Tag Archives: morning meeting

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End Payday Lending …

04/02/2015 Nativegrl77

Market your loan as a one-time quick fix, charge 300-400% interest, and dig borrowers into a hole they can’t climb out of – it’s the payday lenders’ business model. We’re talking about an industry that generates 75% of its $3.4 billion in annual revenues from borrowers who get stuck in a long-term cycle of debt. “You borrow money to pay for the money you already borrowed” is how President Obama described the routine in a speech at Lawson State College in Alabama last week. Loan fees usually end up exceeding the amount of the original loan. (Car-title lenders play a similar game, to the tune of close to another $5 billion in annual revenues.)

But now, finally, there’s a real chance to end this debt trap. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau – the agency conceived by Sen. Elizabeth Warren and created in response to the financial and economic meltdown of 2008 – is preparing to regulate abusive payday, car-title and installment lending, and it has put out a promising first look at the rules it has in mind.

Send a resounding message to the CFPB and Director Richard Cordray: End the debt trap. Tell lenders to issue sound loans that people can actually afford to repay.

Now that we have seen a rough outline of the Bureau’s thinking, the real battle begins. The initial proposal, while strong in some ways, includes worrisome gaps that could allow triple-digit-interest lenders to skip the essential process of verifying a borrower’s ability to repay. We need the CFPB to close this loophole before it puts out a final rule. Meanwhile, payday and car-title lenders will be fighting back hard – pushing to make the rules weaker or narrower, and doing all they can to undermine the authority and funding of CFPB itself.

Experience in the states tells us to demand strong, evasion-proof rules. State after state has tried to crack down predatory small dollar-loans, and too often the lenders have figured out a way to keep their abusive business model going. We must not allow that to happen again.

Tell the CFPB to leave no loophole unclosed: no “seal of approval” for triple-digit interest debt trap loans.

Together we have won and defended a CFPB willing to take on tough jobs like this one. Together we can keep pushing, and end the payday and car-title debt trap once and for all.

Sincerely,

Lisa Donner
Americans for Financial Reform

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Indiana: Here’s what you can do

04/02/2015 Nativegrl77

Indiana’s new “religious freedom” law is wrong. It is wrong to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation, and it is wrong to use religious freedom as a justification for institutionalizing discrimination.

That’s why, today, I signed a directive instituting a state-funded travel ban to the state of Indiana.

This is the right thing to do. Will you take a stand for equality, and lend your support to this action?

Stand with me. Sign my petition, and show your support for Washington’s travel ban to Indiana today.

I’m proud to have Washington join cities, states, organizations, companies, and individuals across the country in opposing this hateful law.

Washington state stands for equality. Our own courts, at the request of the state attorney general, recently ordered a florist to pay a fine for discriminating against a gay couple — the same activity that Indiana’s law allows.

Sign my petition today: Stand in support of my administration’s travel ban to Indiana!

I invite any companies or organizations who oppose this law to bring their business to Washington. We are open for business for all.

Very truly yours,

Jay Inslee

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Ashley Schaeffer Yildiz, Rainforest Action Network

04/02/2015 Nativegrl77

Two dozen activists stormed a grocery store in San Francisco to convince Quaker, and its parent company PepsiCo, to cut Conflict Palm Oil.

The activists re-branded shelves displaying Quaker brand items to warn customers that Quaker products may contain Conflict Palm Oil. We need your help to amplify this call to action!

PepsiCo, and its brand Quaker, spends huge amounts of money on advertising every year, trying to convince moms and dads that Quaker is a brand that we can trust, yet they are unwilling to spend a few extra pennies to help save orangutans from extinction and keep children out of slave labor conditions.

Will PepsiCo fix the gaps in its palm oil commitment and take action to help save orangutans and keep children out of slave labor conditions? With your voice, it will.

Post a message on Quaker’s Facebook page today:
“Quaker, families don’t want to eat Conflict Palm Oil. Spend a few extra pennies on every package to cut Conflict Palm Oil, save orangutans from extinction and keep children out of slave labor conditions.”

After two years of people like you taking action, PepsiCo is finally starting to pay attention and its top decision makers are deciding now whether to actually address these problems. That is why YOUR voice is needed right now.

With your help we can generate a storm on Quaker’s Facebook page and drive home the message that now is the time for this snack food giant to cut Conflict Palm Oil once and for all.

Take a moment to raise your voice now.

Ashley Schaeffer Yildiz
Responsible Food Campaigner

P.S. Want to step up your game? Activists across the country are taking action in person at grocery stores across the U.S. Sign up here to join them and take your social activism into your community.”

http://www.ran.org/

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Leila Deen, Greenpeace

04/01/2015 Nativegrl77

This is outrageous. Yesterday, the Obama administration announced a plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and then followed that up by approving Shell’s climate-killing plan to drill in the Arctic.

This is a setback, but we’re not giving up. Right now, six volunteers aboard the Greenpeace ship Esperanza are tailing one of Shell’s drilling rigs across the Pacific, and across the city of Seattle, where Shell’s Arctic fleet is set to dock, concerned residents are mobilizing. And people all over the world are standing up against Shell.

If we don’t come together now, Shell WILL drill in the Arctic this summer.

Please give today to protect our future from oil spills, climate change, and more. Help us reach $15,000 by April 15!

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Alice Jay – Avaaz

01/20/2015 Nativegrl77

Boko Haram just used a 10-year-old girl as a bomb-detonator right after massacring up to 2,000 people. But the government and the international community are hardly responding. Let’s call for an emergency UN Security Council meeting now:

Boko Haram just used a 10-year-old girl as a bomb-detonator right after massacring up to 2,000 people. There is a reign of terror in Northern Nigeria.

But Nigerian President Jonathan has said almost NOTHING about this in his election campaign, and his brutal army, instead of protecting civilians, is fuelling the insurgency.

The world has put this crisis in the ‘too hard to solve’ box — the UN Security Council hasn’t even issued a Presidential Statement on Nigeria!

The only good news: escalating violence has renewed pressure to act.

Let’s multiply that pressure now and persuade our leaders and the United Nations to convene an emergency Security Council meeting and prioritise this crisis.

Join this urgent call — for the sake of that tiny, innocent girl, and all those like her at risk:

https://secure.avaaz.org/en/stop_boko_haram_terror_en/?biEWLbb&v=51541

Nigeria is deep into a brutal conflict that’s ostensibly a Muslim/Christian war, but underlying it are tensions between an oil-rich, corrupt, ruling elite and a poor, disenfranchised and neglected North. Over 10,000 people were killed in 2014, and over 1.6 million Nigerians have fled their homes. Boko Haram now controls an area the size of Denmark.

Politicians have fed this divide, and the recent surge in violence comes in the middle of a deadly election campaign. Shockingly, President Jonathan’s under-resourced response could be part of a dark game — if there is chaos in the North and low voter turnout, he is more likely to stay in power since his support base is in the South.

International military advisers and special forces have been sent in, but there is hesitation about working with Nigerian units with terrible human rights records. The UN Council should now prioritise a comprehensive plan that includes cleaning up and training security forces to contain Boko Haram; investing in the poorest regions; and prioritising an anti-corruption programme.

This is not a short, sharp, shock strategy — this crisis cannot be solved in days — but it is immoral to ignore it any longer. Our global community can ensure the UN Security Council finally lays out a genuine plan for peace.

If we do nothing, thousands more will be killed, and the Boko Haram threat will spread. The attacks in Paris have reminded us that terror has no borders. Join the call:

https://secure.avaaz.org/en/stop_boko_haram_terror_en/?biEWLbb&v=51541

With elections looming and violence escalating, Nigeria is like a boiling pot. Politicians have failed their people, and the international community has allowed the situation to deteriorate. We cannot wait any longer and with enough backing, a strong UN statement could begin to change the game. Let’s make it happen.

With hope and determination,

Alice, Pascal, Mike, Melanie, Marigona, Ricken and the rest of the Avaaz team

Sources:

Nigeria: two suspected child suicide bombers attack market (The Guardian)
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/11/child-suicide-bombers-nigeria-market

UNOWA Briefing and Consultations
http://www.whatsinblue.org/2015/01/unowa-briefing-and-consultations.php

Nigeria’s Jonathan Slams Paris Attack, Ignores Baga Massacre (Bloomberg)
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2015-01-12/nigeria-s-jonathan-slams-islamist-raids-abroad-is-muted-at-home.html

Nigeria’s Boko Haram: Baga destruction ‘shown in images’ (BBC)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-30826582

Uniting Against Boko Haram (BloombergView)
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-01-13/boko-haram-can-be-stopped-by-a-nigeria-united-again