Tag Archives: United States

Trust me: it’s no fun being the bearer of bad news.

I recently told you that since the recession officially ended, women’s unemployment rates have actually increased. But that’s not the only grim reality: today the Census Bureau released new data, and NWLC’s analysis finds that record numbers of women are living in poverty — and extreme poverty.

WWW.NWLC.ORG

With two-thirds of women in the role of head of their household or a contributor to their family’s income, it’s more important than ever to make sure that unemployed women have a chance to get back to work. That’s why President Obama’s plan for job creation, submitted to Congress this week, has come at such a critical time for women and their families. Congress needs to act quickly on these proposals to address the immediate deficit facing this country — the jobs deficit. The numbers released today by the Census Bureau underscore the urgency.

Urge your Members of Congress to act on job creation NOW!

www.nwlc.org

Here are just a few important findings from the new data:

The rise in women living in poverty: Over 17 million women lived in poverty in 2010, including more than 7.5 million in extreme poverty, with an income below half of the federal poverty line — both all-time highs. The poverty rate among women rose to 14.5 percent in 2010 from 13.9 percent in 2009, the highest rate in 17 years. The poverty rate among single mothers climbed to 40.7 percent in 2010; more than half of all poor children lived with single mothers.
The wage gap: The wage gap for women remained as wide as in 2009. Women working full-time year-round were paid only 77 cents for every dollar paid to their male counterparts.
Uninsured women: The rate of women without health insurance rose to 19.7 percent in 2010 from 19.2 percent in 2009 — the highest rate in more than a decade. A total of 19 million women were uninsured in 2010 — an increase of more than 0.5 million women from the previous year.

You can get more details from our press release and check back later this week for our further analysis of what these new numbers mean for women and their families.

WWW.NWLC.ORG

Tell your Members of Congress to take action on the President’s proposals to create jobs, grow the economy, and alleviate hardship for women and families. And tell them not undercut job-creation measures by cutting funding for vital public services, which would destroy jobs and make it harder for struggling families to make ends meet.The President issued the call to action and submitted his plan to Congress. Now it’s up to Congress to act!Sincerely,

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

P.S. You can read about the important provisions for women in the President’s jobs plan here.

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$53 Billion For Iraq, $0 For America …Judd Legum, ThinkProgress

09/14/2011 Nativegrl77

For the past decade, Congress has had no problem spending over $120 billion to rebuild schools, roads, bridges and other essential infrastructure in Iraq and Afghanistan. Today, America‘s infrastructure is crumbling and millions of people are out of work. Contact your member of Congress and tell them it’s time to rebuild America.

It just takes a second using our form: http://www2.americanprogress.org/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=163

All the Republican leaders in Congress voted to approve massive amounts of funding to rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan without a penny in offsets. But now they are opposing President Obama’s proposal to rebuild America even though it’s fully paid for.

Contact your member today and demand we invest at least as much in our own communities as we did in Iraq and Afghanistan. And let us know what you hear back from your representatives.

Best,

Judd

Judd Legum
judd@thinkprogress.org
202-682-1611

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Lost, Abused And Neglected For A Profit …”Axel Caballero from Cuéntame”

09/14/2011 Nativegrl77

Lost, Abused And Neglected For A Profit

Guillermo Gomez-Sanchez is a 50 year old legal resident with a mental disability. In 2004 Gomez was detained because of a dispute at a grocery store over a bag of tomatoes.

Guillermo spent two years at a private CCA (Corrections Corporation of America) detention facility – the corporation neglected to report his medical condition.

Watch our video and take a stand with Cuéntame’s Immigrant For Sale documentary campaign today.

CCA profited close to $90,000 off of Gomez’ incarceration, and ensured greater profit by failing to disclose his mental disability effectively leaving Guillermo trapped for 2 years. In 2010 CCA CEO Damon T. Hininger received $3,266,387 in total compensation.

It’s time to put an end to the private prison racket. How many more are suffering lost in a system that values profit over justice? Join the discussion on Facebook today!

Yours,
Axel Caballero and the Cuéntame team.

I invite you to join Cuéntame on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

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Help Protect Consumers Against Wall Street Greed …Ben Betz, People For the American Way

09/13/2011 Nativegrl77

At the first Richard Cordray confirmation hearing last week, the two Republican senators (out of ten on the committee) who showed up indicated that their party had every intention of obstructing Cordray’s confirmation to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Many Republicans are insisting on structural changes to CFPB, which would render the bureau ineffective and allow greed and corruption to prevail over consumer protection, before they say they’ll even consider confirming a nominee for director.

One way or another, the corporate Right is determined to stop the CFPB from doing the important job it was created to do. We need to break through this obstruction!

Please join the nearly 20,000 activists who have already signed our petition urging the the confirmation of Richard Cordray!

www.pfaw.org
— Ben

Original Message:

Tell the Senate: Give the CFPB the authority to protect consumers! Confirm Richard Cordray as CFPB director!

WWW.PFAW.ORG

Dear PFAW supporter,

Today, the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs is holding a hearing on the nomination of Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). It’s the beginning of what will be a very big fight.

Wall Street and Republicans don’t want CFPB oversight and have made clear their intentions to sabotage this important agency in any way to prevent it from protecting consumers. Since the CFPB requires a permanent director in order to operate with full authority, Senate Republicans see defeating the nomination of Richard Cordray as priority #1 in crippling the Bureau.

Please sign our emergency petition to CONFIRM RICHARD CORDRAY now.

We need to keep significant pressure on Senate Democrats to stand unified and use every tool they can to confirm Cordray. And we need to keep grassroots pressure on Republicans to challenge the financial industry’s iron grip on their party and do the right thing for American consumers.

Cordray was picked by Professor Elizabeth Warren to be one of her top deputies in setting up the CFPB. As Ohio’s attorney general, Cordray earned a reputation of being tough on the financial industry. He was among the first attorneys general to take action in the nationwide foreclosure investigation into the mishandling of paperwork and successfully sued AIG, exposing banks’ use of hidden fees and other consumer exploitations.

Urge your senators to stand up for consumers and CONFIRM RICHARD CORDRAY.

After you sign the petition, please call your senators’ office to back up the message.

www.pfaw.org

This will be a sustained campaign that could call for various actions and constituent contacts, but the petition is the way we want to register support for Cordray first and foremost. If we can get enough Americans to sign, we’ll be able to make a splash on Capitol Hill when we deliver the signatures to the Senate.

Help us get the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau working! Help to confirm Richard Cordray as its director. www.pfaw.org

— Ben Betz, Online Strategy Manager

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Some FADs aren’t meant to last … Casson Trenor, Greenpeace

09/13/2011 Nativegrl77

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Thousands of sharks, rays, billfish, and other animals die needlessly every year at the hands of the tuna industry.¹

The industry cuts corners out on the water by employing fishing methods that are absolutely barbaric. Among these methods, fish aggregating devices (FADs) are one of the worst.

FADs are basically floating objects left out on the water. They attract all sorts of things, including sharks, and when the ship returns it scoops up everything around the FAD with a net.² Hardly anything survives and they simply toss everything other than tuna-live or dead- back into the ocean.

That’s no way to do business. We have a plan to save these sharks and all the other marine life that gets trapped in FADs, but we have to act now while we have the canned tuna industry’s attention.

To do that we urgently need your financial support to increase the public outcry against deadly tuna fishing methods to convince the industry to listen to consumers and move to sustainable practices. Please make a donation today and help us save the oceans and our environment.

www.greenpeaceusa.org

We have already gotten the industry’s attention with our animated video, and more than 50,000 of you have signed on to a letter demanding that one tuna industry giant, Chicken of the Sea, reform their destructive fishing practices. Their response has been to go on the attack using an expensive PR agency to discredit Greenpeace and people like you who care about the oceans.

We’re not going to let the personal attacks and PR spin cover up the truth.

Help us fight back! We need to raise $60,000 by September 15th. This cannot wait, we must continue to pressure the tuna industry while we have their attention. Please make a donation today and help us save the oceans.

www.greenpeaceusa.org

The United States is the largest market for canned tuna in the world. And while we will continue to work with retailers to make a commitment to sustainable tuna, we will also kick off a publicly visible campaign to garner media attention and further our research of canned tuna products. With your help, we can change the industry and save these critical species before it’s too late.

You know it’s possible. We’ve been fighting together to protect our oceans for years and have been winning. The tuna industries’ lies and PR campaigns aren’t going to stop us from doing the right thing.

Thank you for all your support,

Casson Trenor
Senior Markets Campaigner