Cyclone Devastates Island Nation Vanuatu

There are 8 confirmed deaths and dozens more are feared dead as a result of Cyclone Pam’s destruction of Vanuatu. But it could take days or even weeks to reach the most remote parts of the island nation and see the extent of the devastation. Please give now and help their recovery. Category Five Cyclone Pam devastated the entire Pacific island nation of Vanuatu on Saturday, leaving its 267,000 residents in crisis. Please donate now and help our team on the ground bring immediate relief to the people of Vanuatu and where it’s needed most around the world. “Homes have been blown to pieces and even evacuation shelters, where people had sought refuge, have been flooded and left exposed to Cyclone Pam,” said Charlie Damon, program manager for CARE International in Vanuatu. “If this is the level of impact in communities where emergency shelters were an option, we are deeply concerned about what has happened in remote communities without them.” CARE is helping the Vanuatu government assess the level of destruction and the most immediate relief needs. We will deploy specialists in clean water and sanitation, shelter and food to support staff on the ground and to plan for the longer-term recovery process. But we need your help. please give now and we’ll respond to the physical and emotional needs of those people impacted by Cyclone Pam and other survivors of disasters, war and extreme poverty around the world. My sincerest thanks, Helene D. Gayle, MD, MPH

On November 4, we took the biggest — and toughest — step forward, yet.

When Washington State said Yes to 594, we showed reformers across the nation that they can not only fight — but also beat — the gun lobby at the ballot box and bring commonsense reforms to our gun laws.

The truth is that we couldn’t have done it without your support, which kept us going through the attacks and a tough campaign.

But we’re not done yet. There’s so much left to do to reduce gun violence here in Washington.

Moving forward, we here at The Washington Alliance for Gun Responsibility will be working closely with the Center for Gun Responsibility to continue educating the public and helping pass commonsense gun laws that will make us all safer.

And now, it’s time for our lawmakers to do their job and stand up for commonsense gun laws.

What can you do in this new phase? We want to know what you believe we should focus on during Washington’s next legislative session.

Take our quick one-question survey, and let us know what you think our top legislative priorities should be for reducing gun violence and making our communities safer.

The people of Washington have done their part to reduce gun violence at the ballot box, and now it’s our legislators’ turn to do theirs.

Thanks for your help,

Zach Silk
Campaign Manager
Yes on 594

Gemma Tillack, RAN Agribusiness Director

By CAP Action War Room

Republicans Complaining About President Obama’s Immigration Action Have It Backwards

We wrote last night about why President Obama’s announcement on immigration is such an important move. The only way to fix our broken immigration system once and for all is for Congress to work together to pass bipartisan legislation. But until then, the president is right to take whatever steps he can within his legal authority to begin solving this problem. The president’s actions prioritize our enforcement, putting the focus on felons, not families. These measures will strengthen our national security, our public safety, and our economy. And they are supported by two-thirds of Americans.

Again, this is not a permanent solution. Only Congress can do that. But, House Republicans don’t seem like they want to act – even though the Senate passed a bipartisan bill more than 500 days ago. Instead they want to play politics and accuse the President of overreach, despite the fact that he is just doing his job and the actions he took are consistent with previous presidents, including Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush. Both Boehner and income Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have warned that the President’s actions “poison the well” for comprehensive reform. Here are some other instances of conservative fear-mongering:

• Senator John Cornyn (R-TX), McConnell’s second-in-command, claimed that the President was “provoking a constitutional crisis.”
• Arch-conservative Sen. Tom Coburn said “you could see instances of anarchy … [or] violence” as a result of the executive action.
• Anti-immigrant Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach actually claimed that granting temporary legal status to undocumented immigrants could lead to ethnic cleansing and socialism.

However, all of these allegations of Obama ruining good-faith efforts to compromise would be more credible if they were not part of the exact same playbook his opponents have used numerous times before:

• Both Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and former Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) said that Obama “poisoned the well” by issuing his 2012 action on Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).
• Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) warned that if Obama took any credit for the Senate’s bipartisan immigration reform principles, “it certainly would poison the well with a lot of Republicans.”
• Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) suggested last year that President Obama’s support for overwhelmingly popular gun safety policies “poisoned the well” with the GOP to get anything done on the issue.
• An anonymous Republican leadership aide said that the shutdown fight “poisoned the well” for working together on any issue, including comprehensive immigration reform.

Really, it’s Republicans who have poisoned the well. Rather than running on a real agenda for the future of America, their entire message was being against Obama. Before and after the election, they swore up and down how they would refuse to compromise with the President. Before the 2014 campaign was even over, McConnell promised prominent Republican donors that he would “thwart the Obama agenda” as majority leader. Meanwhile, hours after the 2014 election ended, Sen. Ted Cruz repeated his vow to repeal the Affordable Care Act, moments after claiming he was ready to compromise with the President.

BOTTOM LINE: The GOP can try and repeat the same tired criticism that President Obama’s latest move has “poisoned the well,” but they have it backwards. President Obama took necessary executive action on immigration because House Republicans refused to pass a bipartisan, comprehensive immigration bill – and because the GOP has refused to compromise at every step of his presidency.

My schizophrenic brother is about to be executed in Texas even though the U.S. Supreme Court has held that the Constitution forbids the execution of mentally ill people.

If no, ACT NOW !