Tag Archives: republicans

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Save Bristol Bay: ~ repost from 2009 ~ sigh


ANCHORAGE – Seattle diners who order the salmon will get their meal with a message.

Chefs at more than a dozen restaurants are cooking up fish dishes that come with a special side: a warning that the creature’s future could be threatened by a giant gold and copper mine proposed for Bristol Bay in southwest Alaska, home to the world’s largest sockeye salmon runs.

Kevin Davis, co-owner of the Steelhead Diner, is an avid catch-and-release fly fisherman who recently returned from Washington, D.C., where he lobbied for permanent protection of Bristol Bay.

“Wild seafood is a rare and special commodity,” Davis said Thursday. “When I heard the news about the Pebble Mine and how it could potentially affect what is probably the world’s remaining strongholds of salmon, I became very concerned.”

To encourage his customers to help in the cause, the Steelhead Diner will feature three dishes using Alaska salmon: Tomato-Crusted Bristol Bay Sockeye Salmon, Meyer Lemon-Crusted Bristol Bay Sockeye Salmon and Hot-Smoked Bristol Bay Sockeye Salmon Cheesecake.

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

How the sequester impacts military families


VoteVets.org

“What that means is the rest of the forces that are now back in the United States will not be able to train. They will be able to do small-level, squad-level training. They will not be able to do platoon-level, company-level, battalion-level training back at their installations. They will not be able to go out to combat training centers, which is what provides them the final readiness certification at the battalion and brigade level.” – Chief of Staff of the United States Army, General Ray Odierno

When Republicans rejected compromise solutions to avoid the “sequester,” they ushered in a series of cuts that promise to hurt military families at home and in the field.

At home, medical care, Department of Defense-run schools, social services like sexual assault prevention and treatment, tuition assistance, child care, and many other programs will get cut.

In the field, operations and maintenance funding (O&M) — which is essentially responsible for readiness and deployment — already faces a $6 billion shortfall, and sequestration could double it.

We have a powerful voice and unique opportunity to stop these cuts. Sign our petition to congressional leadership calling on an end to the sequester and its impact on military families.

http://action.votevets.org/sequester

Nine Republican Senators already defected from a GOP plan to end the sequester, in large part because of the cuts impacting members of the military and their families.

They also rejected a commonsense Democratic plan that would have millionaires and billionaires shoulder a small amount of the burden to avoid sequester.

The issue is at an impasse right now, and our voices are critical to ensure there’s a resolution to the crisis.

Sign our petition to congressional leadership and make your voice heard today.

http://action.votevets.org/sequester

We’ll deliver these petitions early next week and let you know about any responses we receive from legislative offices.

Best,

Jon Soltz
@jonsoltz
Iraq War Veteran
Chairman, VoteVets

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

They Deserve a Vote


By ThinkProgress War Room

Background Checks 101

Later this week, the Senate Judiciary Committee will take up four gun violence prevention measures. One of them is an important bill to strengthen the background check system and mandate universal background checks so we can keep guns out of the hands of people that should not have them.

Check out this infographic for everything you need to know about how universal background checks can help us prevent gun violence.

View the infographic

Evening Brief: Important Stories That You Might’ve Missed

The latest embarrassment for the Daily Caller.

Report: number of radical anti-government groups reached “all-time high” in 2012.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has died.

Poll: immigration now top issue for Latinos, who are following the immigration debate closely.

Everything you need to know about judicial nominations.

The Daily Caller’s brand of “entertainment.”

Jeb Bush followed up his triple-flip on immigration today with a flip-flop on Medicaid.

The House GOP is going after birth control — again.

OOPS: Dow hits record despite pundit predictions that the stock market would plunge under Obama.

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Weekly Address: Congress Must Act Now to Stop the Sequester.
President Obama urges Congress to stop the sequester — the harmful automatic cuts that threaten thousands of jobs and affect our national security from taking effect on March 1.
~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Will our USPS be sold out?


 by Rashad Robinson, ColorOfChange.org
House Republicans are trying to bankrupt the post office — so they can privatize it.postal worker sorting mailTell Congress: Stand up for postal workers and the public. Hands off our Postal Service!Join Us

House Republicans are jumping at the chance to put the U.S. Postal Service — one of America’s most widely-used and well-trusted civic institutions1 — on the chopping block, and to throw a half million largely Black and female unionized workers out of a job.2,3

It’s a scandal. By most mainstream news accounts, the USPS is broke and beyond repair. The media is now parroting what used to be far-right talking points about actually selling off, or privatizing, the postal system outright.4

Except the post office isn’t broke — and hasn’t taken a dime of taxpayer money since 1971.5 Congress created the USPS’s financial crisis, and they could end it today. A Bush-era requirement that the Postal Service pre-fund its retiree benefits 75 years into the future — a burden imposed on no other government agency or private employer — has been digging the otherwise profitable Postal Service deeper and deeper into the red.6,7 Instead of working to fix the problem, Republicans in the House are taking advantage of the post office’s financial vulnerability to try to shut it down.

Please join us in urging Congress to enact postal reform that drops the USPS’s unfair 75-year pre-funding burden and keeps the post office in service to the public.

Due to its exceptional efficiency,8 the Postal Service has managed to turn a profit on postal sales in the worst economy since the Great Depression. But the massive pre-funding payments required by Congress have added up, and the USPS’s financial situation is now so dire that the Postmaster General is threatening to cut Saturday mail delivery.9 Such a move would immediately slash 18% of the postal workforce10 and create delays for Veterans’ and Social Security checks, putting people who are already struggling to make it to the end of the month at even greater risk.11

Because of its obligation and responsibility to provide affordable, universal service, only the USPS can be counted on to reach every home in America, rain or shine. After Superstorm Sandy, which severed public transportation links and shuttered retail for weeks in the worst-hit areas, the Postal Service was all many had to rely on for access to life-saving medicines.12 Live in an urban neighborhood “too dangerous” for UPS and FedEx, or down a remote rural lane? Without the USPS you’d receive no service at all.13

The public sector is under relentless right-wing attack14 — and Black working women are bearing the brunt. Nationwide, 40% of postal workers are women and 20% are Black, although in cities like Chicago, Black letter carriers can comprise upwards of 75% of the local USPS workforce.15 When the country is still experiencing nearly 8% unemployment — and Black unemployment has climbed back up to 14%16 — any deliberate effort to put even more of us out of work is indefensible.

The Postal Service must continue to work for all of us. Please join us in urging Congress to stop bankrupting the USPS’s future and adopt real postal reform that respects workers and our communities.

Claims that mail delivery has been made obsolete by the advent of email and online bill payment ring hollow for the 46% of Black Americans without access to high-speed Internet in their homes.17 And making financial transactions online isn’t an option for the more than 37 million American households — over 60% of whom are Black or Latino — without a bank account or access to formal credit,18 for whom inexpensive post office money orders meet a vitally important need.

Congress will make a decision on ending Saturday delivery as early as next Friday, setting the stage for a showdown on the larger question of retiree benefits in March. To that end, Congress is now working on competing proposals for postal reform that will result in either further punishing and privatizing the Postal Service, or in removing obstacles to innovation and expanding USPS’s flexibility to meet additional critical needs — including by offering public Internet access, community banking and expanded vote by mail.19,20,21

Please join us in urging Congress to stand up for postal workers and the public, by adopting postal reform legislation that rejects privatization and puts the post office back on solid financial ground. And when you do, please tell your friends and family to do the same.

Thanks and Peace,

–Rashad, Matt, Arisha, Kim and the rest of the ColorOfChange.org team    February 21st, 2013

Help support our work. ColorOfChange.org is powered by YOU—your energy and dollars. We take no money from lobbyists or large corporations that don’t share our values, and our tiny staff ensures your contributions go a long way.

References

1. “The Postal Service is struggling, but not because of the mail,” Washington Post, 07-19-12 http://act.colorofchange.org/go/2245?t=10&akid=2820.1174326.XREeCr

2. “Postal Workers: The Last Union,” Truthout, 09-08-11 http://act.colorofchange.org/go/2246?t=12&akid=2820.1174326.XREeCr

3. “USPS’s Largely Black and Female Workforce Rallies to Save Jobs,” Colorlines, 09-28-11 http://act.colorofchange.org/go/2255?t=14&akid=2820.1174326.XREeCr

4. “Post Office Privatization Is Probably a Huge Real Estate Deal,” 08-02-12 http://act.colorofchange.org/go/2244?t=16&akid=2820.1174326.XREeCr

5. “The Post Office is not broke—and it hasn’t taken any of our tax money since 1971,” Hightower Lowdown, 03-01-12 http://act.colorofchange.org/go/2259?t=18&akid=2820.1174326.XREeCr

6. “Congress Can Block Postal Austerity, and Save Saturday Delivery,” The Nation, 02-13-13 http://act.colorofchange.org/go/2248?t=20&akid=2820.1174326.XREeCr

7. “Mandate pushed Postal Service into the red for first quarter,” Washington Post, 02-08-13 http://act.colorofchange.org/go/2249?t=22&akid=2820.1174326.XREeCr

8. “Why the Postal Service Is Going Out of Business,” Forbes, 12-06-11 http://act.colorofchange.org/go/2258?t=24&akid=2820.1174326.XREeCr

9. See reference 6.

10. “Dead Letter Blues,” Jacobin, 02-11-13 http://act.colorofchange.org/go/2272?t=26&akid=2820.1174326.XREeCr

11. “Nader, Bernie Sanders Slam Postal Service for No Sat. Delivery,” The Progressive, 02-06-13 http://act.colorofchange.org/go/2251?t=28&akid=2820.1174326.XREeCr

12. “Do We Really Want to Live Without the Post Office?” Esquire, 01-22-13 http://act.colorofchange.org/go/2254?t=30&akid=2820.1174326.XREeCr

13. See reference 2.

14. “The collateral damage of cutting postal service,” Washington Post, 02-12-13 http://act.colorofchange.org/go/2247?t=32&akid=2820.1174326.XREeCr

15. “U.S. Post Office cuts threaten source of black jobs,” Reuters, 01-21-13 http://act.colorofchange.org/go/2256?t=34&akid=2820.1174326.XREeCr

16. “Black Unemployment Rate Shoots Up from 12.9% to 14%,” Politic365, 01-04-13 http://act.colorofchange.org/go/2257?t=36&akid=2820.1174326.XREeCr

17. “Pew Internet: Broadband,” Pew Internet & American Life Project, 05-24-12 http://act.colorofchange.org/go/2252?t=38&akid=2820.1174326.XREeCr

18. “Black, Latino Consumers Severely Under-Banked,” Atlanta Black Star, 12-07-12 http://act.colorofchange.org/go/2253?t=40&akid=2820.1174326.XREeCr

19. “Issa’s Postal Service Reform Bill Includes Hidden Union Busting,” ThinkProgress, 07-14-11 http://act.colorofchange.org/go/2260?t=42&akid=2820.1174326.XREeCr

20. “End of Saturday Mail Delivery Gets Conservative Support,” Roll Call, 02-06-2013 http://act.colorofchange.org/go/2261?t=44&akid=2820.1174326.XREeCr

21. See reference 6.