Tag Archives: United States

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The weekly Share


 

Want to hear about it?

ATTENTION: We Know A Way To Add $1.5 Trillion To The U.S. Economy
She’s not afraid to spell out the kind of people we are (and aren’t). WATCH:

Elizabeth Warren Isn’t Going To Sit Back While They Try To Cut Benefits For Folks Like Her Aunt Bea
Well, now we really know how he really feels. WATCH:

Paul Ryan Casually Drops This Slur And Shows The GOP’s Effort To ‘Reach Out’ Is B.S.
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Every 11 hours


NARAL Pro-Choice America

Ilyse G. Hogue President, NARAL Pro-Choice America

Every 11 hours we move closer and closer to a world without the rights we’ve fought so hard to preserve.

That’s because every 11 hours, another piece of anti-choice legislation is introduced somewhere in America. Nearly 300 anti-choice legislative attacks have been introduced in Congress and in states across the country this year — and the year isn’t even half over. That’s more than two anti-choice bills for every single day of the year so far.

But, before the next anti-choice legislative attack is introduced, you have time to make a difference by helping NARAL Pro-Choice America track and defeat anti-choice legislation — protecting women’s reproductive rights across the country.

Please make an urgent contribution to NARAL Pro-Choice America before another 11 hours pass.

We’re watching every single one of these legislative attacks. We’re fighting them in Congress. We’re fighting them in the states. We’re fighting for women. But the clock is ticking.

Before extreme anti-choice politicians have time to make another move, please stand with us.

Together, we can make choice real for all women. Are you with us? Tick, tock, tick, tock …

Ilyse G. Hogue President, NARAL Pro-Choice America
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CUNY Honors The Internatio​nal Youth Associatio​n (TIYA)


TBI_Header_(1).jpg

The Black Institute’s (TBI) subsidiary organization The International Youth Association (TIYA) will be honored at CUNY’s first annual Murphy Institute Scholarship fundraiser. The Co-Founders Alden Nesbit and Mikhel Crinchlow will participate in a pre-event symposium where they will present their organizing plan for the immigration reform campaign as well as future campaign plans.

CUNYhonorsTIYA1.jpg Thursday, May 16, 2013 Click here to go to the event page.

For years several grassroots black-immigrant rights groups have been advocating for immigration reforms pertaining to Caribbean and African communities including family reunification, a pathway to citizenship for temporary status holders and affordable fines and fees associated with new citizenship. The International Youth Association (TIYA) has been instrumental in organizing the youth effort to be heard in the debate and has called for widespread changes to be made to the current Immigration Reform compromise.

This awards ceremony and symposium is a celebration of TIYA’s work but there is still so much more work to be done. TIYA believes our communities will not thrive under the current compromise because of the DREAM Act provision, backlog and triggers, and the elimination of the Diversity Visa Program. This first attempt at Comprehensive Immigration Reform is a valiant effort. But, it is clear that there is a lot of work ahead. Immigration Reform cannot be comprehensive nor common sense if it is exclusive and unfair.

Goals of The International Youth Association for the Outcome of Comprehensive Immigration Reform:

  • Comprehensive reform of Immigration policy to include protections for recruited immigrant professionals and their children (e,g, an expedited  pathway to Green Card status, a special category that includes recruited professionals from non-STEM disciplines, etc.).
  • Fulfill the promises of citizenship, education and job opportunity to recruited immigrant professionals and their families, including “aged-out” immigrant children.
  • End the criminalization and detention of immigrants, and implement safeguards to protect against racial profiling and ensure due process for all immigrants.
  • Reunite families torn apart by current Immigration policy by expanding benefits to include extended family, and altering the current DACA guidelines to allow children up to the age of 20 to enter the US.
  • Lessen the economic burden caused by current Immigration policy by investing resources and decreasing processing fees.
  • Expand the focus of the Immigration reform discourse to include the needs of Black immigrants and their children, who are often marginalized and ignored. This includes amending the language of the DREAM act to include children of immigrant professionals, and allowing the voices of Black immigrants to be heard.

Please help support our Organizing and Immigration Work. The gift that you give today will help our small but effective staff work to shed light on the issues that plague Black communities; empowering our men, women and children to speak out against injustice, maltreatment, ineffective government, poor public policy, inadequate and inefficient social service programs, and poor working conditions. Any amount you can give will help further our mission.

Please make a tax deductible donation or become a monthly Sustainer TODAY.

The Black Institute http://www.theblackinstitute.org/

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Obsessed


By ThinkProgress War Room

37th Time’s the Charm?

Tomorrow, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives will once again vote to repeal Obamacare. If this sounds familiar it is because it is the 37th time — yes, that’s 3-7 — that House Republicans have tried to repeal Obamacare.

This obsession has not come for free, either in terms of time nor money. One estimate pegs the cost to taxpayers of these 37 repeal attempts at some $55 MILLION. What could we do with that same $55 MILLION? Here’s four ideas:

1. Restore cuts from sequestration to Title X family planning programs and Title V maternal and child health services. The National Women’s Law Center calculates that a 5 percent cut to the budgets of each program will reduce them by $15 million and $32.5 million, respectively. Rather than voting to repeal a bill that expands women’s access to preventative services, the House could use the money to expand them.

2. Double the Department of Justice’s budget for sexual assault services, which has currently been authorized a $50 million budget. The program gives money to states so that they can support rape crisis centers and other nongovernmental organizations that provide direct intervention, core services, and other assistance to the victims of sexual assault. Current funding is inadequate, as some states receive less than $300,000 and many programs lack the resources to meet victims’ needs.

3. Grant a request for $50 million to train 5,000 new mental health professionals as part of a new initiative to expand mental health treatment and prevention services. This proposal came in the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting to address gaps in the mental health system.

4. Help states implement paid leave policies. President Obama included a $50 million State Paid Leave Fund in his 2011 budget to provide start-up support for states that want to enact paid leave for workers. More than 40 percent of workers don’t have access to paid sick leave, heading to work when they or their family members experience an illness, but this funding could help give them a better option.

In terms of time, this calculation from the New York Times shows why this is one of the most unproductive Congresses in history:

That means that since 2011, Republicans have spent no less than 15 percent of their time on the House floor on repeal in some way.

The real cost, of course, comes in terms of the more than 100 MILLION Americans who would be harmed by the GOP’s obsession with taking away their health care benefits, including:

  • 129 MILLION Americans with pre-existing conditions who will once again be at the mercy of the insurance companies.
  • 105 MILLION Americans would see lifetime limits on what their insurance company has to cover, which Obamacare banned, put back in place.
  • 71 MILLION Americans, including 34 MILLION seniors, who are currently eligible for no-cost preventive care, including mammograms and birth control.
  • 18 MILLION middle-class Americans who will receive a tax credit averaging $4,000 a year starting next year.
  • 17 MILLION children with pre-existing conditions who today, as we speak, cannot be denied coverage.
  • 13 MILLION consumers who received more than $1 BILLION in rebates last year because of an Obamacare rule requiring insurers to spend 80 percent of premiums on actual medical care would no longer be eligible for such rebates because insurers would no longer be held to such a standard.
  • 6 MILLION young adults who are currently able to stay on their parents’ insurance — 3.1 MILLION of whom were previously uninsured.
  • 6 MILLION seniors who are receiving discounts — more than $6 BILLION worth so far — on their prescription drugs thanks to Obamacare.

In addition, repealing Obamacare would increase the deficit by more than $100 BILLION over the next ten years and eliminate new resources to fight fraud. These fraud fighting efforts have recouped $4.2 BILLION just this past fiscal year from those seeking to defraud seniors and taxpayers.

BOTTOM LINE: The GOP’s obsession with taking away health care benefits from more than 100 MILLION Americans is a waste of time, a waste of money, and harmful to the tens of millions of Americans already benefiting from Obamacare.