Tag Archives: Texas

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What health and safety really mean in TX

10/08/2013 Nativegrl77

In a few weeks, the Center will return to court to fight for the rights of Texas women.

This is a familiar battleground in the ongoing war on women. Led by Gov. Rick Perry, Texas politicians are fixated on devastating reproductive health care in the state.

It’s time to let Perry know that we won’t stand for his ideological agenda.

He claims to care about the women in his state. On the day he signed the most recent restrictions into law, Perry told reporters, “This is an important day for those who…support the health of Texas women.” ¹

But the governor’s actions speak louder than words. The sweeping law he passed has nothing to do with safety, health, or supporting women.

The truth is, if his restrictions take effect, they would make essential health care services practically impossible for many Texans to access, leaving women’s health and safety at risk.

Tell Gov. Perry to stop using Texas women as political pawns—and to stay out of the very personal decisions that determine their health and future.

Thanks, as always, for all you do,

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53 days

09/09/2013 Nativegrl77

We can’t let West, Texas happen again. west TX chemical explosion

It’s time for the President to take action. Send a message to President Obama right now and urge the administration to adopt better safety standards for chemical plants!

Rick Hind, Greenpeace

A small town in Texas will never be the same after fifteen people lost their lives when a fertilizer plant exploded back in April.

The explosion was so big it registered as a 2.1 magnitude earthquake and destroyed a 37-block area of West, Texas. The most tragic part of it all is that the explosion along with the death and destruction that followed didn’t have to happen.

There are safe, affordable alternatives to the dangerous chemicals like the ones used in the Texas fertilizer plant available right now. But instead of making the switch, the chemical industry has chosen to spend its money lobbying Congress so that it can keep putting millions needlessly at risk. And up until now, that strategy was working.

Things are changing though. President Obama recently issued a directive to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to develop plans for new safety measure at chemical plants by November. What happens next is up to us. It’s your voice versus the chemical industry.

Send a message to President Obama and the EPA right now and urge them to adopt safety standards that prevent chemical disasters.

You’re likely close enough to a facility that stores or uses deadly chemicals, like chlorine gas, to be at risk if something unexpected were to happen. Most people in the U.S. are.

Chemical safety isn’t just an environmental issue — it impacts communities everywhere. That’s why we’ve been working closely with a diverse coalition of groups including labor and environmental justice groups to send a clear message to the administration: the time to act is now.

President Obama has been outspoken on this issue in the past. In fact, back when he was a Senator from Illinois he had this to say,: “We cannot allow chemical industry lobbyists to dictate the terms of this debate. We cannot allow our security to be hijacked by corporate interests.”

Take action and tell President Obama and the EPA that now’s the time to put those words into action and prevent another disaster like the one in West, Texas.

A decade ago the EPA proposed using the Clean Air Act to enforce commons sense rules for chemical plants like the one in West, Texas. For a decade Congress and two Presidents have been dragging their feet.

Legislation that would address this problem has completely stalled in Congress and is going nowhere thanks to the deep pockets of the chemical lobby. It’s up to the President to do the right thing and he needs our support to make it happen.

If the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, the nuclear disaster in Fukushima and the West, Texas explosion have taught us anything in the last couple of years, it’s that disasters happen. There’s no sense for millions of Americans to remain needlessly at risk from dangerous chemicals when safer alternatives exist.

Tell President Obama you support him using his authority to do what Congress won’t, and put the safety and health of American citizens ahead of corporate interests.

Sincerely,

Rick Hind Greenpeace Legislative Director

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ThinkProgress

09/06/2013 Nativegrl77

By CAP Action War Room

Eight Outrageous Stories

Here’s a few stories from today that will probably leave you shaking your head.

Kansas Will Kick 20,000 People Off Of Food Stamps: Gov. Sam Brownback’s administration is about to make life harder for the unemployed.

Former Senator Opens Luxury Animal Hospital, But May Try To Avoid Insuring His Human Employees: John Ensign describes his new pet clinic as the “Ritz-Carlton” of veterinary options. But the employees who work there may not have a similar level of luxury when it comes to their own health care options.

Thanks To Texas’ Harsh New Abortion Restrictions, Clinics Are Beginning To Close Their Doors: Up to seven abortion clinics in rural areas expect to be forced to close, the clearest evidence yet of the dramatic consequences of Texas’ new anti-choice law.

It Gets Worse: Russia Proposes Law To Deny Child Custody To Gay Parents: A proposed bill in the Russian legislature would disqualify gay parents from being granted custody of their children, similar to how drug addicts and child abusers are disqualified.

Without Warning, 57,000 Virginians Could Have Their Voter Registrations Cancelled: Could an ongoing voter purge tip the November gubernatorial election?

Anti-Choice Groups Won’t Stop Trying To Shut Down Mississippi’s Very Last Abortion Clinic: A federal judge has already ruled that Mississippi’s last abortion clinic can stay open. So anti-choice groups are taking a different approach to target it.

Sequestration Cuts Nevada’s Long-Term Unemployment Checks By 59 Percent: Benefit checks will be drastically reduced amid stubbornly high unemployment.

North Carolina Legislature Overrides Veto To Drug Test Welfare Applicants: After North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory (R) vetoed a bill passed by the state legislature to require drug tests for some applicants to the state’s Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, formally known as welfare, the legislature voted to override him on Wednesday.

BONUS GOOD NEWS STORY:

Major New Study On Obamacare Premiums Should End The ‘Rate Shock’ Hysteria Once And For All: The most comprehensive study on Obamacare to date finds that Americans’ insurance premiums under the health law will be “lower than expected.” Many Americans will pay even less than the top-line rates after factoring in government subsidies for their health coverage, with some paying nothing at all for crucial medical coverage

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GOP Not “Shutting That Whole Thing Down”

08/20/2013 Nativegrl77

The Progress Report

The War on Women Marches On

Today is the one-year anniversary of former Rep. Todd Akin’s (R-MO) infamous “legitimate rape” comments in which he remarked about the magical powers of women’s bodies to “shut that whole thing down” if they were victims of what former GOP presidential contender Ron Paul called an “honest rape.” Two months later, another GOP Senate candidate, Indiana’s Richard Mourdock, caused his own national firestorm when he said that pregnancies resulting from rape were a “gift from God.”

These sorts of inflammatory comments paired with the GOP’s policy positions in opposition to affordable access to birth control, abortion rights, equal pay legislation, and other family-friendly economic items like earned sick time represent an ongoing effort attacking women and their families.

Here are just a few things that have happened in the year since Akin made his noxious comments:

Threatening to shut down the government in order to deny millions of women and their families health care: As we’ve discussed previously in this space, Republicans are now threatening to shut down the government in order to defund Obamacare, which would deny the security of quality, affordable health care to millions of women and their families. Republicans, of course, have already voted more than 40 times to repeal Obamacare, including its no-cost birth control benefit and provisions that will ban insurance companies from being able to deny coverage because they consider breast cancer, having been a victim of domestic violence, or merely being a woman a preexisting condition.One conservative group, Heritage Action, launched a nationwide government shut tour today and said it will spend more than half a million dollars on ads to pressure lawmakers into shutting down the government unless Obamacare is defunded.

Congressman revives Akin-like rape talk, House GOP passes unconstitutional abortion ban: During the June markup of an unconstitutional ban on abortion after 20 weeks, Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) made comments echoing Todd Akin’s infamous “legitimate rape” remarks. Franks, who defended Akin at the time he made those remarks, explained that the incidence of pregnancy from rape is “very low.” There are approximately 30,000 pregnancies resulting from rape every year in the United States.The full House of Representatives passed Franks’ bill the following week.

Renewed assault on abortion rights in states across the country: Republican-controlled state legislatures across the country continued the unfortunate recent trend of passing increasingly draconian and unconstitutional restrictions on abortion rights. As ThinkProgress noted today, this has already been one of the worst years for reproductive rights in memory and “abortion clinics are closing at a record pace.”Not only are Republicans enacting increasingly restrictive laws, they are going to increasingly desperate lengths to do so. Texas called two special sessions to pass its crackdown, while North Carolina legislators resorted to attaching a measure that will close most of the state’s abortion clinics to an unrelated motorcycle safety bill.

“Abortion Barbie” and “Retard Barbie”: Texas State Sen. Wendy Davis (D) become well-known in Texas in 2011 for filibustering a bill that contained billions in cuts to public education and became a nationwide sensation earlier this summer when she filibustered a draconian crackdown on abortion rights in the Lone Star State. Since then, Fox News contributor Erick Erickson referred to the Harvard Law School graduate as “abortion Barbie” and, over the weekend, Texas Attorney General (and gubernatorial candidate) Greg Abbott (R) thanked a supporter on Twitter after he referred to Davis as “Retard Barbie.”

Senators suggest offensive explanations for military sexual assault crisis: Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) blamed the growing problem of military sexual assault on “the hormone level created by nature.” His colleague, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), instead suggested that perhaps pornography is to blame.

GOP governor attacks working mothers: Gov. Phil Bryant (R-MS) was asked to explain why the American education system “so mediocre.” Bryant responded that working mothers were to blame. This came just days after several Fox News commentators lost their minds over the record number of women who are the primary breadwinners in their household.

We could go on, but you get the picture.

BOTTOM LINE: If Republicans care about winning over more women, they need to put an end to offensive comments about women and how their bodies work and, more importantly, stop supporting policies that undermine and attack the health and economic security of women and their families each and every day.

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Shame!

07/05/2013 Nativegrl77

By CAP Action War Room

Sneak Attack on Abortion Rights in North Carolina

The GOP’s outrageous attacks on abortion rights and women’s health are spreading — and fast. After the dramatic showdown in Texas, Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R-OH) signed a budget that included nearly two dozen new restrictions on abortion rights. Then Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) announced that he would become the lead sponsor of the unconstitutional 20-week abortion ban that passed the House of Representatives last month.

Abortion rights activists rallying in Texas on Monday.

The most devious attack, however, just came out of nowhere in North Carolina. As we’ve observed before, the state government has been taken over by right-wing extremists. One of the many extreme bills to emerge from the North Carolina House was an offensive and unnecessary ban on Sharia law in the state. (Unfortunately, these Republican anti-Sharia law bills have become something of a trend in recent years.) At the very last minute before a holiday weekend, the North Carolina Senate took this bill up, added sweeping restrictions on abortion that would probably shutter all but one of the state’s clinics, and sent the bill back to the House. Protesters shouted “shame!” as the legislation was pushed through the Senate.

Abortion rights activists protesting today in North Carolina as the GOP rushed through a draconian anti-abortion law.

In Texas, the GOP tried to change the rules in the middle of the game but they did so in front of thousands of activists in the state capitol and more than 100,000 people watching online. In North Carolina, the sneak attack on abortion rights prompted even the state’s Republican governor to rebuke legislators for trying to rush the abortion restrictions through.

This latest controversy comes after weeks of Moral Monday protests against other measures before the legislature, which now include a shocking attack on voting rights following last week’s Supreme Court ruling that gutted a key provision of the Voting Rights Act.

BOTTOM LINE: The GOP has shown that it will resort to nearly any tactic, no matter how sneaky or unfair, in order to attack women and deny them the choice to exercise their constitutionally-protected right to have an abortion.