Tag Archives: United States Congress


	Tell Congress: Don’t Cut Our Social Security!



	Your Senators need to hear from you that jeopardizing the well-being of women and families is no way to improve the nation’s bottom line.

	Call 1-866-529-7630 today!

Can women and their families afford deep cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid?

We don’t think so. But as the President’s Fiscal Commission meets this week, deep cuts to these and other vital programs for women and their families are on the table.

We need your help to make sure these proposals don’t stay on the table — starting with joining the National Call-In Day on Social Security.

Tell Congress: Don’t Cut Our Social Security! Call your Senators NOW at 1-866-529-7630.

After providing your zip code, you’ll be given a choice of which of your state’s Senators to be connected with first. Call both if you possibly can!
Tell the person who answers the phone: I am a constituent living in [your state]. I am calling to tell the Senator to say “NO!” to cuts in Social Security benefits. Social Security benefits are especially important to women — and women’s average benefits are just $12,000 per year. Women can’t afford Social Security benefit cuts.

Why are we so concerned? Commission Co-Chairs Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles have proposed:

Cutting Social Security benefits for the vast majority of beneficiaries by raising the retirement age, lowering the cost of living adjustment, and changing the basic benefit formula.
Shifting more Medicare costs to beneficiaries and requiring low-income Medicaid beneficiaries to pay higher co-pays.
Cutting overall federal funding for domestic discretionary programs by about 20 percent, jeopardizing funding for child care, education, training, and other crucial investments.
Relying on spending cuts, far more than revenue increases, to reduce the deficit. While some tax expenditures would be curtailed, much of that revenue would be used to cut tax rates for the wealthiest Americans and corporations rather than to protect vital services or reduce the deficit.

Bottom line — these proposals would hurt women and their families. The reductions to Social Security would disproportionately hurt women, who depend more on income from Social Security than men do. And the changes to Medicare and Medicaid would place an extra burden on women, who are the majority of Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries and who already spend a higher percentage of their (already-lower) incomes on health care than men.

Your Senators need to hear from you that jeopardizing the well-being of women and families is no way to improve the nation’s bottom line. Call your Senators NOW at 1-866-529-7630.

This will be a long, hard fight and we are counting on you to stand up for women and their families.

Sincerely,

Joan Entmacher
Vice President, Family Economic Security
National Women’s Law Center

P.S. To find out more about the co-chairs’ Social Security benefit cuts, check out our blog.

~ my 2cents ...

mashup Monday &some News …

11/29/2010 Nativegrl77

As the lame duck session begins today the things that stand out most for me is the hypocrisy the overt nonsense and the lies offered up by the Republican Tea Party for the last twenty months. Unfortunately, the lies continue even after the Midterm elections with the sole goal to ruin President Obama by using Americans as their pawns and throwing us all under the bus.

The Party of No will keep stalling, blocking and saying No to the START treaty, the Disclose Act, unemployment, the Dream Act, Food Safety and other legislation but want and have been threatening progress unless and until the Republican Tea Party is given the Bush giveaways for the rich. The lies that the Republicans were able to sell and get some left of center to buy is about to unravel and the truth finally know by hopefully all Americans.

The notion that the top 2% is the group that creates and or hires the middle class let alone the idea that should be the reason to make sure the Bush giveaways are permanent is just a joke. If this is true, we should all ask where are the jobs that should have saved us all before the first 750 thousand suddenly lost their jobs even before President Obama was really in office. I do not understand how anyone believes that lie.

Other News …

**Feds open criminal investigation into WikiLeaks disclosures

**Former neighbor shocked over arrest of teen bomber

**Seoul warns that N.Korea will face severe consequences if another military attack on southern border

**Rep.Maxine Waters demands conclusion to ethics case

**Steele gets another challenger for RNC chair

**High court to review AZ election finance law

**JohnBolton is considering a run for office in 2012 against President Obama

CSPAN …

Former Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN) , American Action Network, CEO
Sunday

Interviews on Increasing Government Transparency
Saturday

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Moment of truth

11/23/2010 Nativegrl77

Tell Congress & President Obama: The wealthiest 2% don’t need a tax cut. Demand Democrats fight the proposed giveaway:

Republicans in Congress are pushing to continue Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthiest 2% of Americans, at the same time that they’re opposing extending unemployment insurance for people struggling to find work. Democrats have started to talk tough, but have also given signals they might cave without a real fight. We need to make sure that doesn’t happen.

Please take a moment to demand that your representative, senators, and the President stand strong and oppose these tax breaks for the rich:

http://www.colorofchange.org/taxcuts/?id=2275-1238940

Many in Congress are working to extend tax cuts for the middle class, but Republicans have said that they’ll try to block tax cuts for the middle class unless Democrats agree to pass tax cuts for the very rich as well.¹ Of course, Republicans don’t want to look like they’re looking out for the richest Americans, so they want to vote on both tax cuts at the same time.

Democrats shouldn’t fall for it. Hundreds of thousands of people have stood up and called on Democrats in Congress to stand strong. Democratic leadership in the House appears ready to fight,² but the White House and leaders in the Senate are wavering. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has floated the idea of multiple votes (with one of them still attaching middle and upper-income tax cuts together),³ and the White House has said it might be open to “compromise”⁴ — in other words, giving in to the Republicans’ demands without forcing them to defend their position to the American public.

This discussion about extending tax cuts to the rich is happening amidst talk of making cuts to all kinds of programs that help the economy and protect the most vulnerable people in our society — because “we can’t afford” those programs. The fact that the same politicians making that argument would support massive tax breaks for the wealthy shows that they’re not really concerned about cutting spending or reducing the deficit — rather, they appear to be interested in protecting the wealthy at the expense of everyone else.

The battle around these tax cuts is a perfect opportunity to point this out. If we learned anything from this year’s midterm elections, it’s that Democrats need be bolder in fighting for everyday people and exposing the hypocrisy and greed represented by Republicans, conservative Democrats, and the wealthy corporate interests that dominate our government.

If Democrats cave to Republicans on this issue — even though a large majority of people are against extending tax cuts for the rich — it will show that Democrats have taken exactly the wrong lesson from the election. And it will demonstrate again that neither party can be counted on to stand up for the needs of working people when it really counts.

Democrats who oppose these tax cuts for the rich need to know that we’ll have their back if they fight. And the conservative Democrats and Republicans who want to keep handing more and more of our country over to the rich — while the rest of us are struggling — need to know that they’ll be called out and face actual consequences come election time. Please join us in calling on Congress and the White House to reject tax cuts for the rich:

http://www.colorofchange.org/taxcuts/?id=2275-1238940

Thanks and Peace,

— James, Gabriel, William, Dani, Natasha, and the rest of the ColorOfChange.org team
November 23rd, 2010

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. You can contribute here:

http://act.colorofchange.org/go/5?akid=1727.1174326.dvaFbm&t=5

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Is YOUR life in the hands of Congress?

11/21/2010 Nativegrl77

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Just this month, a man drove barreling through the gates of a chemical plant in Texas, shouting, “We’re all gonna die!” before slamming his SUV into an 18-wheeler. On the very same day, one worker was killed and another injured by an explosion at a chemical plant in New York.

Chemical plants across the country present a real danger to nearby communities. In fact, millions of Americans are at risk. If an accident or a terrorist attack happens at any one of 484 chemical plants, 100,000 or more people would be at risk of injury or death.

Despite these clear and present dangers, Congress has so far failed to protect us. But right now, there’s a window of opportunity to pass legislation before the end of the year to make water treatment plants safer. The Department of Homeland Security, the Environmental Protection Agency, and more than 100 non-profits, including major unions, fire fighters, environmental and public health groups are all in favor of this legislation. But Congress needs to hear from YOU.

Safer alternatives are already being used in hundreds of plants. It’s up to all of us to convince Congress to protect us. Please, take just a second to tell your friends. The time you take could help save lives.

Thank you,

Rick Hind
Toxics Campaigner

~ my 2cents ...

TGIF …&some News

11/19/2010 Nativegrl77

The weather is bad but it’s autumn right…so the goal today is to get through the day, cozy up with a hottie or a hot beverage such as cocoa or whatever is your preferred drink, sit back watch tv, movies use wii when you get a chance.

President Obama is on the road getting the Peoples business done.

I am without a doubt tired of the BS coming from the right of center politicians, “the White media” and those folks in the military who seem to want us to stay longer in a War waged by the last guy and is being used against our President on a daily basis. The other News of military action is coming from the new Republican Congress stating we need to go to war with the cartel on the borders currently affected which seems like another open ended war. It just seems like the focus should be on the unemployed, jobs and our economy but hey that’s just my opinion. I will continue to call Boehner, McConnell, Cantor as well as Kyl to stop stalling the START treaty with the sole promise to ruin our President is offensive and un-American. Those folks that voted for the RTP which will put them in charge of the 112th House should be ashamed of themselves because nothing good is coming if anything for the next 2yrs.

I am biased but it just seems like no matter what President Obama does it just is not good enough and it would be great if people would remember where we were before he was sworn into office and what happened weeks after he took office -this chaos was not his but knowing it was there he still said yes i will try to get America back on track. People need to be reminded we got hit with a recession like no other since the great depression and while the Democratic Party has been trying to do the right thing unlike Republicans in Congress have decided that a Black man in the office of President is not acceptable among other things this notion is beyond offensive. It use to be funny but the midterm elections were very upsetting to think folks stayed home or decided to vote for Republicans which will become clearer as the weeks and months go by that they voted against his or her best interest and for a lack of a better comment crazy. I ask myself what are people afraid of almost on a daily basis then I turn on cable and hear the sky is falling rhetoric that they push on viewers who unfortunately are buying into the noise. Though we all might feel we need to get Wall Street out of the White House and it is understandable but given what happened in our journey into what could have been a depression, who better to actually get us out of the ditch sooner rather than later. If you watch and listen the fix was and still is complicated and probably continues to be in flux. Progress is not something to be afraid of and while folks have bought into the BS coming from the various right of center cable stations owned by the big Corporate entities giving money to Republicans we have this incredible chance to move our entire broken down system into the 21st Century make sure all our people have health care, equal rights, FairPay and lives worth living. The ugly fact is …given what we have all heard or seen on radio or cable the Republican Tea Party is only interested in getting those Bush tax cuts permanently without having paid for them when the house of Bush signed off of them in 2001/2003 though that part of it just does not get airtime -they were like the 2wars he waged were put into action without paying yet Republicans have decided to enforce paygo which should be used for the upper 2% Bush giveaways, even one of the architects of the two Bush tax cuts stated that those tax cuts were not good and though folks making millions and or billions want to believe otherwise there is an expiration date that should be kept. Americans have experienced a very contentious 20 + months watching the moves by the democrats to get us back on track while Republican continue to stall, block and say No whenever possible with what seems like ridiculous reasons and the agenda which was laid out long ago by —– with his comments about finding President Obama’s waterloo —at any cost. The cost apparently is the FairPay Act for women, DADT, the Dream Act as well as the START treaty and now after the midterm elections put more Republicans not only on the floor of Congress but there are quite a few Republican Governors the problem some of us left of center feel that people are misreading the elections in fact this was a midterm usually treated unfortunately as the no bid deal election and yes the gotv was good yet the numbers of African Americans were low, unfortunately women, lgbt decided to vote for Republicans and reports are that Latinos actually saved quite a few of our Democratic candidates. It goes without saying hopefully that the White House and leaders in Congress will acknowledge and act for their base now to pass legislation that will change our lives for the better. I have yet to accept this President leaned too far left when the whole idea is to do things that will help not just America but Americans, it also lends itself to what will happen in the future for the 2012 elections. I say move left and get things done because there is nothing to lose but much to gain if those moves make an incredible positive impact on the lives of Americans.

Other News …

Wesley Snipes order to surrender in tax case

TSA faces legal challenges

Democrats are fighting each other while quite a few are disrespecting President Obama with comments

Federal Judge pleads guilty to 2 drug charges

Bernanke fights back at Fed critics

Israel and US struggle over settlement pact

Settlement for Black and Native American farmers today

Most 9/11 first responders settle about 500 turned the offer on the law suit

Obama states NATO Leaders back him on the START treaty

CSPAN …