 billion in cuts to our public schools that led to school closings, teacher layoffs and overcrowded classrooms.

However, instead of joining the nearly 600 Texas school districts that went to court to stop it, Abbott fought them in their lawsuit every step of the way.

However, education is just one clear example of the differences between us.

Equal pay for equal work: Abbott says he will veto common-sense legislation that ensures women are paid as much as men for doing the same work. I will sign that legislation the minute it lands on my desk.

Texas border communities: Abbott demeaned them as the “third world.” I will work with local leaders to make sure their voice is heard and work together to improve education, build up their infrastructure and attract the kind of businesses they need in a 21st century economy.

Veterans: Abbott has accepted almost $200,000 from the payday lending industry and stood by while they preyed on Texas’ men and women in uniform. I worked to crack down on abusive payday lending practices and to limit the outrageous interest rates charged to U.S. military members and their families.

These are just some clear early examples that demonstrate Abbott is just not working for you. And it demonstrates a disturbing pattern of working for insiders at the expense of Texas families. Texas deserves a governor who fights for all hardworking Texans — not just the special interests.

That’s why I’m running.

But that wasn’t always my intention. As a 19-year-old single mom working two jobs, it was hard to imagine going to college, rising to the top of my class at Texas Christian University and earning a chance to attend a prestigious Ivy League law school. I didn’t dream of serving on the Fort Worth City Council or in the state Senate. And I certainly didn’t imagine running for governor.

I just wanted to make ends meet and make a better life for my daughter Amber and me. But I was able to achieve those things through hard work and sacrifice along with a healthy dose of help from family and friends.

That’s why I believe in the promise of Texas — a promise rooted in the belief that if you work hard, where you start in life shouldn’t determine how far you can go.

As governor, that’s one promise I will always fight to make sure we keep.

Thanks,

Wendy

Resource: Wendy’s website