Tag Archives: politics

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Going Global


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Fast Food Workers Strike In 150 U.S. Cities And Worldwide

 

Every worker deserves fair wages and the right to organize. That’s why fast food workers have united today to participate in the most widespread strike in the history of the fast food industry. All in all, employees of fast food restaurants in 150 cities across the United States are taking the risk of walking off the job to demand higher pay, better treatment at work, and the opportunity for those who work hard to get ahead. The movement has also gone global, with protesters on six different continents as part of the worldwide “Low Pay Is Not OK” campaign.

Think Progress takes a look back at how their cause grew from a handful of people to a globe-spanning movement. The fast food strikes began on November 29, 2012. By the next August, strikers walked out in 60 cities. In December 2013, a little over a year after the first strike, a record-breaking 100 cities participated. And today, we are at a new record of 150. Take a look below — and head here to see the map in motion.

fastfoodglobal2

These workers are standing up for a cause that all of us can get behind. Our economy is simply not working for most Americans. While wealth at the top has kept going up and up and up, middle- and working-class families now have less, and this has thrown our entire economy off kilter. A strong middle class is the real engine of the economy. An economy that grows from the middle class out is an economy that works for everyone, not just the wealthy few.

The push to raise the minimum wage comes from the same set of beliefs: a person working full-time in America should not live in poverty. But many Republicans in Congress have remained staunchly opposed to raising the federal minimum wage to $10.10. Instead of voting to give Americans who work hard a better opportunity to get ahead, they have sided with the one percent and the special interests.

The tide could be changing, however. First, conservative leaders and former officeholders Rick Santorum and Tim Pawlenty said their fellow party members “should support reasonable increases to the minimum wage.” Then 2012 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney agreed, telling a television audience that “we ought to raise it.”

Additionally, major low-wage employers have recently come out in favor of an increase. The CEO of Subway, the biggest fast food chain in the world, said his company would not object: “I’m not concerned. Over the years, I’ve seen so many of these wage increases. I think it’s normal.” And just today, Wal-Mart, which had previously maintained a “neutral” position on a wage increase, announced that it is “not opposed.”

BOTTOM LINE: The momentum to stand up for workers and fair pay is spreading at the grassroots and in corner offices. Fast food workers across the United States and the world are striking today to stand up for the principle that if you work hard, you should get ahead. At the same time, more and more of conservatives’ supposed anti-worker allies — top Republicans and the big retail companies they claim would be hurt — are announcing their support for a minimum wage increase.

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

The Faces of Nearly 3,000 Innocent Souls


The National September 11 Memorial & Museum opened its doors to the families of those who lost their lives in the 2001 attacks, as well as the first responders and recovery workers that helped save the lives of others that day.

“Here, at this memorial, this museum, we come together,” said President Obama. “We look into the faces of nearly 3,000 innocent souls — men and women and children of every race, every creed, and every corner of the world. … Here we tell their story, so that generations yet unborn will never forget.”

Read more of the President’s remarks at yesterday’s dedication.

Read more about the 9/11 museum dedication ceremony.

President Barack Obama and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg tour Memorial Hall at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum prior to the 9/11 Museum dedication in New York, N.Y., May 15, 2014. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

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The White House


“I Want Us to Be First”

We can’t waste any more time when it comes to rebuilding our roads and bridges. Yesterday, at the Tappan Zee Bridge in Tarrytown, New York, the President explained why:

One study recently found that over time, we’ve fallen to 19th place when it comes to the quality of our infrastructure — 19th place. I don’t know about you, but I don’t like America being 19th. I don’t like America being second. I want us to be first when it comes to infrastructure around the world, because businesses are going to come where there’s good infrastructure to move businesses, move people, move services.

Learn more about the state of our infrastructure — and what’s at stake if we don’t fix it.

Find out why we need to rebuild our infrastructure.

President Barack Obama delivers remarks on infrastructure near the Tappan Zee Bridge, at the Washington Irving Boat Club in Tarrytown, New York, May 14, 2014. Construction on the new Tappan Zee bridge can be seen adjacent to the current bridge. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

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7 years in jail


Justice betrayed!

By Dr. Linda Busch-Somach
Mt. Arlington, New Jersey

change.org

https://www.change.org/petitions

Cecily McMillan was sexually assaulted and then falsely arrested by a NYC police officer! She is a committed social justice advocate with no prior criminal history, yet she was then convicted of assaulting HIM and may be sentenced to seven years in jail?

The court process showed clear bias on the part of Judge Zweibel in favor of the prosecution. Evidence of the officer’s prior acts of aggression and falsification of evidence was not allowed.  Video of rampant police brutality against peaceful Occupy Wall Street protesters who were gathering just to socialize the night of March 17, 2012 was not allowed.

Cecily is now at RIKER’S with NO BAIL, and has a sentencing hearing on Monday May 19.

She is not an elopement risk! She is a graduate student who plans to write her thesis on Civil Rights leader Bayard Rustin!

The police were not peaceful that night and justice has not been served.  9 of the 12 jurors who sat on the jury to hear her case have even said in writing “We would ask the court to consider probation with community service. We feel that the felony mark on Cecily’s record is punishment enough.”

Governor Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio have a history of supporting civil rights and civil liberties.

How can they allow this to happen in their state?  Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance must surely know that aggressively prosecuting Cecily is a waste of the city’s time and resources. Surely the Honorable Ronald A. Zweibel knows that this incident is not worth ruining a young woman’s life or eroding our 1st and 4th Amendment Rights (Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Peaceful Assembly). The Governor can pardon Cecily; but only after many appeals.

I am a Licensed Psychologist (PhD) and a specialist in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) which is probably what drew me to Cecily’s case.  In my work as a psychologist I have heard MANY stories of people sexually abused by people in positions of power — whether police, doctors, teachers, priests, AND members of my own profession.

My teenage niece was also brutalized by NYC police who violated her civil rights and tried to pin felony charges on her including assaulting a police officer. Eventually everything was dropped; but I will never forget how both the assault and the arrest can impact a young person.  Cecily was arrested for a natural reaction to being sexually assaulted when the plainclothes police officer grabbed her breast from behind. She is not a criminal, nor a danger to anyone.

Cecily’s sentencing is on Monday, May 19, 2014.

Please sign this petition to request leniency in this case by granting her probation or time served. 9 of the 12 jurors who convicted Cecily have come forward in writing to say they do not believe she deserves to be jailed. It is now time for all of us to do the same by signing this petition.

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Fact – Averse


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Marco Rubio Is In Denial, But Man-Made Climate Change Is All Around Us

Two years ago, when Marco Rubio was asked about how old the earth was, the Republican Senator from Florida punted: “I’m not a scientist, man.”

Apparently Rubio, a potential Republican candidate for President in 2016, was feeling more confident with his credentials this Sunday. The recent National Climate Assessment (NCA) once again confirmed that climate change is here now and it is up to us how much worse it will get. Rubio, however, offered his own alternative opinion:

I don’t agree with the notion that some are putting out there, including scientists, that somehow, there are actions we can take today that would actually have an impact on what’s happening in our climate. Our climate is always changing. And what they have chosen to do is take a handful of decades of research and — and say that this is now evidence of a longer-term trend that’s directly and almost solely attributable to man-made activity.

And today, when pressed on his climate denialism (which he shares with the majority of Republicans in Congress), Rubio couldn’t name a single source that shares his climate views.

On the flip side, the 300 climate scientists and experts who authored the lengthy Assessment do have evidence of how man-made climate change is affecting diverse regions in America right now. Here’s a glimpse of those regional impacts, drawing from exhaustive reporting done by Climate Progress after the report’s release last week.

The Southeast is “exceptionally vulnerable to sea level rise, extreme heat events, hurricanes, and decreased water availability,” according to the National Climate Assessment. And as Jennifer Jurado, Director of the Natural Resources Planning and Management Division in Broward County, Florida, puts it, many of these impacts are already being felt: “It’s not just coincidence — we really are seeing these things taking place.” The region has already experienced more billion-dollar disasters in the past 30 years than the rest of the country combined.

Temperatures in the Midwest have already risen over 1.5°F from 1900 to 2010, with the increase speeding up in the last 30 years. That means crop reductions, as warmer temperatures cause lower yields. It means more droughts, heavier rains, and more heat waves. And it even threatens the Great Lakes, whose water levels have fallen significantly over the last decade or two. Dozens of communities along Michigan’s shoreline had to be dredged in 2013 to keep shipping lanes open. This climate change impact caused economic losses.

The Northeast quickly became familiar with the threat posed by sea level rise in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy, which caused up to $80 billion in damage. But the East Coast faces not just sea level rise, but also flooding from the skies. The region has experienced a greater recent increase in extreme precipitation — 71 percent — than any other region of the United States. Only the Midwest even comes close, with a 37 percent increase in extreme precipitation events.

Ocean acidification and wildfires are taking their toll on the Pacific Northwest. Ocean waters in Willapa Bay, for example, have become so acidic that one company can’t grow oyster larvae off the coast of Washington anymore. Meanwhile, Oregon experienced one of the worst fire seasons since 1951 last year: wildfires burned through 100,000 state-protected acres and cost the state $122 million in firefighting costs alone.

Great Plains: The second-most severe category of drought now covers almost half of Kansas, pushing outward from Oklahoma and Texas. This week a brutal heatwave sent temperatures over 100 degrees, putting a major strain on utilities and threatening to devastate this year’s wheat crop. And according to the National Climate Assessment, even in an optimistic scenario where we cut back on carbon emissions, those in the Great Plans should expect significantly more drought and water scarcity in the next 50 to 100 years.

As its population surges, the harsh climate of the Southwest will only get harsher. “Just think of this year’s California drought — the type of hot, snowless, severe drought that we expect more of in the future,” said Gregg Garfin, a lead author of the Southwest portion of the National Climate Assessment and assistant professor of climate, natural resources, and policy at the University of Arizona. That’s the kind of change that could have a tremendous impact on not only the availability of water for nearly 100 million people, but also on a critical part of the economy, agriculture.

BOTTOM LINE: Conservatives like Marco Rubio may be in denial when it comes to climate science, but changes to our climate are real, and humans play a major role by burning fossil fuels. And no matter what region of the country, the negative effects are already hurting our economy. Reducing carbon pollution and investing in clean energy are essential steps to restrain future damages.