Tag Archives: Los Angeles

Support Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.


Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America

IAVA needs your help to support veterans.

Donate $25 today.

It’s estimated that 22 American military veterans die by suicide every day. That’s nearly one every hour, of every day, of every week, of every month. That’s over 8,000 veterans every year.

That number almost included Kris Goldsmith, pictured above.

Kris is an Army vet from Long Island. He deployed to Iraq in 2005, where he went on more than 300 missions. Kris left the Army in 2007 with a “general discharge” after he attempted to take his own life. Kris’s “less-than-honorable” discharge status made him ineligible for the GI Bill and was unemployable for two years.

But thanks to strong support and personal courage, Kris made it through. And not only is he surviving, he’s thriving.  He is recovering from PTSD and attending Nassau Community College – where he’s president of the student veterans group. He’s a survivor. Now he wants to save others, and he needs your help.

Will you join Kris and Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) in combating veteran suicide by contributing $25 right now?

This week, Kris and more than 30 veterans of IAVA are in DC telling Congress that the time has come to take real steps to help those in crisis. IAVA is the first and largest organization dedicated to improving the lives of veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan and their families. We’re asking Congress to increase funding for mental health providers, ensure a smooth health care transition for veterans when they leave the military, and spread awareness to ensure everyone knows that it’s ok to ask for help.

We need you to help fund this trip and all the work that comes after. Will you join our fight by donating $25 to help end veteran suicide?

Even one veteran taking their own life is one too many. Your support can help save the lives of people who have shown exceptional bravery for our country.

We can’t do it alone. Will you stand with IAVA’s member veterans as they storm Capitol Hill by donating $25?

Thank you for showing veterans across the country that you’ve got their back.

Sincerely,

Paul Rieckhoff
Founder and CEO
Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America

Extinction for palm oil


 greenpeace
We must act fast to stop rainforest destruction and save the last home of the Sumatran tiger.
Donate today to save the Sumatran tiger
Make an urgent gift today to help us reach our goal of $150,000 by December 31st and support all the work we do to protect the environment. Donate button EOY

A century ago, thousands of Javan, Bali and Sumatran tigers roamed the rainforests of Indonesia.
Not any more. The Javan and Bali tigers have been driven to extinction. And only a few hundred Sumatran tigers — the last survivors of their kind — remain. Every day they have less forest to hunt, to raise their cubs, to evade poachers. Every day brings them closer to extinction.
But we have the power to swing the balance back in the tigers’ favor. 
Greenpeace just launched a new campaign to transform the single biggest threat to Indonesia’s rainforests: the palm oil industry. Changing the industry means saving the Sumatran tiger’s remaining habitat from the bulldozer. Reversing this century of destruction can only happen with your support.
Carmen, if you have been waiting for the right time to make your first gift to Greenpeace, this is it. Please chip in 5 dollars or whatever you can today. Make an urgent gift to help us reach our goal of $150,000 by December 31st to support our campaigns to stop environmental destruction worldwide. Help save the last home of the Sumatran tiger.
In just two years, an area of Sumatran tiger habitat twice the size of Los Angeles has been destroyed to make way for palm oil and pulp and paper plantations. The companies behind the destruction are only thinking about profit and have been allowed to get away with it, no questions asked. Until now.
With your help, Greenpeace is exposing companies that buy palm oil linked to rainforest destruction. And using public pressure to convince these companies to end their role in deforestation. So you never have to wonder if the palm oil in your cookies or your shampoo was grown on former tiger habitat.
After the progress we’ve made this year, it’s clear that we are on the verge of something BIG. Just last week, Wilmar — a company that buys and sells over a third of the world’s palm oil — committed to stop trading palm oil linked to rainforest destruction because of Greenpeace’s research and campaigning. This, less than a month after major company Mondelez (formerly Kraft) committed to a zero-deforestation palm oil policy for its products.
But we are only part way there. We need more big companies to start demanding accountabilityin order to change the palm oil industry as a whole. This is a pivotal moment for the forests of Indonesia. We can’t back down now. For Greenpeace to keep the pressure up, we need your help.
Help us protect the Indonesian rainforest and home of the endangered Sumatran tiger by making an urgent donation in support of our campaigns to end forest destruction and all the work we do to protect the environment. Our goal is to raise $150,000 by December 31st.
Greenpeace is dedicated to doing whatever it takes in 2014 to reverse the march towards extinction for the tigers of Indonesia, and to save the crucial rainforests there from destruction.
We are committed to tracking dirty palm oil from its source on destroyed rainforest land in Indonesia all the way to your supermarket shelf. And then exposing the supply chain so that everyone — from the palm oil trader, to the consumer company, to the customer — knows that a product is tied to habitat destruction. Make a donation to help us expose rainforest destruction in products we use everyday, and for all our work protecting the environment.
But it isn’t enough just to shine the spotlight on dirty deeds. Just last week, almost 50,000 supporters sent messages to the Consumer Goods Forum — an organization of over 400 consumer goods companies — demanding that the organization require its member companies to end their part in deforestation. And we won’t stop putting palm oil companies and consumer companies in the hot seat until they commit to no deforestation palm oil.
The rainforests in Indonesia, like all forests around the world, are critical for our planet to thrive. The species that live in forests — and the carbon that the forests hold — keep our world rich with life and our climate stable.
2014 can be a year for action and promise for our world’s forests. But only if you join in.
Make a donation today to support all of Greenpeace’s work on the frontlines of environmental injustice, and to help stop the destruction of tiger habitat for palm oil.
Greenpeace has a goal of zero global deforestation by 2020. It’s ambitious, but with your support I know it’s possible. Thanks for all you do.
For the tigers,
Dr. Amy Moas Greenpeace Senior Forests Campaigner
P.S. Time is running out to save the Indonesian rainforest and the Sumatran tiger. Donate today to Greenpeace’s campaigns to protect the environment and stop rainforest destruction.

Degrading black professors


Depicting a black professor as a gorilla being sodomized by his white supervisor was just the beginning. Sign my petition calling on California’s attorney general to investigate systemic racism at UCLA.

Dr. Christian Head was a respected surgeon at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). But because he is black, Dr. Head was the target of blatant discrimination — including a public presentation that featured an image depicting Dr. Head as a gorilla being sodomized by his white supervisor.

Dr. Head fought back. After more than 100,000 people signed a petition supporting him on Change.org, his lawyers were able to secure a landmark settlement from UCLA. But Dr. Head was far from the only faculty member to experience racism at UCLA. 

In fact, a shocking new study reveals that the problem is extremely widespread. As a national board member of the NAACP who lives in Los Angeles, I am abhorred that a prestigious public university like UCLA would turn a blind eye to the systematic degradation of its non-white faculty members.

That’s why I started a petition on Change.org calling on California’s attorney general, Kamala Harris, to launch an investigation into racism at UCLA to determine if civil rights laws have been violated and to recommend solutions. Click here to sign my petition.

The Los Angeles Times reports that the recent campus-wide study of racism at UCLA — led by former California Supreme Court Justice Carlos Moreno — said that UCLA regularly ignored complaints about discrimination and retaliation. One Latino professor reported being called a racial slur by a colleague in front of his students. He says he was told that reporting what happened to him would only “cause more trouble.”

Since UCLA refuses to take action to address systemic racism on campus, it’s time for Attorney General Harris to step in. 

As a strong woman of color in California leadership, Attorney General Harris is uniquely positioned to take swift and decisive action to address UCLA’s pernicious culture of discrimination. I know that if thousands of people sign my petition, Attorney General Harris will respond, just as a petition created key pressure to enable Dr. Head to win his settlement from UCLA.

Click here to sign my petition calling on Attorney General Harris to launch an investigation into systemic racism at UCLA. 

Thank you,

Ron Hasson Los Angeles, CA

3.1 Million Jobs


By 

Republicans Keeping Millions of Americans Unemployed

The GOP’s austerity spending cuts and strategy of government-by-crisis are hurting the economy in a real and tangible way. As the infographic below explains, Republicans and the policies they support have killed or put at risk 3.1 MILLION jobs since 2010.

Check it out.

FINAL_jobs_lost_graphic