In June a petition was presented … If you click on the links you can read the complete article on how this petition helped make change in July. ~Nativegrl77
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Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is not a faraway practice — it happens even in the United States. Please join me in calling on President Obama to conduct a study on the state of FGM in America so that no other girls are subjected to this atrocity.
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Phil Gordon, the mayor of Phoenix, Arizona believes the American Jobs Act should be passed,
“We can’t afford to keep waiting. And the politics that are being played
not only in Washington, DC, but across the country are just devastating our
nation, our cities. And it’s important not only to put people back to work but
to train them for the 21st century.”
He is pleading with Congress – Republicans and Democrats – to pass the
American Jobs Act “right away.”
“Arizona has been hit—one of the two or three hardest states—in Phoenix in
particular—with housing, lack of conventions, tourism, lack of jobs,” Gordon
explains. “It’s time to stop talking about it, it’s time to move forward.
There’s plenty of time for everybody to do politics afterwards. But right now,
in Phoenix, we have a lot of people out of work. We have a lot of children that
are now homeless with their moms and dads that shouldn’t be.”
Kansas City Mayor Sly James Supports the American Jobs Act
The American Job Act will help James answer the one question he says the residents of his Missouri city
ask any time he leaves the office, “’Mayor, where can I get a job? Mayor can you
help me get a job? Mayor can you help my brother or my mother get a job?”’Jobs
are at the forefront of people’s minds.”
Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer Supports the American Jobs Act
There’s a real sense of urgency right now. A lot of people have been out of
work for a long period of time. Their savings are gone or practically gone. So
they see where they thought they were going to be fitting in the American dream,
and saying, “that may not happen to me anymore right now.” And so there’s this
feeling of hopelessness that we’ve got to address, we can’t wait until the next
election cycle. This is something the American people need today.America’s Mayors Are in Sync: Congress Must Work on a Bipartisan Basis to put
America Back on Track
Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa of Los Angeles, California says that the residents
of his city are united in their message to him, and to elected officials in
Washington: “Job #1 is to create the jobs they need going into the future.”Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory Supports the American Jobs Act
Mayor Mark Mallory said that he — and the citizens of his city — are “very
excited” about the possibility of the Jobs Act because the President’s plan will
enable Cincinnati to keep firefighters and police officers on the
job.Mallory specifically refers to the provisions in the Act that provide funds for
infrastructure, and says Cincinnati’s “very large, very old” Brent
Spence Bridge needs to be replaced.Mayor of Denver: American Jobs Act an “Opportunity for all Elected Officials to
Put Aside Differences”
Mayor Michael Hancock of Denver, Colorado says there is no more important
initiative that any elected official can be focused on than “trying to get
America back to work, right now.” Hancock believes that “this Job Act is an opportunity for all elected
officials at every level but particularly here in Washington, in Congress and
the White House, to finally put aside our differences and stand again for the
people of America and begin to put them to work.”Mayor Rawlings-Blake of Baltimore Supports the American Jobs Act
Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake says the country needs the American Jobs Act in order to “grow
out of this great recession.” As an older city, Baltimore has tremendous
infrastructure needs and its mayor believes the $50
billion investment in rebuilding that is a core component of the Jobs Act
will make the streets and schools of her city “safer for generations to come.”
Rawlings-Blake also applauds the Jobs Act’s focus on offering relief to small
business owners, who she says are the “backbone” of Baltimore’s economyGovernor John Kitzhaber of Oregon says that in his state,
“the American Jobs Act
will translate into almost
9,000 jobs for vital transportation, school infrastructure projects for idol
construction workers, funding for our schools and incentives for small
businesses to put people back to work.”Most importantly. says Kitzhaber, the jobs that are
created will be “good middle income family wage jobs,” which will create a
significant economic ripple across the state. “In an economic crisis we need to
be investing in the economy–we need to be investing in job creation and I think
the American Jobs Act is exactly
what we need at the right time and certainly for Oregon and I think for
America.”
Hey, everyone —
During his State of the Union address, the President asked me to lead an across-the-board review of our nation’s job-training programs.
It’s a top priority for the President, and it is absolutely critical to our economy’s success.
I’ve met with business leaders, community college presidents, governors and mayors, and most importantly, hard-working Americans who were hit hard by the Great Recession, but who are doing everything they can to learn new skills to find a decent, good-paying middle-class job.
And there was a clear consensus: We must rethink how we train today’s workers so that our programs are job-driven, teaching real skills that employers need.
We’ve heard from businesses that many jobs in today’s brightest sectors go unfilled because there simply aren’t enough people with the skills to do them. That’s not good for businesses, it’s not good for workers, and it’s not good for this country.
Some of our country’s businesses, community colleges, and state and local training programs — often supported with federal dollars — have found ways to successfully prepare Americans for these jobs. We need to make sure our entire system is learning from them.
We’re taking steps to improve that training, directing federal agencies to make current programs that serve more than 21 million Americans smarter, and holding training programs that use public funds accountable for making a difference.
This isn’t the only step we’re taking to make sure Americans have the skills they need, either. Today, I joined President Obama as he signed the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act into law. It connects more ready-to-work Americans with ready-to-be-filled jobs. And it builds on bipartisan efforts in Congress to improve business engagement and accountability. While there’s still more to do, it’s another important step in getting Americans working.
Thanks,
Vice President Joe Biden
SBA Administrator Maria Contreras-Sweet has been on the job for 100 days! Check out her progress report to learn about the work she’s done and the insights she’s gained since being sworn in this April.
Affordable Care Act 101 Webinars
SBA and Small Business Majority will continue to host free Affordable Care Act 101 weekly webinars so small business owners can learn the basics of the Affordable Care Act and how they can enroll in health insurance marketplaces.
In addition, Spanish-speaking small employers throughout the country can join representatives from SBA, HHS and Small Business Majority for ACA 101 webinars in Spanish. Below are the registration links for the upcoming Spanish-language webinars, which will be held every other Tuesday throughout the summer and fall. SBA Administrator Maria Contreras-Sweet will kick off the first webinar on July 22.
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This is your chance to get your small business questions answered by those in the know! Join AARP and SBA on Tuesday, August 12 at 2pm ET to ask about developing your business plan, securing financing, accounting, marketing, bookkeeping and more.
> Submit questions and register now
Employees are one of your biggest assets, even though they don’t appear on your balance sheet. They help you operate your business and are the faces of your company brand. But employees can also be a big liability if they steal from you. Here’s what you can do to protect yourself.
Register now for the nation’s premier event for minority businesses, taking place July 31-August 1 at the Washington Hilton in Washington, DC. Join America’s most diverse entrepreneurs, business owners and executives to capitalize on actionable opportunities for business growth by:
Interested in the 8(a) Business Development Program? Join our webinar and knowledgeable panelists to make sure you are getting the most out of the benefits of the program. Ask questions and learn how to take your business to the next level on July 23 at 2pm ET.
If you’re a woman-owned small business looking to contract with the federal government and seeking assistance on how to navigate in the federal procurement arena, we have good news that can help!
Conservatives trying to sabotage the Affordable Care Act have been pushing a new legal argument to cripple the law in recent months. It’s been brewing under the surface–until today, when two federal circuit court cases made it erupt into national news.
The controversy hinges on whether individuals residing in states with federally-facilitated marketplaces are eligible to receive insurance premium tax credits. Indeed, the law allows for states to set up their own exchanges, but if they choose not to, the federal government is charged with doing so on behalf of the state. Those challenging the law uncovered a drafting error in the text where it appears to limit the subsidies to individuals who obtain insurance through “an Exchange established by the State” — and not the federal exchange (which operates in 36 states). In other words, they want to employ an overt misreading in order to defund the Affordable Care Act in most states, and take away access to affordable health coverage for millions of Americans.
So how did the courts rule in today’s cases?
Case #1: Halbig v. Burwell
In the case Halbig v. Burwell, two conservative judges on the DC Circuit Court ruled against the law. Make no mistake: the conservative judges who ruled in the DC Circuit decision are biased against the Affordable Care Act. One of them, Judge Raymond Randolph even called the launch of the law “an unmitigated disaster” (despite 8 million people signing up) during the oral arguments and argued the law should be defunded. What’s more, conservative lawyers started pushing this argument and some of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit are GOP operatives.
Ultimately, however, this conservative ruling means very little. The Department of Justice already said it would ask for an “en banc” review of the decision — which includes all active judges on the D.C. Circuit and two senior judges. The premium tax credits will continue unchanged while the full court reviews the case. The en banc review will likely vacate the panel ruling because the conservatives’ legal argument makes no sense when put into the context of the entire ACA.
Case #2: King v. Burwell
Just two hours after the DC Circuit handed down its Halbig ruling, a panel of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in King v. Burwell unanimously in favor of the Affordable Care Act, saying people have access to premium tax credits regardless of where they live. In what might as well be a direct response to the Halbig opinion, 4th Circuit Senior Circuit Judge Andre Davis shuts down the idea that opponents of the ACA can “rely on [the Court’s] help to deny to millions of Americans desperately-needed health insurance through a tortured, nonsensical construction of a federal statute whose manifest purpose, as revealed by the wholeness and coherence of its text and structure, could not be more clear.”
No legalese there.
BOTTOM LINE: On the same day that two conservative DC Circuit judges ruled in Halbig against the ACA using an argument based on an overt misreading of the law, another panel of Circuit Court judges ruled unanimously in favor of the law. Most importantly, today’s decisions have no immediate impact on people’s ability to use premium tax credits to lower the cost of care. Down the road, when the courts resolve their disagreement — whether in the full DC Circuit Court, or in the Supreme Court — we expect that common sense and decades of legal precedent will prevail.
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