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Congress has a plan to change the Internet forever. A bill they’re debating right now would give the government power to shut down whole websites, and even let corporations say which websites should be shut down. That means a huge corporation could have any website even suspected of violating a copyright shut down — no questions asked. The government could then completely block all access to sites as big as Facebook or YouTube if one person posts one thing on those websites that corporations don’t want online. Most major entertainment companies have come out in support of the bill, but despite swirling rumors, the huge video-gaming company Electronic Arts (EA) has yet to take an official stance. However, EA is part of the Entertainment Software Association, one of the big corporate lobbyists for the bill to censor the Internet — meaning that if EA came out against the bill, that would be a serious blow to the people trying to get it passed. Shashank Kasturirangan is a student at NYU who’s a huge fan of gaming — including EA’s games — but he can’t believe that EA would want to mess with the Internet. Shashank started a petition on Change.org calling on Electronic Arts to stop lobbying for Congress’s plan to censor the Internet and come out against the bill. Click here to add your name to his petition. The Internet censorship bill is particularly dangerous, according to advocates, because it would enable the government to set up the same type of tools to block online content that are used in repressive regimes around the world, like China, Iran, and Syria. For the first time, corporations and the government would be able to say what’s acceptable to put on the Internet. While some companies like Google, Facebook, and Twitter have come out against the bill, big movie studios, record companies, and their corporate lobbyists like the Entertainment Software Association are pushing Congress hard to pass Internet censorship. Electronic Arts has millions of customers around the world playing video games like Madden 2012, The Sims, and Scrabble, and they care deeply about what the public thinks about their company. If enough people call on EA to oppose the plan to censor the Internet, they will be forced to come out against the bill. And if EA backs off, other companies that haven’t yet taken a position will certainly think twice before supporting Congress’s plan to censor the Internet. Thanks for being a change-maker, – Jess and the Change.org team |
Tag Archives: Congress
towrah Tuesday &some News
just another rant … revived
Failed Promises
Like what we are experiencing under the Republican controlled House of Representatives versus change to or a redirection of promises that President Obama has had to make on numerous occasions. It is obvious the two situations are quite different. The first two years of the Obama Admin the Republican Tea Party spent most of their time on the floor of Congress saying no, blocking, making the Democratic Party scale back or run away from legitimate bills that party of NO attached felonious amendments to that no member of Congress could in good conscious vote for. In the weeks and months following these just say no votes, Americans in Public Service began losing jobs and the unemployment rate increased and will continue; Republicans without remorse started calling the unemployed lazy, unmotivated and if all else failed they should ask for charity. We have 2012 candidates running for President that are even less compassionate for those who are unemployed underemployed or in that 99%. Corporations are people too and if you are not rich? Well, that is on you.
The ultimate show of privileged behavior is when Republicans decided to hold the middle class hostage while demanding the bush bonus dollars be made permanent, under the guise of that top 2% being the job creators. The campaign for the midterm elections considered an off year usually gets few voters out to vote though in what definitely is a first of many firsts in the Obama’s Presidency, the midterms were important to all Americans looking back. Yet, folks did the same ole same, some opted out on purpose and even more voted right of center on purpose. That is beyond my understanding but the whole notion of teaching a President a lesson is the one of the worse reasons to vote against your best interest. While most know the outcome of the midterm elections, I think that many people do not understand what truly happened. President Obama said he got shellacked and would try to make a move to be more bipartisan, though senator McConnell said if he wants us to consider compromise he would have to do, say and act like we want him to and on conservative airwaves McConnell said his job was to make Obama a one term President. The midterm elections were bad for everyone and as the months moved along buyer’s remorse set in though it took way too long for me. For the last three years, Americans have been hearing Republicans say that we need to create jobs. Mr. Boehner and his comrades definitely used the jobs, jobs, jobs slogan to win the House of Representatives in 2010. Sadly, these carpetbaggers have been waving one hand in the air while using the other to attack, slash, cut, and burn every effort to get our economy back on track.
Yes, President Obama did promise change and he has kept over half of them, he also stated that he could not make changes alone … we all would have to participate. That comment is a hard reality given the crap that the Republican Tea Party keeps pulling out of somewhere disguised with them saying they are listening to what Americans want. That claim is a proven falsehood, the promises the Republican Tea Party has made repeatedly has or …could put us at risk.
I certainly feel our country is at risk with failed promises, reckless and or provocative rhetoric but contrary to what we hear in the news … it is definitely coming from Teapublican members of Congress and Governors.
I still have the Audacity of hope and change …
Other News …
C-SPAN’s Coverage of Iowa Caucuses Begins at 7pm ET
Rick Perry Ends Campaign Day in Perry, Iowa
Rick Santorum Ends Day Before Caucuses in Altoona, Iowa
Mitt Romney Holds Final Rally on Day Before Caucuses
Ron Paul Tours 5 Cities on Last Day of Iowa Campaign
Newt Gingrich Works for Final Votes in Iowa
Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Talks About Military Cuts
DHS Secretary Napolitano Discusses International Partnerships
Mitt Romney Interviewed by Iowa Newspaper
Rick Perry Interviewed by Iowa Newspaper
White House Briefing with Jay Carney
Panel on Obama Is a “Teflon President”
Rep. Nancy Pelosi News Conference
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Washington State: : : Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC) is ending
Under federal law, the Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC) program shuts off at the end of December. We cannot pay EUC benefits for any weeks after December 23-29, even if you have money remaining in your account.
If Congress votes to continue the program, we will automatically notify everyone who claimed EUC for one or more weeks in December.
We have posted some questions and answers on our website with additional information. You also may contact the EUC claims center at 877-558-8509 (toll-free) with questions about your claim.
If you need help finding a job, we strongly encourage you to contact WorkSource for assistance. WorkSource offers free workshops, job counseling, computers, Internet access, phones and other job-search resources aimed at helping you return to work.
If you need help with housing, food, medical care or other essentials, please dial 2-1-1 or visit www.211.org.
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Send a clear message now: “No help for the jobless? No vacation for Congress!” AFL-CIO
Chris from South Carolina used to work in an unemployment office. Then he was laid off. Here’s his warning:
You should know that Congress has let the emergency benefits lapse several times in the past few years and always when a break is scheduled for them. It happened last Easter and last Christmas. They don’t care about the unemployed. They take their holiday break and deal with it when they return to Washington.
We can’t assume Congress will renew unemployment in time for the millions who are hanging by a thread before extended benefits expire Dec. 31. That’s why we’re pulling out all the stops. More than 2,000 jobless workers, activists and clergy are on Capitol Hill, right now—demanding a clean and immediate extension of emergency unemployment benefits. Thousands more are in district offices across the country.
As we gather on Capitol Hill and at district offices, activists across the country are flooding Congress with messages.
Add your voice: Help make sure the voices of America’s jobless can’t be ignored by Congress. http://act.aflcio.org/salsa/track.jsp?v=2&c=NNlhbPw0buvN0Kq3T7aq%2F2C84X%2BQ3emC
Diane from Michigan worked in the newspaper industry and is now unemployed. Here’s how she describes her situation:
Every job opening has hundreds, if not thousands, of applicants. It is almost impossible to get a job—especially if you also face age discrimination. Retraining is too costly. Meanwhile, we are hanging on by a thread. No health insurance….My current unemployment benefits are the only thing saving me from the street. I have faced food insecurity for the first time.
We must not let people like Diane be forgotten.
Make Congress hear the stories and see the faces of jobless workers. Contact Congress now and demand an immediate, clean extension of emergency unemployment benefits.
Momentum is building—but we can’t take the passage of emergency unemployment aid for granted.
Obstructionists like House Speaker John Boehner—who has nearly absolute control over what comes up for a vote in the U.S. House of Representatives—continue to block a clean, immediate extension of emergency jobless aid. There’s no excuse for that. Especially when our economy is so bad and budget cuts in our communities are so dire.
Chris, a now unemployed unemployment office worker, asks a powerful question: “Don’t they realize they work for us?”
Tell Congress: “You work for us. Renew emergency unemployment aid now.”
Will obstructionists like Speaker Boehner really let benefits lapse yet again, take a vacation, come back and play partisan games?
Will the obstructionists let families get thrown out of their homes? Will they force kids to go hungry to extract cuts and concessions that hurt our most vulnerable people?
Send a clear message now: “No help for the jobless? No vacation for Congress!”
Thank you for all the work you do.
In Solidarity,
Richard L. Trumka
President, AFL-CIO
P.S. Our unemployment stories website has been covered by the media in publications lawmakers read while in Washington, D.C., including The Washington Post and The Hill—plus papers they read at home.
But we need your help to make sure every lawmaker feels the heat and sees these stories. Take action now.
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The Untold Story … Horne of Africa
The recent images of men, women and children starving in the Horn of Africa tell a painful story of famine and suffering. How does a nation recover from a devastating food crisis? To find out, Chip Duncan and Salim Amin returned to a Ethiopia, to a place where famine caused a massive death toll over 25 years ago. What they discovered was surprising and hopeful. In partnership with One, they created a documentary showing the contrast between 1984 and present-day Tigray. Read their words below, view a preview and watch their powerful short film. << click on link for VIDEO
In Somalia, innocent people are dying needless deaths due to a famine driven by politics and war. Those who are dying need our help and our voice.
Drought is a challenge faced by people around the world. Climate change is now making droughts more common and less predictable. But drought shouldn’t equal famine. Famine is the outcome of poor infrastructure, corrupt governments and warring factions who choose to use food as a weapon.
During our recent work in Ethiopia, we had a chance to revisit the site of the 1984 famine. Our film uses footage and stills from that famine to remind us of the suffering and of its causes. Our story also chronicles the policies and infrastructure put in place during the last two decades to build sustainable agriculture. Water retention systems, irrigation, improved transportation systems, terraced farming, training programs, improved seeds and fertilizers – this is the new legacy in Tigray Province. It’s a story worth sharing so people everywhere can promote small scale agriculture while motivating governments to make similar investments in the future.
Chip Duncan
Director, “The Untold Story”
I made a journey following the footsteps of my father from 25 years ago. When Mohamed Amin made that journey a quarter of a century ago, he never imagined it was one that would change his life forever. He had covered every major story in Africa over four decades, but nothing prepared him for what he saw in Korem in October 1984.
A famine of biblical proportions, with more than 5 million people on the verge of starvation. A famine that was, to a large extent, man-made. The ruler of Ethiopia at the time, Colonel Haile Mariam Mengistu, was using the famine as a tool to suppress the rebel movement that was rising against his brutal regime from the north of the country. He didn’t want the world to know this famine existed.
The pictures that my father shot on the plains of Korem changed his life and changed the world. They prompted the greatest single act of charity of the 20th century and saved the lives of millions of Ethiopians. After this story, he changed the way he looked at news coverage. He cared for the first time in his life and did everything he could to keep the story in the headlines. Those images were amongst the most powerful and iconic images in television history.
I was expecting to see Korem still reeling from the effects of that massive famine. It takes generations to repair that kind of damage, but I was in for a shock. I went in with the best TV production team I had ever worked with, and what we saw stunned us all! A massive drought is taking hold of the Horn of Africa once again, but Korem and Tigray Province is an oasis of crops. Irrigation schemes that have been put in place over the last decade. There’s also a new awareness of the types of crops to grow and how to market and sell them for the best prices; and new resilient seeds have all transformed a community from being “takers” to being “providers”.
The farmers of Tigray Province have proved that drought doesn’t have to equal famine, and smart aid can work.
Salim Amin
Chairman
Camerapix/A24 Media
Be a Seed for Change 
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