Tag Archives: Family

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Veterans Day Free Meals for 2013 has been updated! If you know of a restaurant offering a Veterans Day free meal in 2013, please send me an e-mail so I can get you on the list.

There are plenty of Veterans Day free meals to be had this year as well as some other additional discounts on items other than food. You’ll be able to stop into any of the restaurants below on or around Veterans Day this year to get your free meal.

Tip: Pay close attention to the date listed and what you need to bring so you qualify for the free meal. They don’t all take place on Veterans Day (Monday, November 11, 2013) and some require different forms of identification.

Tip: Some of these Veterans Day free meals are nationwide but some are only at participating locations. Please call the restaurant before you leave home to make sure they are taking part. This list is 8 pages long! Look through them all so you don’t miss out on a favorite.

Looking for more freebies like this one? Lots of military freebies are available all year round. You’ll also want to check out this list of current free samples you can request.

Golden Corral Veterans Day Free Meal (Monday, November 11, 2013)

On Monday, November 11, 2013 from 4:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m., Golden Corral will be giving out Veterans Day free meals to any person who has ever served in the U.S. military or is on current active duty. This includes retirees, veterans, National Guard or Reserves.

All Golden Corral locations will be participating and no identification is required to get your free dinner buffet and beverage.

Last year, Golden Corral served over 375,000 veterans a Veterans Day free meal!

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Chuck E. Cheese

10/18/2013 Nativegrl77

Chuck E. Cheese:

Make your locations “fun for all” and comply with the American with Disabilities

By Kiyomi Rollins

Atlanta, Georgia

We are humbly asking that you will sign this petition to let Chuck E Cheese know that it is a violation of the American Disabilities Act to deny my disabled daughter and her father access to an empty women’s restroom.

OUR STORY: My 9 year old, Marley Eschoe, was attending another child’s birthday party at a Chuck E. Cheese location in Georgia this May when her father, Mark Eschoe, who brought Marley to the party, was not allowed to take her into an empty women’s restroom, when the men’s restroom was occupied.

Marley, who suffers from lupus, had been recently released from a 3 month stay in the hospital after suffering her 2nd stroke in 8 months. She was using a wheelchair and needed assistance walking and going to the restroom. This was one of Marley’s first time out for an event after her hospital stay and our family was so excited for a fun day as we were still adjusting to our “new normal.”

Marley’s father, Mark Eschoe, was denied access to an empty female restroom and told he would have to take his then 8yr old daughter to the men’s restroom regardless of it being overcrowded. Knowing that Marley needed to use the bathroom urgently, my husband even requested that a female Chuck E. Cheese employee who was exiting the restroom stand by the door while he took his daughter into the empty female restroom. That request was also denied by Chuck E. Cheese management. Mark informed Chuck E. Cheese management about Marley’s medical condition and asked for assistance. The manager’s response was, “I don’t care if she has special needs, I’m not going to treat her any differently from my other patron. I’m done with you.” Then, she abruptly walked away after threatening to call the police to have him removed.

Our family was shocked. We informed the national management of Chuck E. Cheese about our experience and the company said it would conduct an internal investigation. After months of “investigating” (which did not include reaching out to us), Chuck E. Cheese informed us that they stood by the local manager who they feel did nothing wrong.

But what Chuck E. Cheese hasn’t said is that not only was the way their employee handled this situation offensive and hurtful to a vulnerable child and her family, it was also illegal. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires access to bathrooms for people with disabilities. We’re concerned that Chuck E. Cheese did not comply with the ADA — and that other families will be affected by this attitude as well.

We don’t want any other family to have to go through what we went through. We’re asking Chuck E. Cheese to ensure that its locations across the country comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act and that staff are appropriately trained to handle these situations. Chuck E. Cheese says its a place for “fun for all” — we’re hoping your company will make this motto a reality.

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

$#!^@#%!

09/24/2013 Nativegrl77

CAP Action War Room

GOP Takes Obamacare Meltdown To A Whole New Level

A mere seven days remain for Congress to pass a spending bill in order to avoid a government shutdown. But Republicans are farther away than ever from agreeing to a reasonable plan that would keep the government open.

On Friday, the House GOP continued its march toward shutdown by passing a bill that ties keeping the government open to–surprise!–fully defunding Obamacare. Once again, Republicans refuse to do the hard work of actual governing in favor of playing political games that threaten to sabotage the economy. But while the vote only solidified the GOP’s ideological and dangerous strategy, it opened the floodgates for more infighting among its owns members. Here is what a number of key GOP players and establishment thinkers have to say about the “defund at all costs” plan:

GOP Sen. John McCain (AZ): “I can tell you that in the U.S. Senate, we will not repeal or defund Obamacare. We will not. And to think we can is not rational.”
GOP Strategist Karl Rove: The GOP defunding strategy is “self-defeating…It is an ill-conceived tactic, and Republicans should reject it.”
Fox News Host Bill O’Reilly: Defunding Obamacare is “fanaticism on the right,” O’Reilly says. “There’s no way Obamacare is going to be defunded. It’s not gonna happen.”
GOP Sen. Tom Coburn (OK): “Tactics and strategies ought to be based on what the real world is, and we do not have the political power to do this.”
GOP Sen. Rand Paul (KY): “I’m acknowledging we can’t probably defeat or get rid of Obamacare.”
GOP Sen. Kelly Ayotte (NH): “I don’t believe they should shut down the government to [defund Obamacare], and I don’t think that is a strategy that is good for America.”
GOP Sen. Johnny Isakson (GA): “It’s total atrophy. We’re earning our 11 percent popularity. It’s easier to talk about Obamacare than the major sources of our problems.”
Wall Street Journal Editorial Board: “Kamikaze missions rarely turn out well, least of all for the pilots… The kamikazes could end up ensuring the return of all-Democratic rule.”

Now, they all may just be trying to protect their party’s interests. But they seem to know what most Americans already do: the extreme demands by the GOP to push a narrow ideological agenda are out of touch. A new bipartisan CNBC poll released today proves that point. Almost six in ten Americans oppose defunding the health care law if it means a government shutdown, while just 19 percent support. A poll released last week found that only 23 percent of Americans want to make the health care law fail.

BOTTOM LINE: Republicans’ political games are threatening our nation’s economic recovery. Americans don’t want to shut down the government and want an end to the hostage-taking political tactics that place ideology over practical solutions for stability and growth.

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Great News for Alaska’s Bristol Bay —

09/24/2013 Nativegrl77

September 2013

Anglo American Quits the Proposed Pebble Mine

In a surprise decision that brought new hope to Alaska’s Bristol Bay, British mining giant Anglo American — the lead company behind the Pebble Mine — announced that it is abandoning the project. The announcement dealt a heavy blow to the proposed gold and copper operation, which would produce some 10 billion tons of contaminated waste and threaten the greatest wild salmon runs on the planet. NRDC Members helped make this victory possible by deluging Anglo American with nearly one million messages of protest. The fight is not over yet — we’ll need new funding to ratchet up the pressure on the remaining companies behind the mine and win EPA action to protect Bristol Bay from large-scale mining.

Navy Refuses to Protect Marine Mammals from Deadly Sonar

The U.S. Navy says it will ignore a unanimous recommendation by the California Coastal Commission to reduce the harmful effects of naval sonar on the state’s marine mammals, which would violate California law. The Navy is planning to dramatically increase its use of dangerous sonar and high-powered explosives off the coast of Southern California during training and testing. It predicts that such operations will kill hundreds of marine mammals — and injure thousands of others — over the next five years. New research shows that the Navy’s California training is already putting entire whale populations at risk, including endangered blue whales, the largest animal on Earth.

Nobel Laureates Denounce Keystone XL

NRDC and our partners ran a full-page ad in The Washington Post that featured a letter from ten Nobel Peace Prize winners, calling on President Obama to reject the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline and lead the way beyond dirty oil.

U.S. Blocks Import
of Wild-Caught Belugas

The National Marine Fisheries Service has denied a permit — opposed by NRDC — that would have allowed the Georgia Aquarium to import 18 wild-caught belugas from Russia for public display purposes at aquaria around the country. We applaud the decision since Russia’s wild beluga population is still recovering after being hunted nearly to extinction in the 1960s. Read more.

CA County Cracks Down
on Fracking

In July, NRDC’s Community Fracking Defense Campaign scored a big victory when California’s San Benito County approved an ordinance imposing new safeguards on this dangerous form of oil and gas extraction, including a greater setback from homes and disclosure of the chemicals used during drilling or fracking. Read more.

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Durand Ford, Jr. via Change.org … Take Action !

02/18/2013 Nativegrl77

My father died waiting for an ambulance — now the DC Fire Department is charging my family $780 for an ambulance from another state that came too late. I want them to cancel the bill.

Sign My Petition

change.org

This past New Year‘s Eve was one of the worst nights of my life. That’s the night my father died waiting for an ambulance that never came.

Around 1am, my father was having trouble breathing, so I called 911. The nearest fire station is just one mile from our house in DC, at most a 5 minute drive. Firefighters arrived in just ten minutes, but no ambulance. I watched my father struggle to stay alive as we waited for Emergency Medical Services. And waited. And waited.

The ambulance that finally came 40 minutes later wasn’t even from DC — it had to come from another state entirely. By the time it arrived, my father was already dead.

Despite this, the DC Fire Department is charging my family $780 for an ambulance it never sent. I started a petition on Change.org demanding they waive the fee — will you click here to sign?

So why did my father die waiting for an ambulance when there’s a fire station just a mile from our house? It turns out that on New Year’s Eve, nearly one third of DC’s firefighters called in sick, meaning ambulances sat empty in fire stations.

Long response times are a huge problem for ambulances, firefighters and police in cities all over America. The DC fire department needs to see that it can’t just let my father die and then take my family’s money.

My father was only 72 years old, a retired Air Force Veteran. He did not have to die on New Year’s night. And my family certainly shouldn’t be charged money for the reason he did.

Click here to sign my petition demanding that the DC Fire Department waive a $780 fee for an ambulance that never came to save my father.

Thank you,

Durand Ford, Jr. Washington, DC

PS: If you’ve ever had to wait too long for an ambulance or other emergency services, tell us your story in the “Reasons for signing” comment section on the petition.