Orcas Island07/11/2014 – Inslee departs for Farnborough International Air Show
We’re gearing up for a fight this fall in Washington state.
Nine out of 10 Americans support expanding background checks. It’s the right thing to do. But because some members of Congress refuse to stand up to the gun lobby, OFA supporters are taking the fight to the state and local level wherever we can make real progress.
OFA-Washington volunteers are part of a progressive coalition that helped gather enough signatures to put Initiative 594 on the ballot this November, a common-sense gun violence prevention measure to expand background checks on gun sales.
Folks on the ground have been building momentum on this issue for months, and that’s huge — but it’s just the start.
Right now, we stand a real chance to make progress in Washington state, in spite of the powerful and well-funded special interests. The other side is banking on the hope that you won’t be coming out to support this, so we’re asking folks to simply make a pledge to vote for Initiative 594 this November to make sure this initiative passes.
We’re in for a showdown on this one — the gun lobby has introduced their own initiative that would roll back background checks to the federal minimum, reversing the progress we’ve already seen on this issue in Washington.
Let’s be clear: Initiative 594 shouldn’t be controversial — it’s a logical extension of the background check law currently in place. Right now, all retail gun dealers must run a simple background screening on folks looking to purchase guns.
But right now Washingtonians can buy guns at gun shows, online, or in private transactions with no background check of any kind.
Initiative 594 would close those loopholes and extend the same rule to all gun purchases. It’s common sense, and it’s something that most Washingtonians support.
You know as well as I do that we’re up against powerful, well-funded interests here. It’s going to take everyone who cares about this issue to do their part.
This is about keeping our families and communities safe — add your name today and pledge to vote for Initiative 594:
Thanks,
Kelly
Kelly Byrne
National Issues Campaign Manager
Organizing for Action
We talk a lot about the grave problem of inequality and how our economy is not working for most Americans. One of the causes of this big problem is that corporations and the wealthiest are taking advantage of the system, exploiting tax loopholes, and rigging the game to benefit themselves, often at the expense of everyone else. The latest tax-dodging tactic that some corporations are considering using is a perfect example of this rigged system–and demonstrates why we need our legislators to take decisive action to stop it.
What Is The Problem?
A loophole in the tax code essentially allows a corporation to renounce its corporate citizenship in the United States, move its address overseas by merging with a foreign company, and dodge its U.S tax obligations by paying most of its taxes to a foreign government with lower tax rates than the U.S. The process takes place primarily on paper — most corporate operations remain here. The corporations that do this want all the benefits of being an American company without paying their fair share of taxes. That makes the rest of us pick up the tab.
The practice has become known as “inversion.” But what it really amounts to is desertion. And it could cost Americans tens of billions of dollars.
Who Is Taking Advantage?
There are 47 firms in the last decade that have exploited this loophole, according to new data compiled by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. But it’s a hot topic again because at least a dozen U.S. firms are currently considering taking advantage of it.
One of those corporations is Walgreen. The company has always prided itself on being America’s go-to pharmacy: from 1993 to 2006, it had the slogans “The Pharmacy America Trusts” and “The Brand America Trusts.” A biography of the company is entitled, “America’s Corner Store: Walgreen’s Prescription For Success.” Walgreen chief executive Gregory D. Wasson has said the company is “proud of our Illinois heritage.”
At the same time, Walgreen is currently considering merging with European drugstore chain Alliance Boots and move to Switzerland as part of a plan to dodge up to $4 billion in U.S taxes. The company that gets almost a quarter of its $72 billion in revenue directly from the government through Medicare and Medicaid is trying to reap even more profits while leaving taxpayers holding the bag.
Walgreen isn’t the only one. Pfizer, the pharmaceutical company, tried merging with the smaller U.K.-based AstraZeneca earlier this year and switch its address, where the tax rate is lower. It was estimated the move would save them at least $1 billion a year in tax obligations to the U.S. (the deal ultimately didn’t go through). Medtronic, a medical device company, plans to move its corporate address to Ireland, a tax haven, to avoid paying U.S. taxes on $14 billion. Chiquita, the banana distributor, is also heading to Ireland after acquiring Fyffes. These tax dodges, as Fortune magazine calls them in this week’s issue, are “positively un-American.”
What Can Be Done?
President Barack Obama’s 2015 budget proposes making these corporate desertions more difficult by raising the minimum levels of foreign ownership required to 50 percent (currently it is just 20 percent), which means that U.S. corporations could not move their address abroad unless they actually ceded a controlling interest to foreign owners. Congressional Democrats have made similar proposals. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew recently called for more “economic patriotism” and urged Congress to “enact legislation immediately” to close the loophole. Leaders on both sides of the aisle want comprehensive tax reform, but finding common ground in the current Congress could take a while. The simple fact is that as more and more companies exploit this loophole, a solution for this problem is needed right away–and Congress has the power the solve it.
BOTTOM LINE: More and more corporations are taking advantage of a tax loophole that helps their bottom line while costing American taxpayers billions every year. These companies want to continue to take advantage of the things that make the U.S. the best place in the world to do business, while at the same time pay less than their fair share by moving their corporate addresses overseas. That desertion is unfair, unpatriotic, and has got to change.
“This is not some distant problem of the future. This is a problem that is affecting Americans right now.”
These were the words of President Obama on Tuesday as his administration released the National Climate Assessment, a landmark report written by over 250 scientists and government officials that confirms something we’ve known for a while: Man-made climate change is real and is already altering our lives and our planet.
But this report doesn’t just warn us about the problems facing our planet in general — it specifically warns that Washington is now facing greater wildfire risks, a reduced water supply, and significant damage to our shellfish industry due to ocean acidification.
We’ve heard warnings like these for far too long, yet failed to act. But as I said on Tuesday, “This challenge is significant, but it is matched by tremendous opportunities.” That’s why, last week, I announced an executive order to limit carbon pollution and asked you to help stop climate change before it’s too late.
Thousands of Washingtonians have heeded the call and signed a petition, in just the last week, to declare that they support this executive order and demand bold action to address the climate crisis.
As our movement grows stronger, we know the opposition is watching. With the release of Tuesday’s report, there should be no doubt that now is the time to join us, and show them that we’re not backing down.
Very truly yours,
Jay Inslee
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 As more innocent children are killed in a new round of violence in Israel-Palestine, it’s time to take definitive non-violent action to end this nightmare. Our governments and companies aid, trade and invest in the status quo. If we call on key businesses to stop financing those responsible,, we can help make the cost of conflict too high to bear — join the call:
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A new round of violence in Israel-Palestine has already killed over 180 people including 36 children. It’s not enough just to call for another ceasefire. We need to end this decades-long nightmare by taking definitive non-violent action.
Our governments have failed — while they have talked peace and passed UN resolutions, they and our companies have continued to aid, trade and invest in the violent status quo. The only way to stop this hellish cycle of Israel annexing Palestinian lands, daily collective punishment of innocent Palestinian families, Hamas firing rockets, and Israel bombing Gaza is to make the economic cost of this conflict too high to bear.
We know it works — when EU countries just advised their companies not to invest in the illegal Israeli settlements it caused an earthquake in the cabinet, and when citizens successfully persuaded a Dutch pension fund, PGGM, to withdraw, it caused a Foreign Ministry internal crisis.
This can save lives, not just now, but for years to come. History tells us that raising the financial cost of oppression can pave a path to peace. Click to call on key businesses to uphold the law and stop financing the violence — if we all take smart action now and turn up the heat, we can turn the calculation of the extremists and warmongers profiting from this misery upside down:
https://secure.avaaz.org/en/gaza_this_is_how_it_ends_31/?biEWLbb&v=42506
In the last five weeks three Israeli teenagers were murdered in the West Bank, a Palestinian boy was burnt alive, an American kid was brutally beaten up by Israeli police, 200 Palestinian kids are behind bars, and now 36 Gazan kids have died in Israeli air strikes. This is not the “middle east conflict”, it’s becoming a war on children and innocents.And we are becoming numb to this global shame.
The media makes out like this is an intractable conflict between two equal warring parties, but it is not. Palestinian extremists’ senseless attacks on innocent civilians must be condemned and ended but the root of the conflict lies elsewhere — in the historic dispossession of the Palestinian people. Israel occupies, colonizes, raids, and controls the water, the trade, and the borders of a legally free and sovereign nation that has been recognised by the United Nations, and its military is one of the most powerful in the world. In Gaza, Israel has created the largest open-air prison in the world, and then blockaded it. Now as bombs fall, the families literally have no way to get out.
These are war crimes and we wouldn’t accept that anywhere else. Half a century ago Israel and its Arab neighbours went to war and Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza. Occupying territory after war happens all the time. But no military occupation should turn into a decades-long tyranny which only fuels and benefits extremists who use terror to target the innocent. And who suffers? The majority of loving families on both sides that just want freedom and peace.
Calling for companies to withdraw investments from Israel can seem to unfairly punish Israel’s people. But we know that the majority of Israelis want peace and security, just like their Palestinian neighbours. And yet their government pushes war and violence that big tech and weapons corporations profit from while everyday citizens on both sides suffer. Like extremists in Hamas, Israel’s government has its own extremists that will only be silenced by seeing the financial costs to their call for war.
British G4S provides extensive security equipment that runs the Israeli occupation. Huge European funds like the Netherlands’ ABP invest in Israeli banks that fund Israel’s colonisation of Palestine. France’s Veolia builds and runs transport for Israeli setters illegally living on Palestinian lands, sustaining a system of segregation. Massive banks like Barclays invest in suppliers of Israeli arms and other occupation businesses. And Caterpillar provides bulldozers that are used to demolish Palestinian homes and farms. If we can create the biggest global call ever to get these companies to pull out, we will show clearly the world will no longer be complicit in this bloodshed. The Palestinian people are calling on the world to support this path and progressive Israelis support it too. Let’s join them:
https://secure.avaaz.org/en/gaza_this_is_how_it_ends_31/?biEWLbb&v=42506
Our community has worked to bring peace, hope, and change to some of the world’s toughest conflicts, and often that means taking difficult positions to address the root cause. For years our community has looked for a political solution to this nightmare, but with this new round of horror unfolding in Gaza, the time has come to turn to sanctions and disinvestment to finally help end the horror for Israelis and Palestinians.
With hope and determination,
Alice, Fadi, Ben, Laila, Anna, Jo, Nell and the entire Avaaz team
MORE INFORMATION:
Israel-Gaza conflict: 80 per cent of Palestinians killed by Israeli strikes are civilians, UN report says (The Independent)
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israelgaza-conflict-80-per-cent-of-palestinians-killed-by-israeli-strikes-are-civilians-un-report-says-9606397.html
These are the names of 21 children killed in Gaza (Washington Post)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/07/09/these-are-the-names-of-13-children-kill…
Palestinians: Most Gaza dead are children, women, elderly (Haaretz)
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.604443
UN independent expert calls for boycott of businesses profiting from Israeli settlements (UN)
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=43376#.U7_ynqhMrRI
12 more EU countries warn against trade with Israeli settlements (Haaretz)
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.603030
Caught on Tape: US Teen Allegedly Beaten by Israeli Police (ABC News)
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/caught-tape-us-teen-tariq-abu-khdeir-allegedly-24449873
Israelis, Palestinians Pro Peace Process, but Not Hopeful (Gallup)
http://www.gallup.com/poll/161456/israelis-palestinians-pro-peace-process-not-hopeful.aspx
Exposing the Israeli Occupation Industry
http://www.whoprofits.org/
Be a Seed for Change 
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