Tag Archives: Ohio

This is outrageous. A corporate-backed right-wing group fighting to dismantle workers’ rights in Ohio hijacked the words and image of a great-grandmother who had filmed an ad for our allies, distorting her message and making it look like she supported their position against workers.

Cincinnati resident Marlene Quinn had filmed a TV ad for our friends at the “No on Issue 2” campaign — the campaign to repeal Senate Bill 5, Ohio’s version of the Wisconsin bill that stripped public workers of their collective bargaining rights. In the ad, she told the story of her grandson and great-granddaughter’s rescue by firefighters, and rightly made the case that passage of Issue 2 on the ballot this November, affirming SB 5, would lead to less firefighters there to protect Ohioans.

In a shockingly underhanded move, a leading right-wing group in the fight, Building a Better Ohio, stole the footage of Marlene for its own ad, and presented it in a way that made it look like Marlene was for Issue 2!

Ten Ohio TV stations have already pulled the ad and we’re going to keep the pressure on the rest until do too. Help us by joining our petition to Ohio TV stations now.

www.pfaw.org

In an email for our allies at the No on 2 campaign, Marlene said of the Right’s ad:

“It’s insulting to the brave firefighters who saved the life of my great-granddaughter. I’m outraged they are using my face and my words to push their harmful agenda. They certainly did not ask my permission. I feel violated.”

Watch a side-by-side video comparison of the two ads and sign our petition now.

We hope you’ll speak out against the Right’s latest dirty tactic, and then engage others to do the same.

Thank you for all your support and activism to fight the Right’s dirty tricks.

— Ben Betz, Online Strategy Manager

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

This fight starts now …Charles Chamberlain, Democracy for America

09/28/2011 Nativegrl77

The only thing TV pundits can talk about is who’s up and who’s down coming out of the latest Republican presidential debate. But there’s an important election happening this year in Ohio and it’s only a little over one month away.

Here’s the deal: Ohio Governor John Kasich — just like Scott Walker in Wisconsin — pushed through a law to severely cut the rights of workers to negotiate their own contracts. It’s a job killing bill that will cost public employees like firefighters, teachers and cops their healthcare benefits and pay raises so Republicans can give more tax breaks to the super rich and corporations.

While nationally we were focused on Wisconsin, the people of Ohio — including many DFA members — fought back. Over one million voters signed a petition to repeal the law, putting it up for a statewide referendum this November. Now they need our national movement to back them up.

We’ve put together an aggressive campaign to mobilize over 75,000 DFA volunteers in Ohio. We’ll educate voters, identify supporters, and get out the vote this November to defeat the Job Killing Issue 2. We’re ready to hit the ground running on October 5 — going non-stop until Election Day — but we can’t make the plan happen without the resources we need to win.
Please contribute $10 right now to deliver the resources to win. WWW.DemocracyForAmerica.com

Our people-powered campaign will be modeled after the massive campaign you helped us build in Wisconsin this summer — putting staff on the ground to organize volunteers, canvass door-to-door and make phone calls.

Big corporate interests are going to pour money into this referendum, just like they did in Wisconsin. Mother Jones reported that the Koch brothers are holding secret million-dollar donor clubs for their super rich right-wing friends to finance “the mother of all wars” against progressives.

Right-wingers are going all-in in Ohio and we’re ready to do the same — go head to head — and beat them.

Contribute $10 now to fuel our campaign to win in Ohio. WWW.DemocracyForAmerica.ORG

This fight is this year. It’s happening right now. We will win in Ohio and beat back another out-of-control Republican Governor, because you stood up today and helped fuel the campaign.

Thank you for everything you’re doing to win.

-Charles

Charles Chamberlain, Political Director
Democracy for America

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Working Families Defeat Two Walker Republicans …support Unions

08/22/2011 Nativegrl77

Photo credit: Unity@Verizon

The strike by some 45,000 Verizon workers, members of the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and the Electrical Workers (IBEW), continued into its third day today as workers across the country offer support to the strikers, whose struggle reflects the situation for millions of workers.

Rather than reward the hard work of Verizon employees who have provided the quality service that earned the company more than $32.5 billion in revenue over the past three years, management continues to insist on cuts that total $1 billion. These workers have played by the rules—and now Verizon wants to break them.

Verizon’s concession demands would strip away the standard of living workers have gained through bargaining over the past 50 years, workers say.

It is all too common for workers to face the prospect of losing benefits even though you have worked hard and valued your work, IBEW President Edwin Hill says:

This is a company with a $100 billion dividend. The top five company executives were paid more than a quarter of a billion dollars over the past four years. If a company like this is not willing to provide wages and benefits to enable its workers to be part of the mainstream middle class in America, then all who work for a living have reason to fear.

Click here to demand that Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam value employees’ work and share his corporation’s success with those who make it possible. Click here for a list of picket sites in the New York and New Jersey area.

You also can click here to sign and tweet an act.ly petition demanding Verizon drop its outrageous concessionary demands.

To tweet about the strike, use the hashtag #verizonstrike and feel free to direct to @VZLaborfacts.

The company also paid nothing (that’s ZERO) in corporate income taxes. In fact, it actually received nearly $1 billion in tax benefits from the federal government during that time, according to the Citizens for Tax Justice (CTJ).

In fact, if Verizon had paid its corporate income tax at the official rate of 35 percent, it would have owed more than $11 billion, according to CTJ. This alone would have been enough to avoid the recent cuts in the debt deal to student loan programs.

Read updates on the strike at www.cwa-union.org/verizon.

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

“Democrats intentionally steal elections.” says, Maine’s State GOP Chairman Charlie Webster

06/15/2011 Nativegrl77

You need to know this: Republican governors and state legislatures are working to pass laws to suppress voter turnout in 2012. Texas, Wisconsin and Florida have already passed legislation including restricting early voting. Ohio, Pennsylvania and Maine might be next.

These are all crucial swing states in 2012. If Republicans can prevent Democratic voters from exercising their right, we could lose the White House. And we could lose the Senate. It’s that simple.

Republicans can’t win on the merits – look how unpopular their plan to kill Medicare is. But they might very well capture the Senate if they keep Democrats from voting. I need your help to fight back now. We need 100,000 people to stand with us and draw attention to the undemocratic actions of these Republican state legislators and governors. Will you add your name?

www.dsccc.org

After you’ve signed, be sure to forward this email to friends. All Democrats need to join together and draw attention to these disgusting Republican tactics. We won’t stand quietly by while they try every trick in the book to steal an election. It’s undemocratic, and it must end.

Sincerely,

Guy Cecil

~ my 2cents ...

Wednesday &some News

06/15/2011 Nativegrl77

Today,President Obama and The First Lady host a Congressional Picnic at the White House at 7pm ET.

My rant today … Two and a half years ago the democratic party controlled both chambers in Congress and both leaders of the House and Senate were on their way to establishing a new path toward the 21st Century with several bills that included among others a jobs bill, dream act, dadt, start treaty, UI and health-care reform. The legislation our representatives brought to the floor of Congress were supposed to address American issues. However, great legislation has been difficult to pass due to Republican filibusters and more recent the lies that won them control of the House of Representatives. While we now know what the true Republican mission is, the Democratic Party has stated they will not give up trying to help the middle class.

Then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi addressing the status of the middle class stated that in the near future people would be paying 1dollar out of every 5dollars for health-care. Nancy Pelosi also stated that the problem of health-care costs will not go away and we can solve the issue by repealing the anti-trust exemptions, increase, and lower cost and improves choices for all Americans. Though the new health care law allows children under 26 to be covered under their parents insurance, has eliminated discrimination that includes pre-existing conditions, more coverage for our elders and maintaining the health care rights for women. The Republican Tea Party continues to berate the achievement call it Obamacare in order to demean it. Thankfully, the new Affordable Health Care Law passed though the new Congress has made cutting, slashing, and burning it their main mission along with so many other social programs without giving Americans any idea how they will replace hcr or social security, Medicare/Medicaid. The new effort to attack a woman’s right to choose has become more important than creating jobs and as Republicans offer up bills, amendments and comments, it is obvious it should embarrass Americans at how narrow this new party has become since the last guy was in office. The party of no has become the party of let us cut spending, decrease the deficit but they are and or will do so in on the backs of the middle class, poor and we all know minorities by giving them less. The obvious culture wars have become an issue and while candidates running for Congress not only engaged in race baiting, exclusion and outright discrimination. Most if not all were defeated at the polls thankfully but some did get through and are sitting either in the Senate or House. Honestly, I want Republican constituents to ask themselves if these people are true public servant and how upset were you when your own party voted against helping firefighters, teachers, and police while stripping away worker rights. The idea to help maintain these jobs, helping those who lost jobs by voting yes to unemployment and or create them until the lame duck session happened because the RTP wanted something, not that they wanted to help their fellow American. The Republican Tea Party, as we all know managed to hold the middle class hostage and traded the bush bonus dollars for helping Americans even though the house of bush set a date for the bush bonus dollars to expire. Is it just me or does it seem less than American to hold or use money as a tool to insure those Bush bonus tax cuts …That top 2% of our population got those tax cuts but have failed to significantly improve the job numbers even though speaker Boehner stated they were the job creators.

Two and a half years ago, in a series of votes that dramatized the conflicting pressures Democrats face to spur job growth and control the deficit. The House voted 217-212 to raise the government is borrowing authority to a record level, with 37 Democrats joining Republicans opposing the measure. The then Speaker Pelosi reminded people that among other things that the Democratic Party, focused on jobs, concerned and working toward equal rights for the people, proud that the lily Ledbetter law passed as well. Well, that was two years ago. After gaining control of the House of Representatives, the Republican Tea Party decided that taking apart any legislation that has President Obama’s stamp of approval is the only thing the people elected them for last November. This is not just offensive it is one of several issues that has divided Americans and will continue to until the Republican Tea Party stops playing games with the lives of all Americans and gets to work for the citizens of the United States instead of what seems like only for Corporate America.

Two and a half years ago, in an effort to make it hard to fill the Obama Administrations cabinet, like appointee Martha Johnson. Now, with half of President Obama’s term over, the Republican Tea Party has managed to hold up over 20% of his appointments and some have withdrawn completely, the result is a less than complete cabinet for the governing party.

This behavior by the Republican Tea Party is just not acceptable and be considered un-American. In a moment of emotion, Senator Dorgan voiced my feelings at the time,” that for over 8months Republicans have blocked her nomination and now almost unanimously vote to put her in, which raises doubts in the integrity of Republicans.”

Yes, some good things came out of the hard work that the House and Senate Democrats performed but it is obvious they need to do more while the Republican Tea Party has put the future of America at risk and will continue to do so unless Americans begin to push back.

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CSPAN …