Tag Archives: women’s rights

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wicked Wednesday …&some News


As Discrimination breaks out all over the U.S., which we can apply to so many things right about now. In a place that has always welcomed and or cared for like the poor, single mom’s with kids, The constitution; specifically the 14th Amendment, immigration, women’s rights, senior citizens, worker rights. Now has a new look called the Republican Tea Party with even more ugly Colonial ways and ideologies on old issues like – Race, Religion and the rights of its people, equal rights. I use to think all we had to worry about was what side of the political aisle these righties stood on. Now, it is all about why they are pitting the middle class against the working class and eliminating those in need. If you listen to them speak the lines of fair and or balanced behavior becomes so blurry and if they get their way, if they complete their mission, the only ones standing in any kind of line will be those who claim to be a member of the Republican Tea Party

Other News …

**Afghan Pilot Kills Foreign Soldiers in Airport Attack Claimed by Taliban

**Obama set to name CIA’s Leon Panetta as Defense secretary, officials say

**Orders for US Durable Goods Increase for Third Straight Month

**Crude Oil Futures Fluctuate Amid Increasing US Supplies, Economic Growth

**Boeing profit tops expectations, reaffirms outlook

** UN investigates alleged rights abuses in Libya

**Yemenis block port in protest against Saleh deal

**

CSPAN

 Bernanke to Hold First Press Briefing as Fed Chief

To discuss FOMC decisions http://c-span.org/Events/Bernanke-to-Hold-First-Press-Briefing-as-Fed-Chief/10737421131/   

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2012 Presidential Campaign Moving Forward

Simulcast of Iowa Public Radio http://c-span.org/Events/2012-Presidential-Campaign-Moving-Forward/10737421132/

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Summit Looks Ahead to Aviation Advancements over the Next Decade

http://c-span.org/Events/Summit-Looks-Ahead-to-Aviation-Advancements-over-the-Next-Decade/10737421135/

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Examination of Al Qaeda

http://c-span.org/Events/Examination-of-Al-Qaeda/10737421161/

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NATO commander Charles Bourchard took questions on the latest military operations in Libya. He denied reports that Monday’s airstrike on Gadhafi’s presidential compound was an attempt to target the Libyan leader. The Libyan government has called the attack an assassination attempt on Gadhafi, but the NATO commander said it was attempt to bring an end to the violence.  http://c-span.org/Events/NATO-Briefing-on-Libya/10737421137/

~ Culture & History, ~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

We Are One: Attend a Local Event


Are you worried, frustrated, and angry about the continuing attacks on workers’ rights, women’s rights, economic security and opportunity for all? Are you looking for another way to demonstrate your concern — in addition to making phone calls and sending emails? On April 4, you can join with people in your community in events to send a strong message: We Are One.

On April 4, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, where he had gone to stand with sanitation workers demanding their dream: the right to bargain collectively for a voice at work and a better life for themselves and their children. Now those rights are under attack in Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana and dozens of other states, and women’s interests are at stake.

Can you join us on April 4 by participating in an event on your community? You can find events near you on this interactive map.  http://action.nwlc.org/site/R?i=uMLiBmcwTSFoVeogJPQeMg..

Attacks on public employees’ rights to collectively bargain directly threaten working women and the vital public services they provide. Most people who work for state and local governments are women: nurses, teachers and others serving our communities. And collective bargaining helps ensure that these women have decent wages, benefits, and working conditions. For more information on why the right to collectively bargain is a women’s rights issue, check out our fact sheet.

Please join us in solidarity on April 4: We Are One.

Sincerely,

Emily J. Martin

Vice President and General Counsel

National Women’s Law Center

~ Recent Post

Women’s Progress in Peril – Help Us Now


 

 

National Women's Law Center

If the final days of the 111th Congress are any clue, you and I have our work cut out for us in 2011.

Earlier this month, 58 Senators voted to bring an important bill, the Paycheck Fairness Act, to the floor of the Senate for a full debate and vote. This measure would help close the continuing and shameful disparity between men’s and women’s wages.

But in highly polarized Washington, 58 votes are not enough. Needing 60, this critical reform died without ever receiving a vote on the merits.

We have fought too long and too hard for women and families to let injustices like this stand.

Please make an urgent contribution to the Center’s year-end campaign — every dollar you donate will be matched dollar for dollar by our Board of Directors, up to a total of $60,000.

It’s a sign of the times that our Board has issued this challenge.

For more than 38 years, the National Women’s Law Center has led the way for women and families — in the classroom, in the workplace and in society as a whole. Our team of experts, lawyers and advocates is a formidable force for women in America today. The coming year will be a tough one, but frankly we’ve been here before — and prevailed. And with your help, we can prevail again.

Here is a glimpse of some of the major challenges that we will take on in 2011, marshalling all of our experience, savvy and skill:

 

  1. Advocate for an economic recovery plan that puts job creation and economy-boosting investments before deficit reduction in the short term. The recession has hit women hard and millions of women, many of them single mothers, are among the long-term unemployed. We will press for jobs and job supports, such as child care, that will help both these women and the economy.

    At the same time, we will advocate for a long-term fiscal plan that protects programs vital to women and their families. We will press for additional revenues from a fair and responsible tax system and fight efforts to balance the budget on the backs of Social Security and Medicare, which have helped millions of women escape poverty and achieve some measure of economic and health security.

  2. Protect health reforms that help women and families. The Center played a lead role in efforts to stop insurers from charging women higher premiums than men. And we shined a bright spotlight on the trauma of women being denied coverage by insurance companies that consider Cesareans and domestic violence to be “preexisting conditions.” Those were critical advances, and we won’t allow the country to go backwards.
  3. Win confirmation of dozens of judges, who are superbly qualified and who await Senate confirmation to serve on the federal bench.
  4. Catch up with the community of nations by ratifying the landmark international human rights treaty for women, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women — CEDAW — ratified by all but the United States, Sudan, Somalia, Iran and three Island countries in the Pacific. Our nation’s presence on this list is simply shameful.

We’re up against what will certainly be one of the most challenging sessions of Congress in recent years, with many more Members hostile to core rights and programs critical to women’s lives. But if we’ve learned one thing in our 38 years, it’s this — that victories are possible even in the toughest of times.

Your support will never make a bigger difference. And between now and December 31st, the Board will match your gift dollar for dollar, up to a total of $60,000.

Please give generously. For women and families everywhere, you have our deepest thanks.

Sincerely, 

 

 
Nancy Duff Campbell Nancy Duff Campbell
Co-President
National Women’s Law Center 		Marcia Greenberger Marcia Greenberger
Co-President
National Women’s Law Center
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Free Sex Trafficking Victim Sara Kruzan


Change.org Weekly November 08 – November 15
TOP ACTIONS THIS WEEK
 

Help Stop Wage Theft – Workers Should Get the Pay They’ve Earned

by Interfaith Worker Justice

Sign the Petition »
 

Help the Final Push to Repeal “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” Before Anti-Equality Lawmakers Take Control

by Human Rights Campaign

Sign the Petition »
 

Tell Boehner: We’re Watching You. Don’t Attack Our Right to Choose.

by NARAL Pro-Choice America

Sign the Petition »

THIS WEEK on CHANGE.ORG

Free Sex Trafficking Victim Sara Kruzan

Plus: Deporting Disabled Children • Police Threaten Rape Victim • Halliburton Fracking Controversy • Fighting Racist Mascots • Recovering from Wrongful Imprisonment

At Change.org, we encounter a lot of stories of tragedy, injustice and triumph. None is more heart-wrenching than the story of Sara Kruzan.

Sara, who was once her elementary school’s student body president, met the man who would become her pimp when she was just 11. After acting as the father figure she never had for two years, he raped Sara at age 13 and trafficked her into the commercial sex trade.

For the next 3 years, from 6pm to 6am, strangers would pay Sara’s pimp to rape her and other adolescent girls he recruited and preyed upon.

Finally, physically and psychologically traumatized, Sara snapped. She shot and killed her pimp.

Her punishment? Life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The sentence was handed down by a judge in 1994 against the recommendation of the California Youth Authority, and before there was much awareness about the violence of child trafficking or an appreciation for the trauma of adolescent sexual and physical abuse.

The sentence was extreme and unjust. And it can now be overturned by one man: California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Governor Schwarzenegger is leaving office at the end of the year, and will soon be considering clemency petitions. In response, there is a grassroots movement building to call on Governor Schwarzenegger to commute Sara’s sentence to time served.

Join the movement to ask Governor Schwarzenegger to free Sara Kruzan now.

Tragically, the sexual exploitation Sara suffered is not unique. But what makes her case especially poignant is not just the injustice of her life sentence, but her response.

Rather than descend in hopelessness, Sara has found redemption in jail and become an inspiration to all those around her. She has graduated from high school, is on her way to completing her college degree, and started the prison’s Committee for Youth to serve as a mentor to younger women. She was recently voted “Woman of the Year” at her prison.

However, without intervention from Governor Schwarzenegger, Sara will likely die in prison.

Don’t let this happen. Sara has more than paid her debt to society with 16 years of incarceration. It’s time to set her free.

Call on Governor Schwarzenegger to free Sara Kruzan now.

For more information on Sara’s case, click here. And for more news and opportunities for action from this week in change, see the summaries from your favorite causes below.

Deporting Disabled Children in IMMIGRANT RIGHTS

Hee Chun Kang’s parents are legal permanent residents who came to the United States when their son was 10. But he and his brother face deportation to Korea because of the snail’s pace of the immigration system: by the time the Kang parents received green cards, their children had turned 21 and aged-out of the family petition. Hee Chun also has Down syndrome, so he needs the support of his family looking after him, something he can’t get in Korea. Taxpayer dollars should not be spent on tearing children in need from their parents. Read more »

Police Threaten Rape Victim in WOMEN’S RIGHTS

A South Carolina woman who reported being raped by a Marion police officer was subject to another assault when the officers who responded to her call threatened to put her in jail if she didn’t recant her story. Instead, they forced her to write the following: “Though I didn’t agree or consent to it (it) was not rape.” Non-consensual sex is rape – there’s no getting around it. And while the accused rapist has thankfully been sent on leave, the two officers who threatened to throw the victim in jail are sitting pretty. These officers need to be suspended for gross police misconduct pending investigation before they harass any other victims. Read more »

Halliburton Fracking Controversy in ENVIRONMENT

To help the EPA complete the first-ever federal health and safety study of the dangerous gas drilling practice called “fracking,” 8 of 9 gas companies have voluntarily complied with a request to disclose their chemical brews. These formulas are a secret in the first place because Dick Cheney pushed through a provision called the “Halliburton loophole” in 2005. Take a wild guess which of the nine companies now won’t pony up the data. Halliburton wants us to trust it with our health. Will we say yes? Read more »

Fighting Racist Mascots in EDUCATION

The University of Illinois retired Chief Illiniwek, the college’s costumed, dancing Native American mascot, in 2007 after pressure from the NCAA. But more than three years later, his ghost remains on campus. The administration has not named a new mascot and students still stage unofficial “chief” rallies, resurrecting a caricature that Native American groups have found offensive, racist and misleading. A coalition of student and community groups is pushing for a new mascot, saying this will help heal racial tensions and allow the campus to move on. Read more »

Recovering from Wrongful Imprisonment in CRIMINAL JUSTICE

Gloria Killian spent more than 16 years behind bars for a murder she didn’t commit, a victim of prosecutorial misconduct and admittedly false testimony from a man who had struck a deal with the state for a shorter sentence. Her conviction overturned in 2002, Killian has gone on to campaign on behalf of other women unjustly imprisoned. But her activism is not a choice, she tells Change.org. “I’m compelled to do it,” she says. “If I don’t use my experience to help the women that I left behind, then that means my life was destroyed for no reason, and I’m not about to let that happen.” Read more »
Have a great week, 

– The Change.org Team

 
~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

CNN Hero: ‘We have to fight against this crime and protect the children from this.’ (via Anderson Cooper 360)


Anuradha Koirala is fighting to prevent the trafficking and sexual exploitation of Nepal’s women and girls.”] Programming Note: CNN Heroes received more than ten thousand nominations from 100 countries. A Blue Ribbon Panel selected the Top 10 CNN Heroes for the year. Voting for the CNN Hero of the Year continues through November 18th (6am ET) at C … Read More

via Anderson Cooper 360