Tag Archives: politics

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Weekly Address: America’s Resurgence Is Real


Weekly Address: America’s Resurgence Is RealIn this week’s address, the President reflected on the significant progress made by this country in 2014, and in the nearly six years since he took office.

This past year has been the strongest for job growth since the 1990s, contributing to the nearly 11 million jobs added by our businesses over a 57-month streak. America is leading the rest of the world, in containing the spread of Ebola, degrading and ultimately destroying ISIL, and addressing the threat posed by climate change. And earlier this week, the President announced the most significant changes to our policy towards Cuba in over 50 years.

America’s resurgence is real, and the President expressed his commitment to working with Congress in the coming year to make sure Americans feel the benefits.

Watch the President’s Weekly Address now.

Watch the President's Weekly Address.
Top Stories
A Look Back at 2014As 2014 winds down, President Obama stopped by the press briefing room in the White House yesterday to offer his thoughts on what the past year has meant for the country.

“I said that 2014 would be a year of action and would be a breakthrough year for America,” he said. “And it has been.”

If you missed the President’s news conference, check it out here:

Watch the President's news conference here.

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Charting a New Course on Cuba

The United States and Cuba are separated by no more than 90 miles of water, but an ideological and economic barrier has hardened between our two countries for the past 50 years. On Wednesday, however, President Obama announced historic new steps to chart a new course in our relations with Cuba.

“Today, America chooses to cut loose the shackles of the past so as to reach for a better future — for the Cuban people, for the American people, for our entire hemisphere, and for the world,” he said.

Learn more about the Cuba announcement here.

Take a deep-dive into the President’s historic actions at WhiteHouse.gov/Cuba-policy.

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President Obama Visits the Troops, “Just to Say Thank You”

On Monday, the President traveled to Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in New Jersey to offer his thanks to the U.S. military members and families stationed there and across the world for their service to our country.

“The message I’m here to deliver on behalf of the American people is very simple,” he said. “It’s just to say thank you.”

See the President's full remarks here.

The President also marked an important milestone: After more than 13 years, we are finally bringing a responsible end to America’s war in Afghanistan.

When the President took office, we had nearly 180,000 troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. By the end of this month, we’ll have fewer than 15,000 in both countries. Over the course of six years, we have brought home 90 percent of our troops. And this month, Afghans will take full responsibility for their security.

READ MORE

As always, see more of the week’s events in the latest edition of West Wing Week.
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Why We #StandWith​Peggy


A Better Balance The Work and Family Legal Center
We Stood with Peggy Young at the Supreme Court to Fight Pregnancy Discrimination
Rally at the Supreme Court in Support of Peggy Young
Dear friend,
Earlier this week, Peggy Young’s pregnancy discrimination case came before the Supreme Court. Peggy was forced off her job while pregnant, losing income and her health benefits in the process. Women should not have to choose between their jobs and the health of their pregnancies. We stood with Peggy inside the court room, at the rally on the steps outside of the Supreme Court and online. Thank you for taking the time to show your support, so many of you helped us to show solidarity with Peggy and all pregnant workers that #StandWithPeggy peaked at 2,300 tweets per hour on Wednesday!
ABB Co-President Dina Bakst was inside the court for the arguments. You can read her Op-Ed, Supreme Court Must Make Clear That Pregnancy Discrimination Is Unjust co-authored with MomsRising here.
The rally emceed by ABB’s Southern Office Director Elizabeth Gedmark was a complete success! More than 200 advocates and supporters came together for the event, enthusiastically chanting and carrying signs despite the wintery weather. Stories were shared of other pregnant workers, who were pushed out of their jobs, like ABB Client Officer Lyndi Trischler. You can read her story here.
ABB’s Senior Staff Attorney Phoebe Taubman was on To The Point with Warren Olney.  If you missed this informative radio program you can listen to it here.
Thank you for all of your support!
The A Better Balance Team,
Sherry, Dina, Phoebe, Jared, Elizabeth, Risha, Morenike, Rachel, Jake, Molly & Lynn
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Don’t miss the final story in our Product of Mexico series: Children work the fields


Los Angeles Times
Dear Readers:Meet Alejandrina. She was 11 when Los Angeles Times journalists first began reporting her story. Alejandrina, a little girl who likes lip gloss and longs to go to back to school, works 14 hours a day picking chile peppers for a farm that supplies a U.S. distributor.
Mexican law requires workers to be at least 15, but Alejandrina is among an estimated 100,000 children younger than that who work the fields. As she told The Times: “I work because we don’t have any money and we need money to eat things.”
Times reporter Richard Marosi and photographer Don Bartletti tracked Alejandrina’s nomadic existence for a year. Read her story, which is also the story of so many others: Children harvest crops and sacrifice dreams in Mexico’s fields
This marks the fourth and final piece in our Product of Mexico series, an investigation into conditions on Mexican farms that supply Americans with much of our tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and other produce.
We’ve told readers about unbearable conditions at labor camps and taken them into Bioparques, a supplier to Wal-Mart and one of Mexico’s biggest tomato exporters, where Mexican officials found workers held captive. We’ve examined company stores, where a lack of price tags and big mark-ups leave many farmworkers trapped in a cycle of debt.
I want to thank all of you for reading this important series and sharing it with others. Here’s a sneak peek at a video coming Monday that features Marosi and Bartletti talking about the reporting behind this eye-opening series.
Davan Maharaj, Editor
P.S. We’ve created some extra content available only to our subscribers. Bartletti, a Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist whose interest in photography dates back to his service in Vietnam, has covered Mexico for decades. He shares some of his best photos and memories of what it took to capture the images.
Black History

the Senate ~~~ CONGRESS 12/17 ~~~ the House


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The Senate stands adjourned sine die under the provisions of H.Con.Res.125 until 12:00 noon on Tuesday, January 6, 2015.

Following the prayer and pledge and following the presentation of the certificates of election and the swearing-in of elected Members, there will be a required live quorum.

*******************************************************

Last Floor Action:12/16
12:08:01 P.M. – The Speaker announced that pursuant to the order of the House of today, the House stands adjourned until noon on Friday, December 19, 2014, unless it sooner has received a message from the Senate transmitting its adoption of H. Con. Res. 125, in which case the House shall stand adjourned pursuant to that concurrent resolution. Agreed to without objection.

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Ted, … Thanks


By

Dr. Vivek Murthy Confirmed As Surgeon General, With An Assist From Ted Cruz

thanks cruz 1

After 517 days without the nation’s top doctor in place, the Senate confirmed Dr. Vivek Murthy to be surgeon general this afternoon by a vote of 51-43. This is an important victory for Americans, who now have a qualified public health leader and communicator-in-chief. It represents a defeat for the NRA — Murthy’s confirmation is the first time the NRA has been defeated on a scored vote since August 5, 2010. And it may not have happened without an unexpected gift from Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX).

On Friday, with the controversial government spending bill still not passed, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell thought they had an agreement to adjourn for the weekend and return Monday to vote on the so-called ‘Cromnibus’ bill. Under the deal, which required unanimous consent from all Senators, Republicans would also be able to vote Monday on a “constitutional point of order” to register their displeasure with President Obama’s immigration action. But Cruz and Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) refused to wait until Monday, demanding the symbolic immigration vote then. When Reid refused, they in turn refused to give their consent to adjourn, leaving the Senate in session over the weekend. This tactic, however, had an unintended consequence for the hard-line conservatives: it allowed Senate Democrats to speed up confirmation for a number of key Obama nominations whose fate was still in question, including Dr. Murthy. Now, the only thing Cruz and friends have to show for their supposed hardball is the confirmation of a surgeon general they opposed on false grounds.

Here at CAP Action, we have been hard at work advocating for the confirmation of Dr. Murthy. And to be sure, it was a diverse group of progressive advocates who pushed the Senate during this lame duck session into giving the surgeon general nominee a vote. But today, in the holiday spirit of giving, we wanted to make sure Sen. Cruz also got a message of our appreciation. So we sent him a teddy bear.

thanks cruz 1

Give Sen. Cruz your thanks as well by sharing this graphic with your social networks! Share on Twitter or share on Facebook.

Let’s remember, this isn’t the first time Cruz has taken a stance with the unintended consequence of helping those he opposes. Last year, he led the charge to shut down the government over funding the Affordable Care Act. And for three weeks during the botched roll-out of HealthCare.gov, when the nation’s attention could have squarely been on the mistake, it instead was also focused on blaming Cruz and his fellow conservatives for a government shutdown that cost $24 billion.

(Speaking of which: today is the last day to enroll in affordable health coverage on the exchange staring January 1! You could save money by shopping around.)

BOTTOM LINE: America now has the qualified surgeon general it needs. Many strong advocates played an important role in making it happen, but we also owe our gratitude to Ted Cruz for the important role he played as well. So Senator Cruz, our sincere thanks.

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