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Tag Archives: civil rights
Invitation: Gun Violence Prevention Advocacy Day in Olympia, Tues. Feb 10
After any tragic shooting, we always ask, “What could we have done to prevent this?”
Families and law enforcement are usually the first to detect that someone is in crisis — but for too long they haven’t had the tools to temporarily remove guns from somebody who poses an extreme risk to themselves or others.
That’s exactly why we’re fighting for an Extreme Risk Protection Order bill that would give family members the ability to take action and stop tragedies before they happen. This Tuesday we’re taking that fight straight to the capitol in Olympia. Can you join us?
Click here to RSVP for the Gun Violence Prevention Advocacy Day in Olympia on Tuesday, February 10.
Here are the event details:
What: Gun Violence Prevention Advocacy Day
When: Tuesday, February 10 at 9:00 a.m.
Lunch will be provided for all attendees
Meeting Place: The United Churches of Olympia
110 Eleventh Ave SE; Olympia, WA 98501
We won big in November by helping pass I-594 at the ballot to require criminal background checks for all gun sales, but our lawmakers need to know that our state’s gun violence prevention movement hasn’t stopped fighting — and meeting them face-to-face is the most effective way to prove that.
The priority this session is to pass the Extreme Risk Protection Order bill — which would let Washington families and law enforcement ask a judge to temporarily remove guns from someone who poses an extreme risk to themselves or others.
On Tuesday, we’ll also be:
- Advocating for a bill to hold adults responsible for keeping guns out of the hands of children;
- Asking our legislators to protect the background checks law we worked so hard to win last year from any attempts at weakening it; and
- Holding a training for volunteers, writing letters to lawmakers, meeting with legislators, and hosting a press event to make sure our case for strong gun laws is heard in the media.
RSVP now if you can join us for the Gun Violence Prevention Advocacy Day on February 10.
Thanks for everything you do for this movement. I hope to see you in Olympia!
Leah Bernstein
Washington State Chapter Leader
Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America
P.S. If you can’t make it to the lobby day but want to add your voice to the fight for the Extreme Risk Protection Order bill, click here to automatically sign the petition to lawmakers now.
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A Roadmap For Inclusive Prosperity
Global Commission Offers Bold Prescriptions To Address Inequality and Grow Middle Class
For the last 18 months, a group of 17 international experts from 5 countries has met to discuss the transnational trends of globalization, technology and declining worker power. These trends—all exacerbated by the financial crisis—have placed downward pressure on wages and incomes, and exacerbated economic inequality. This group, called the Inclusive Prosperity Commission, or IPC, and convened by the Center for American Progress, today released a robust report aimed at establishing sustainable and inclusive prosperity over the long term in developed economies, with a specific focus on raising wages, expanding job growth, and ensuring broadly shared economic growth.
The IPC identifies five key policy areas that can deliver more inclusive prosperity on a global scale: rewarding and encouraging work; promoting educational opportunity for all; improved measures to support innovation and regional clusters; a move toward greater long-termism in the private sector; and international cooperation on global demand, trade, financial stability, and corporate tax avoidance. Beyond that, the report details a number of policy proposals to achieve inclusive prosperity in the United States. Below are some of the highlights, and click here to read the whole report.
Increasing workers’ share of the economic pie, raise wages and incomes
- Create tax incentives for companies to share profits with their workers.
- Modernize employment laws around overtime pay, workers’ compensation, unemployment compensation, and other protections to recognize the changing nature of work and to provide basic economic security to workers.
- Raise the minimum wage to a level that is at least high enough to prevent full-time workers from living in poverty, and index the minimum wage to the consumer price index in order to reduce the share of workers trapped in low-wage work.
Eliminating financial barriers to higher education
- Guarantee financial support for a college education at a public four-year college or community college so that every high school graduate and their family know that they can afford college.
Structuring tax policy to promote fairness and support aggregate demand
- Provide middle-class tax relief—until income stagnation is overcome—by crafting a tax credit that provides relief for Americans who do not benefit from the Earned Income Tax Credit, or EITC.
- Make the tax code more progressive and fairer over the long term by eliminating the decades-long accumulation of tax exemptions, deductions, and exclusions that have helped reduce effective tax rates on high-income households and corporations.
Increasing labor-force participation and growth
- Use family-friendly labor-market policies to increase female labor-force participation and income by enacting policies including paid parental leave, paid caregiving leave, paid sick days, paid vacation, protections for part-time workers, and workplace flexibility.
Targeting public investment to create jobs and raise long-run economic potential
- Expand infrastructure investment by $100 billion annually over 10 years to bring our infrastructure to a competitive level and sustain demand.
This list has just some of many recommendations included in the bold, comprehensive report. But even though the list is long, there is also momentum in some areas. Today, President Obama announced that he will sign a memorandum ensuring federal employees get at least six weeks of paid sick leave for the arrival of a new child and proposed that Congress pass legislation to give them six weeks of paid administrative leave (the United States is the only developed country that doesn’t have a national requirement that workers get access to paid sick leave). Also today, a new poll was released showing that 75 percent of 2016 voters support raising the minimum wage to $12.50 by 2020.
BOTTOM LINE: Despite the economic recovery, global trends are creating a toxic combination to suppress incomes and wages for middle-class families. Change won’t come with more trickle-down economics. But fatalism is not an option–the future of industrial democracies depend the growth of middle class living standards. Today’s report from progressive leaders across the globe is an important roadmap containing new, innovative ideas to spur quality job growth and tackle increasing economic inequality head on.
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Slicks Seep on in the Amazon
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Tell the FDA to Label Genetically Engineered Foods!
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You Have Right to Know if You’re Eating Genetically Engineered Foods
Recently Vermont became the first state to require genetically engineered (GMO) foods to be labeled! This is a huge victory: it makes Vermont the first state to require labels on GMOs and thus gives consumers the right to know what they’re eating. It also puts their neighbors in Connecticut and Maine that much closer to meeting their own requirements for labeling. Meanwhile, ballot initiatives to label GMOs are heating up for the fall in Oregon and Colorado, and the movement to label genetically engineered foods at the state level has never been stronger! It’s great that people in these states will soon know what’s in their food, but what about the rest of us? Tell the FDA to include genetically engineered ingredient labeling on the new nutrition labels! So why should we even care if we’re eating GMOs? Well, genetically engineered crops have been altered in a way that could never happen in nature. Companies like Monsanto and Dow (chemical companies) take genes from one plant, animal or virus, and shoot it into the DNA of another organism, like taking genes from a fish, and inserting them into a tomato. This is drastically different than how crops have been adapted since the beginning of human civilization, and these genetically engineered crops have been largely untested, and are unregulated by the U.S. government. They could have higher rates of allergenicity, and have unintended consequences for people and the environment. Many other countries around the world ban or limit GMO foods entirely, and 64 countries including Russia, China, Japan, Australia, and the countries of the European Union all require labeling. So why doesn’t the U.S. have a federal labeling law? The Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA), with about 300 member companies like Monsanto, Coca-Cola, Nestlé and Smithfield, represents the largest food, beverage and biotech companies, and has spent $54.7 million (on behalf of its Big Ag members) to defeat ballot initiatives on labeling genetically engineered foods in California and Washington. Instead of taking this fight state by state, the GMA would like to pass a bill through Congress that will stop all genetically engineered food labels nationally, and they’ve got a lot of money from their corporate members to spend to try to pass their bill. The good news is, the Food & Drug Administration has the authority to require mandatory labeling of genetically engineered ingredients, and they could do it now. They’re already considering new content and designs on the nutrition labels that are required on every food package, and they could just include a requirement to label genetically engineered ingredients. We know that more than 90% of people want labeling on foods that contain GMO ingredients, and recently more than 20 states have considered their own labeling laws, so it’s time for the FDA to require GMO labels on all foods in the U.S.! The FDA is accepting comments until June 3. Please take action now to let the FDA know that you want labels on all genetically engineered foods. Thanks for taking action, Sarah Alexander |
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Monsanto, Nestlé, Dow and Pepsi don’t want genetically engineered foods to be labeled, but more than 90% of Americans do.
The Food and Drug Administration could require mandatory GMO labeling as part of their new nutrition label, and give people the right to know what’s in their food.
Thanks for all you do!
Bob Fertik
Be a Seed for Change 
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