Tag Archives: Wisconsin

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Manny Herrmann, AFL – CIO

09/01/2011 Nativegrl77

From the transit workers who get us where we need to go to the firefighters, teachers and caregivers whose work is so much more than a job—Labor Day season is when we say “thanks.”There are two ways you can say “thanks” to workers this weekend:

Tell us who you heart. I ❤ Wisconsin workers. Who do you ❤? It takes about 15 seconds to let us know who you heart and share it with the world.
Find an event near you. Events are taking place this weekend and beyond. See what’s happening in your area, or add your own event.

America’s working families have had a tough year. But we’ve also shown unprecedented solidarity. Let’s keep that solidarity going this weekend and beyond.

In solidarity,

Manny Herrmann
Online Mobilization Coordinator, AFL-CIO

FYI—if you see a weird symbol in this message, like a box, it’s supposed to be a heart symbol, but for a very small percentage of users, it appears as something else. Click here to take action and find out what our campaign is all about.

To find out more about the AFL-CIO, please visit our website at www.aflcio.org.

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Aug 2011: GOP Presidential Field – Yet Another Summer Disaster

08/31/2011 Nativegrl77

What we Accomplished in Wisconsin

Progressives gained two seats in the Wisconsin Senate when Wisconsin voters voted to hold right-wing state senators accountable for their attacks on working families.We changed the game and seized momentum heading into the next battles, and many legislators across the country — especially those in competitive districts — got a message that there are consequences to their overreaching.The successful recalls of Republican Sens. Dan Kapanke and Randy Hopper were in districts where PFAW was very active and PFAW enthusiastically endorsed both Senators-Elect Jessica King and Jennifer Schilling — two strong progressive women who will be strong advocates for working families in the Wisconsin Senate.

Rick Perry: Uniting the Really Far Right and the Really, Really Far Right

Texas Gov. Rick Perry formally launched his presidential campaign this month and quickly shot to the top of national polls, where he continues to dominate. Maintaining his healthy lead by appealing to Tea Party, he recently came very close to accusing Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke of treason and has raised new concerns over his previous assertions that Social Security and Medicare were unconstitutional by calling Social Security a Ponzi scheme and a “monstrous lie.” People For the American Way continued its coverage of the 2012 presidential primaries with a piece by PFAW president Michael Keegan exposing Perry’s cozy ties with the various factions which comprise the Far Right.

‘What You Talkin’ Bout, Willard?’

If you watched TV in the 1980s, you surely remember the show Diff’rent Strokes— which featured the iconic tagline “What you talkin’ bout, Willis?” It was produced by PFAW cofounder Norman Lear’s production company. When Norman heard some of the recent things coming from presidential candidate Mitt Romney — whose first name is actually Willard — it rang a bell.In a piece in Variety, Norman asks Willard Mitt Romney, “What you talkin’ bout, Willard?”

Koch Brothers Sink to a New Low to Undermine Public Education

A new video from our friends at Brave New Foundation — a part of their “Koch Brothers Exposed” series — details the disturbing rise of racial resegregation in one award-winning North Carolina school district. The story goes like this: the Koch-created and funded Americans for Prosperity supported a slate of right-wing school board candidates who ran on a platform that echoed those of 1960’s southern segregationists like George Wallace almost verbatim … they won, and now they are using their power to hurt the public school system by not only erasing the district’s commendable achievements of diversity, but hurting the quality of public education received by all the district’s students.People For the American Way and PFAW’s African American Ministers in Action (AAMIA) program are both incredibly proud to cosponsor the release of this video, and we’re hopeful that we can help shine a light on this latest right-wing attack on public education, racial equality and civil rights.

Watch the video and help spread the word >

Perry, Prayer, Politics and the Presidency

Casual viewers of “The Response,” including some political reporters who don’t pay a lot of attention to the Religious Right, may have watched Texas Governor Rick Perry’s prayer rally earlier this month and wondered what all the fuss was about. Most of the time was taken up with prayer and praise music. Few of the speakers seemed overtly political. Nobody used the occasion to endorse Perry’s pending presidential bid.But context is everything, and the context for this event was remarkable: a governor launching a presidential bid by teaming up with some of the nation’s most divisive extremists to hold a Christians-only prayer rally that suggested Americans are helpless to solve the country’s problems without divine intervention. Some media coverage is missing the boat: the issue wasn’t whether it was ok for a politician to pray, or the size of the audience, but the purposes of the event’s planners and their disturbing vision for America.

Pay-Per-View Congress?

Showing a profound disregard for representative democracy and the First Amendment, several Republican members of Congress decided not to hold open-to-the-public town hall meetings for their constituents this August recess and instead, held meetings that required an admission fee — or as Politico put it, “strictly pay-per-view.”

FEATURED VIDEO

Mitt Romney: People Person?

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney turned a few heads this month when he told an audience at the Iowa State Fair that “corporations are people.”PFAW responded immediately by producing and running a TV ad in New Hampshire, where the Romney campaign’s focus has been.

Watch >

And if you have not done so already, please add your name to our petition to Gov. Romney telling him that he’s wrong, corporations are NOT people >

News & Blogs

Anonymous Attacks Against LA Progressives

This summer, an organization called Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy (LAANE) finds itself the target of dozens of baseless public records requests instigated by an anonymous right wing entity apparently seeking to intimidate and harass the organization.LAANE has long fought for policies to raise wages, protect the environment, and enhance community input on new box stores. In other words, they have gotten in the way when giant corporations have put profit maximization over the rights of workers, consumers, and communities. Perhaps that is why they now find themselves the subject of an extensive fishing expedition for public records that can be taken out of context and demagogued ad nauseam.

Darrell Issa’s Two Hats

Rep. Darrell Issa’s ties to big business run deep, and as chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform committee, Issa has functioned quite efficiently as an arm of a Wall Street lobbying shop. He has demanded that government regulators back off from applying new rules to Goldman Sachs, and he has fought tooth-and-nail to deny the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and its yet-unconfirmed director Rich Cordray, any significant means to protect the public from fraud and abuse by the financial industry.

Michael Keegan in Politico’s The Arena: Should disaster aid be conditional?

Republicans in Congress never even suggested “pay as you go” for two wars and massive tax cuts for the rich under George W. Bush, but they are now willing to withhold urgent aid from American communities in crisis in order to prove some point about their new found budget orthodoxy. Republican budget brinkmanship over the debt ceiling cost the country its top credit rating; let’s hope brinkmanship over emergency spending funds don’t cost Americans in storm-damaged states their homes and livelihoods.

Taking it Back to 1987, Mitt Romney Teams Up with Judge Bork

Mitt Romney yesterday announced the members of his campaign’s legal advisory team, which will be led by none other than Robert Bork.This is interesting because Judge Bork’s views of the law and Constitution were so extreme that his 1987 Supreme Court nomination was rejected by the Senate.

People For the American Way aired a TV spot about Bork at the time…

Anti-Gay Groups Rally To Defend Anti-Gay ‘Charity’ Group

A campaign spearheaded by LGBT rights and women’s rights groups Change.org and AllOut.org, encouraging companies to drop their ties to the Charity Give Back Group (formerly the Christian Values Network), unsurprisingly has the Religious Right up in arms. The CGBG “operates a sort of online mall, donating a portion of each purchase to religious nonprofits,” Michelle Goldberg explains. “Among them are conservative organizations like Focus on the Family, The Family Research Council, Promise Keepers, and a number of anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers.”

ACLU DNA, Lead Paint, and the Judges who Made it Through GOP Obstruction

As we like to remind people often, the current GOP senate has been shameless in its enthusiasm for obstructing judicial nominees just for the sake of obstruction. For instance, a PFAW memo on August 2 reported that of 24 nominees then waiting for confirmation votes, 21 had been voted through the Senate Judiciary Committee with no recorded opposition. Instead of sending through at least the unopposed nominees in a voice vote and moving on with its business, the Senate decided to keep these potential jurists off the bench for as long as possible despite the pressing problem of unfilled judicial seats leading to slowed down justice. Ultimately, 4 of those nominees were confirmed by the Senate before it left for its August recess, and 20 remain waiting. (The Washington Postthis morning lamented that such “gamesmanship is not only frustrating but also destructive”)

THANK YOU from Wisconsin! …Senator-Elect Jessica King

08/29/2011 Nativegrl77

Senator-Elect Jessica King
Wisconsin Senate District 18

People For the American Way came through once again, and I am so glad you did. Thank you!

I called Michael last week to tell him how much I appreciated all the invaluable help from PFAW and its members to unseat Republican Sen. Randy Hopper in the District 18 recall election. I had to write to you to thank you directly.

I won by 1,200 votes and I have no doubt that PFAW’s help was absolutely critical in our victory. I particularly loved the direct mail piece that went out in my district to expose my opponent’s record and his attacks on the middle class and working families. And the extra airtime PFAW bought to run its ad against Sen. Hopper in the final week really made the difference and helped put me over the top.

While we Democrats fell just shy of flipping the Senate away from Republican control, the two seats we gained will make a huge difference, and I look forward to being a strong voice of progress for my constituents and all the working families of Wisconsin. And I will make you proud by fighting every attempt to expand the war on voting rights, public education and the working men and women of Wisconsin.

Thanks again! I can’t wait to work with you on the many battles to come.

With sincere appreciation,

Senator-Elect Jessica King
Wisconsin Senate District 18

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What’s important to you?

08/22/2011 Nativegrl77

Democracy for America is the country’s only people-powered PAC. We’re a grassroots powerhouse working to change our country and the Democratic Party from the bottom-up — and it’s members like you who make it possible, so it’s important that we hear from you.

What are your top electoral priorities? What issues matter most to you? What’s happening in your area that we should know about? 1

Please take a moment and let us know what’s important to you.

http://act.democracyforamerica.com/go/1040?akid=1220.1480546.KVBu1D&t=1

Thank you for all that you do.

– Michael

Michael Langenmayr, Deputy Political Director
Democracy for America

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Working Families Defeat Two Walker Republicans …support Unions

08/22/2011 Nativegrl77

Photo credit: Unity@Verizon

The strike by some 45,000 Verizon workers, members of the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and the Electrical Workers (IBEW), continued into its third day today as workers across the country offer support to the strikers, whose struggle reflects the situation for millions of workers.

Rather than reward the hard work of Verizon employees who have provided the quality service that earned the company more than $32.5 billion in revenue over the past three years, management continues to insist on cuts that total $1 billion. These workers have played by the rules—and now Verizon wants to break them.

Verizon’s concession demands would strip away the standard of living workers have gained through bargaining over the past 50 years, workers say.

It is all too common for workers to face the prospect of losing benefits even though you have worked hard and valued your work, IBEW President Edwin Hill says:

This is a company with a $100 billion dividend. The top five company executives were paid more than a quarter of a billion dollars over the past four years. If a company like this is not willing to provide wages and benefits to enable its workers to be part of the mainstream middle class in America, then all who work for a living have reason to fear.

Click here to demand that Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam value employees’ work and share his corporation’s success with those who make it possible. Click here for a list of picket sites in the New York and New Jersey area.

You also can click here to sign and tweet an act.ly petition demanding Verizon drop its outrageous concessionary demands.

To tweet about the strike, use the hashtag #verizonstrike and feel free to direct to @VZLaborfacts.

The company also paid nothing (that’s ZERO) in corporate income taxes. In fact, it actually received nearly $1 billion in tax benefits from the federal government during that time, according to the Citizens for Tax Justice (CTJ).

In fact, if Verizon had paid its corporate income tax at the official rate of 35 percent, it would have owed more than $11 billion, according to CTJ. This alone would have been enough to avoid the recent cuts in the debt deal to student loan programs.

Read updates on the strike at www.cwa-union.org/verizon.