Tag Archives: United States

Monsanto’s advertisements tell a wonderful story, but unfortunately, there’s a catch: Their claims are often exaggerated, misleading, or downright false. Help us share the other side of the story.

We’re Telling Another Side to Monsanto’s Story

Right now, the Monsanto Company is spending millions of dollars on ad campaigns and lobbying to convince you, and decision makers in Washington, that it is “improving” agriculture. UCS is setting the record straight—and we need your help.
We’re launching our own set of ads to tell another side to this story. Our tagline? Monsanto is failing to improve agriculture.
Our analysis has found that Monsanto’s pesticide-promoting, genetically engineered approach has led to new agricultural problems while doing little to feed hungry people and help farmers cope with drought. We’ve also shown that modern, science-based plant breeding and farming practices can achieve such goals more cost effectively than genetically engineered seeds.
While we don’t have the same advertising budget as Monsanto, we do have dedicated supporters like you who value agricultural policies based on objective, science-based analysis over profit-driven attempts to maintain the status quo.
Will you join us in fighting back against Monsanto’s ad campaign by sharing our ads on Twitter and Facebook? (And if you’re not on Twitter or Facebook, you can help spread the word here.)

Sincerely,

Jenn Yates National Field Organizer

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It’s an American Classic – Our Social Security System

08/15/2012 Nativegrl77

What’s an American classic? Something that stays fresh and wonderful generation after generation. Something that says, “This is America.” Like ice cream cones. The Statue of Liberty. Sunday drives. The March on Washington and “I have a dream.” I Love Lucy.And our Social Security system.

Social Security - It's An American Classic!

Celebrate Social Security’s birthday. Share this on:

On this date in 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act. On its 77th birthday, we hail Social Security as an American classic! Why?

Social Security has brought Americans together across generations. Working together, we’ve built a system that provides income and security for workers and their families when they need it — when income is lost due to retirement, disability, or death.
For three-quarters of a century, through wars, recessions, natural disasters — and stock market crashes — Social Security has made every payment, on time and in full.
Social Security is the foundation of retirement security for most Americans — especially women. Without income from Social Security, half of women 65 and older would be poor.
Social Security is a family insurance plan that protects young workers, their spouses, and their children. More than 3.2 million children rely on Social Security.

And Social Security is still going strong! Even with no changes, it can pay 100 percent of promised benefits for the next 20 years, and 75 percent of promised benefits after that. Yes, there’s a long-term shortfall. But to put it in perspective: eliminating the entire 75-year shortfall costs about as much as extending the Bush-era tax cuts for the richest two percent.
Social Security will only turn 77 once! To celebrate this American classic you can:

Share the image on Facebook
Share on Twitter
Share on Pinterest
Or, forward this email to your friends, family, and co-workers.

When he signed the Social Security Act, President Roosevelt said that this law “represents a cornerstone in a structure which is being built but is by no means complete.” Since 1935 Americans have expanded and improved this structure, providing benefits for widows and children, workers with disabilities, benefits for divorced spouses (initially, after a 20-year marriage, later reduced to 10 years), eliminating sex discrimination in the award of benefits, and providing automatic cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs) that help protect the value of Social Security benefits from eroding over time.
We need your help to protect and strengthen Social Security! Later this year, Congress will make far-reaching budget decisions — and cuts to Social Security benefits, particularly by reducing annual cost-of-living adjustments, are reportedly on the table. After Congress returns, we’ll keep you posted and make it easy for you to take action to protect Social Security. In addition, the policy makers we choose in November will make important decisions about the future of our Social Security system. So be sure you’re registered to vote!
Sincerely,

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

P.S. Want to learn more about what Social Security means to women and families in your state? Check out our state-by-state fact sheets!

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Worker and Economic Rights at Risk

08/13/2012 Nativegrl77

While Mitt Romney announces Rep. Paul Ryan as his vice presidential pick today, a politician who will tout the same failed policies that have benefited only their deep-pocketed donors, tens of thousands of working families will launch a campaign to demand elected leaders support an agenda that gives economic rights for all.

The rally for the middle class today is about people, not secret money. It stands for everyone, not just Wall Street. We’re fighting for our economic rights, for a more secure future for all of us.

Click here to sign your name in support of working families and real economic justice for the middle class.

The demand is simple. All of us should have a right to full employment and a living wage, full participation in the electoral process, a voice at work, quality education and a secure, healthy future.

All of these rights are vital to getting our country back on track and making it work for everyone, not just the Mitt Romneys and Paul Ryans of the world. But if you can’t be in Philly today, you still can get involved.

With the election only three months away, we need to start working together to hold politicians accountable for their votes on these issues and make sure they listen to us after November. Today, Mitt Romney doubled down on his drive to destroy the middle class by selecting Paul Ryan, someone who wants to end Medicare as we know it, kill jobs for working families, and give tax breaks to the rich.

If you believe everyone should have basic economic rights, show your support here by clicking on the link and tell us what issues matter most as we head into Election Day: http://go.aflcio.org/2ndBillofRights.

Thank you for everything you do.

In Solidarity,

Nicole Aro
Deputy Director
Digital Strategies, AFL-CIO

P.S. You can follow today’s event in Philly live at the Workers Stand for America website.

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Support Congressman Keith Ellison

08/10/2012 Nativegrl77

Thomas Jefferson’s Koran.

Congressman Keith Ellison started life outside the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant English-Speaking Straight mainstream. He is African-American, and he was raised as a Catholic.

Many people who find themselves out of the mainstream swim desperately toward it. They seek the shelter and comfort of conformity.
Not Keith.

At the age of 19, Keith Ellison converted to Islam. He has raised his four children within Islam. He explained it this way: “When I looked at my spiritual life, and I looked at what might inform social change and justice in society . . . I found Islam.”

Converting to Islam is perhaps not the best way to further political aspirations in America today. But in Keith Ellison’s case, it shows the courage of his convictions.

When Keith Ellison was sworn into Congress, he took the oath of office with his hand on the Koran – specifically, Thomas Jefferson’s personal copy of the Koran. And remember, he’s a Muslim; what did you expect him to put under his hand, “Green Eggs and Ham“? (That would definitely not be halal.)

And that’s when the hating started. The poorly-named Congressman Virgil Goode from Virginia bleated: “If American citizens don’t wake up and adopt the Virgil Goode position on immigration there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office, and demanding the use of the Koran.” It’s interesting to think about what kind of immigration policy would have kept Keith Ellison’s ancestors out, since they arrived in America in chains.

Glenn Beck, then on CNN, invited Keith Ellison on his show, and asked this not-so-perspicacious “question”: “Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies.” Keith responded with a quiet dignity utterly foreign to that show: “I have a deep love and affection for my country.”

Think about how much easier it would have been for Keith Ellison to change his religion not to Islam, but to Protestantism, and to go along, and to get along, and to try to fit in. But that just wouldn’t be Keith Ellison. He draws his strength, and his courage, from not being just like everyone else.

Keith Ellison understands that the things that make us special are not the things that make us the same – they’re the things that make us different. That our differences are not something to overcome, or even to tolerate, but something to cherish.

Keith Ellison is facing a primary next Tuesday. I hope that you will support his campaign. Because the mere existence of Congressman Keith Ellison represents a very important principle:

E Pluribus Unum.

Courage,

Alan Grayson

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Center for American Progress

08/10/2012 Nativegrl77

August 10, 2012| View Online

Soot Pollution 101

What You Need to Know and How You Can Help Prevent It
By Jackie Weidman, Susannah Marshall


	Ask the Expert: How Reducing Soot Pollution Can Save Lives Dr. Christopher Lillis explains why soot is hazardous to our public health, how it affects regular people and the benefits of reducing soot pollution through new Environmental Protection Agency regulations. Watch the video here.