Tag Archives: Van Jones

The USDA wants to cut corners and risk putting unsafe chicken on the market and on your kitchen table with their new “dirty chicken” rule—all to save a quick buck. Meanwhile, billionaires and corporations are getting tax breaks. It’s shocking.

Click here now to sign the petition against the “dirty chicken” rule.

I hope you don’t mind a little salmonella and E. coli in your chicken. Because if the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) gets its way, chicken contaminated with disease, feathers and other really disgusting stuff could be on its way to your dinner plate within the year.

We count on USDA inspectors to help us keep our families safe and healthy. But the USDA wants to save money by throwing about 1,000 of them out of work.

Hurry: Sign our petition against the “dirty chicken” rule today, and tell the USDA inspectors they can count on us, too.

About 3,000 Americans die from food-borne illnesses each year. But instead of doing more to protect our families, the USDA is taking budget cuts out on the inspectors we need. Not only would about 1,000 get the boot—the inspectors who keep their jobs would be told to inspect 175 chickens per minute. That’s more than three chickens per second!

Working people like us, and like USDA inspectors, take pride in our work. We work hard and make a difference. USDA’s “dirty chicken” rule would take that away while endangering our families.

Sign the petition against the “dirty chicken” rule TODAY.

This week, food inspection workers (members of the AFGE) rallied outside the
USDA to oppose this frightening measure—but a rally alone won’t stop this plan. We need massive public pressure.

This new inspection system for poultry slaughter plants is another example of attacks on everyday working people while billionaires and corporations are getting tax breaks. And this time, it’s putting our kids and families at risk while taking jobs away from people we count on. It’s shocking.

Tell the USDA you won’t settle for dirty chicken. Sign the petition today.

Only by standing together can we save the jobs of hundreds of federal workers who we count on to protect our families.

Thanks for the work you do.

In solidarity,

Manny Herrmann
Online Mobilization Coordinator, AFL-CIO

P.S. In his new book, Rebuild the Dream, Van Jones, a former Obama White House adviser on green jobs and an award-winning human rights activist, maps out how to turn Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s and the American Dream into reality.

Click here to learn more and order your copy.

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Don’t kill the Dream

08/12/2011 Nativegrl77

We all want to live the American Dream of getting a good education, making a better life for our kids, and having a secure retirement. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Pell Grants — these are basic programs that built the middle class and make it possible for us live that dream. But Republicans want to destroy the middle class and kill the American Dream for millions of families.

We need to create a clean energy economy, not give away billion-dollar subsidies to big oil companies. We need to ensure access to healthcare for everyone, not eliminate the most successful health programs in our country’s history. We need to invest in America’s future, not extend tax cuts for the super rich.

We can stop Republicans from dismantling the middle class and killing the dream. Please join Van Jones on DFA Live next Thursday, August 18, at 9 p.m. Eastern Time to learn how.

Thank you for all that you do.

-Levana

Levana Layendecker, Communications Director
Democracy for America

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Rebuild the Dream …

07/07/2011 Nativegrl77

I trust my neighbors more than any Wall Street bank, hedge fund, or oil company. I think we all do.

But we keep letting the banks and multinational corporations, and their high-priced lobbyists, call the shots in our economy.

You know what? I think they’re doing a terrible job. Now it’s time for us, the American people, to come up with our own vision.

So today we’re launching a new effort. And we need your help.

Our goal is to help create a “Contract for the American Dream“—a people-powered plan for creating an economy that works for ALL of us.

When it is completed, this document will be very special. For one thing: thousands of us will have created it TOGETHER, as a community of friends and neighbors.

You are an important part of this community, and you have a key role to play in this effort:helping to choose the best ideas for fixing our economy.

It won’t take long, and you don’t need to be an expert. Just visit our new site and rate which ideas you think will make a real difference. We have some great ideas from progressive leaders. And you can add your own, too. No idea is too big or too small, too tame or too out there. We need your brain engaged on this.
To help get started, former Labor Secretary Robert Reich made a short video about how we can invest in creating more good jobs.
Check it out, then help rate some proposals!

We’re building this Contract with a deep belief that folks like us—all across America—have enough wisdom and common sense to come up with workable solutions to our nation’s problems. By putting our heads together, and combining our best thinking on a national basis, we believe we can craft a plan that unites our struggles for economic fairness and opportunity.

The key to this idea working is simple: we need as many people as possible to participate. We need you to submit ideas and to give feedback. The more people who join in to help craft the Contract, the better it’s going to be.

This week we’re going to focus on four areas. We are starting today with good jobs. Over the coming days, we’ll look for solutions to problems in other areas—from education, to labor rights, to taxes.

Then, on July 16 and 17, thousands of Americans are going to gather in living rooms, community centers, and church basements across the country. In just ten days, people will discuss and help sort the top ideas we have generated together. Between now and then, it’s up to all of us to feed the very best, most creative, most inspiring ideas into the conversations.

Can you help right now—by rating ideas and submitting your own?

http://www.moveon.org

Thanks for all you do.

–Van Jones

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Emergency Call to Action

02/23/2011 Nativegrl77

Moments like these don’t come along often.

We’re helping lead an emergency call for rallies in every state capital this Saturday at noon to stand in solidarity with the workers of Wisconsin. Clicking below will add your name to the call for action, then you can help get the word out:

http://pol.moveon.org/callforaction/o.pl?id=26218-9640874-Qhzit5x&t=2

Newly-elected Tea Party governor Scott Walker thought he could slash the Wisconsin state budget and dismantle 50 years of workers’ rights without a fight, but boy was he wrong.

Hundreds of thousands of regular Wisconsinites—teachers, firefighters, police officers, students—have taken to the streets of Madison. They’ve occupied the capitol building for the last 7 days and nights.

But this isn’t just about Wisconsin. In state capitals across the country, and in Washington, D.C., Republicans are using the wrecked economy as an excuse to slash vital programs and hurt workers. The American Dream itself is under attack.

So we’re helping lead an emergency call for rallies in every state capital this Saturday at noon to support folks in Wisconsin and oppose these attacks, wherever they occur.

We have only 4 days to organize, so we’re trying something unusual—asking thousands of individuals and local groups to add their names to this call to action. Will you share the call with your personal network—plus get any groups you’re part of to sign on? Clicking here will add your name:

Start getting the word out about this Saturday’s rallies http://pol.moveon.org/callforaction/o.pl?id=26218-9640874-Qhzit5x&t=3

We’re finalizing the details and we’ll get back to you to sign up soon, but we have to start spreading the word right now if Saturday is going to be huge.

Here’s the call to action:

50-State Mobilization to Save the American Dream

Calling all students, teachers, union members, workers, patriots, public servants, unemployed folks, progressives, and people of conscience:

In Wisconsin and around our country, the American Dream is under fierce attack. Instead of creating jobs, Republicans are giving tax breaks to corporations and the very rich, and then cutting funding for education, police, emergency response and vital human services. The right to organize is on the chopping block. The American Dream is slipping out of reach for more and more Americans, and we have to fight back.

We call for emergency rallies in front of every statehouse this Saturday at noon to stand in solidarity with the people of Wisconsin. Demand an end to the attacks on workers’ rights and public services across the country. Demand investment, to create decent jobs for the millions of people who desperately want to work. And demand that the rich and powerful pay their fair share.

We are all Wisconsin.

We are all Americans.

Add your endorsement and this Saturday we will stand together to save the American Dream.

Clicking below will add your name so you can start spreading the word:

http://pol.moveon.org/callforaction/o.pl?id=26218-17809870-WYuGREx&t=4

Thanks for all you do.

–Daniel, Lenore, Joan, Justin, and the rest of the team

P.S. In addition to allies like PCCC, Color of Change, CREDO Action, Democracy for America, Campaign for Community Change, National People’s Action, TrueMajority, US Action, Progressive Majority, and Courage Campaign, green jobs visionary Van Jones has joined this call to action as well. His inspiring words from The Huffington Post this morning are worth quoting:

“In the past 24 months, those of us who longed for positive change have gone from hope to heartbreak. But hope is returning to America—at last—thanks largely to the courageous stand of the heroes and heroines of Wisconsin.

Reinvigorated by the idealism and fighting spirit on display right now in America’s heartland, the movement for “hope and change” has a rare, second chance. It can renew itself and become again a national force with which to be reckoned.

Over the next hours and days, all who love this country need to do everything possible to spread the “spirit of Madison” to all 50 states. This does not mean we need to occupy 50 state capitol buildings; things elsewhere are not yet that dire. But this weekend, the best of America should rally on the steps of every statehouse in the union.”

Van’s full piece is worth reading. To check it out and pass it on, click here. http://www.moveon.org/r?r=206258&id=26218-9640874-Qhzit5x&t=5

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