Debt Ceiling Negotiations Stall

Debt ceiling negotiations with Vice President Biden and Congressional leaders ended when Majority Leader Eric Cantor walked out last week. Now the negotiations have moved to the White House between President Obama and Congressional leaders.

Please tell President Obama and Congressional leaders loud and clear to keep increasing revenue on the table, increase taxes on the wealthy, and cut wasteful defense/contractor spending.

The Republicans are refusing to consider raising taxes on the wealthy, to close loopholes for major corporations, or to end subsidies to profit-bloated oil companies. Instead, they want to slash Medicaid and Medicare benefits and balance the books onthe backs of women, the working poor, the elderly, and the young.

Feminists must speak out and be heard now.

Right now, the Republicans are holding the lifting of the nation's debt ceiling hostage unless they win two trillion dollars in budget cuts at the same time without any revenue increase. Spending cuts must be matched dollar for dollar with revenue increases.

These are the same Republicans who made no big deal out of President G.W. Bush's lifting of the debt ceiling, principally to finance the Iraq war and give tax cuts to the wealthy (or as G.W. Bush said, his base: the haves and the have mores). This revenue slashing did not create jobs – it just created massive debt.

Tell the Republicans they can't balance the budget on the backs of women, the elderly, and the young. It simply cannot all come from programs for women, children, health care, education. Nor are ideological cuts to domestic and global reproductive health really spending cuts. Every dollar of spending that enables a woman to plan her family SAVES the government four dollars in spending.

Nor can balancing the budget come from cutting Medicaid for the poor and the middle class. Yes, the middle class.

Remember, Medicaid pays for the cost of 2/3rds of the people (mostly women) in nursing homes, most of whom were middle class. Medicaid also covers disabled children and adults, many of whom have parents who are in the middle class or working poor, but simply cannot afford health care costs.

It's NOT time to throw tens of thousands of seniors out of nursing homes and it is NOT time to deny services to disabled children or adults.

And as far as Medicare goes, the government should be allowed to negotiate cheaper drug prices. We will not stand for eliminating persons under 55 years of age from Medicare coverage in the future.

Tell Congress what Americans really want: increase taxes on the wealthy, cut defense spending, and maintain Medicaid and Medicare.

Some politicians want us to think cutting Defense spending or repealing the tax cuts are politically impossible. But polls show the majority of Americans support doing this rather than cutting crucial services. It's time to be heard – before it's too late.

For women's lives and the nation's future,

Eleanor Smeal
President
Feminist Majority

1600 Wilson Boulevard, Suite 801, Arlington, VA 22209 | 703.522.2214 | femmaj@feminist.org

Stop Denying Climate Change

Clicking here will automatically add your name to Rep. Simpson:

"Given the extreme weather across the country, and the danger it poses to our food security, it is astonishing that you voted to prevent the USDA from so much as preparing for climate change. Your denial is a threat to all Americans."

Automatically add your name:

Extreme floods, droughts, storms and fires seem to be everywhere. And among their many devastating impacts, is their threat to vital food crops.

Floods and droughts last year were responsible for massive crop failures across Russia, and Australia last year. This year, it's France, Germany and crops across the U.S. that are being wiped out.¹

As the New York Times reported earlier this month, climate change is literally contributing to the destabilization of our food system.²

So it's shocking that 238 members of the House of Representatives, including Rep. Simpson, were more concerned with casting a vote to deny that climate change is affecting our planet than to implement a new, common-sense policy to help prepare for global warming, and plan for ways to prevent disastrous disruptions in our food supply.³

Tell Rep. Simpson: Stop denying the reality of climate change and putting our food security at risk. Click here to automatically sign the petition.

Since getting elected last year, the extremist Republican majority in the House has been consistently, unconscionably, anti-science and anti-reality — including their notorious vote on April 6th against a resolution that simply said climate change was occurring, was caused largely by human activity and posed a threat to our health.⁴

Meanwhile, although the U.S. has been fairly insulated, growing demand for staple grains, along with significant crop failures from extreme weather, has caused major price spikes and grain shortages globally over the past few years.

Agricultural experts are feeling "a rising unease about the future of the world's food supply,"⁵as farmers from Texas to Tennessee to North Dakota lose crops to paradoxically simultaneous historic drought and floods.

It only makes sense that the Department of Agriculture would pursue a policy to protect our nation's ability to grow food. The three-page policy broadly states that the "USDA will develop, prioritize, implement, and evaluate actions to minimize climate risks and exploit new opportunities that climate change may bring."⁶

What makes no sense, is denying the pattern of extreme weather happening before our eyes, and being so determined in this denial to vote — as Rep. Simpson and his anti-science cronies did on June 16th — to prevent the Department of Agriculture from so much as planning for future extreme weather that is unfolding exactly how scientists have for decades said it would, posing a clear and present danger to our food supply.

Tell Rep. Simpson: Stop denying the reality of climate change and putting our food security at risk. Click here to automatically sign the petition.

As North Dakota's Souris River reached it's highest flood level in history over the weekend — breaking it's 1881 record — just weeks after the Mississippi river's historic flooding, and as Arizona fights to contain enormous wildfires, Texas contends with a drought worse than the Dust Bowl, and Missouri reels from it's recent tornadoes, we can no longer tolerate anti-science and anti-reality political posturing when it comes to votes on our food security.

Let's make sure that we send a strong message to congress that denying the reality of climate change is totally unacceptable.

Tell Rep. Simpson: Stop denying the reality of climate change and putting our food security at risk. Click here to automatically sign the petition.

Thank you for fighting dangerous climate denial.

Elijah Zarlin, Campaign Manager CREDO Action from Working Assets

1. "Climate of Denial," Rolling Stone, June 22, 2011
2. "A Warming Planet Struggles to Feed Itself," New York Times, June 4, 2011
3. "BREAKING: Congress Votes Against Protecting Farms, Forests," Defenders of Wildlife, June 16, 2011
4. "GOP-led house Rejects Science, 240-184," Climate Progress, April 6, 2011
5. See reference 2
6. "U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Policy Statement on Climate Change Adaptation," USDA, June 3, 2011

Celebrate Independence--from Beck

A message from CREDO Action:

There's a lot to celebrate this weekend. And we're particularly excited about celebrating our nation's independence from Glenn Beck's televised hatred, race-baiting and breathless insanity.

Thursday was the last day of Beck's FOX News TV show. It's a huge victory for our good friends at Color of Change and Media Matters who led this campaign, and CREDO is proud that so many of our activists could help play a part in getting Beck off FOX.

FOX's decision to drop Beck was based on dollars and cents. Thanks to the activism of so many, this experiment in televised hatred and right-wing paranoia became a financial liability for FOX after hundreds of advertisers pulled their ads, refusing to be associated with Beck.

Unfortunately, hateful and irresponsible rhetoric continues on FOX News, and we have a lot of work to do to keep holding FOX personalities accountable, and stop FOX bosses Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes from continuing to peddle hate speech and lies.

For now, our nation is better off without Glenn Beck on our televisions. Help celebrate this victory by sharing this Glenn Beck independence card, and asking your friends to join the ongoing fight against FOX's hateful rhetoric. Share it on Facebook, share it on Twitter, or click here for a message you can email to your friends.

Thank you for helping achieve independence from Glenn Beck's televised hatred.

Elijah Zarlin, Campaign Manager CREDO Action from Working Assets

Yay! New York Passes Marriage Equality Act

A message from Democracy for America:

What a historic day!

I'm thrilled that today, thanks to your voice and the hard work of Governor Cuomo and so many committed organizations and elected officials, New York has become the latest state to pass marriage equality.

Last night, the New York legislature stood up for equality for all New Yorkers and spoke loudly in support of the simple proposition that every New Yorker should be able to marry the person they love.
But our work is not done.

Even once our LGBT friends and family are legally able to marry here in New York, the Defense of Marriage Act will prohibit them from enjoying over 1,000 federal rights and privileges that are afforded straight married couples. While it won't be easy, we can overturn DOMA – but we need thousands of grassroots activists like you to stand up and demand repeal.
Click here to join me and Democracy For America in urging Congress to repeal this regressive and discriminatory law. For only once every legally married couple in the United States is treated equally under federal law can we fulfill the true meaning of marriage equality.

The Defense of Marriage Act is truly damaging. Every day, thousands of legally married LGBT men and women around the country are unable to take advantage of rights and privileges – from hospital visitation to inheritance rights to health benefits – that straight married couples take for granted.

Like DFA member Florence P. of Brushton, NY who sent in her story of how DOMA has impacted her:
My late partner and I were as close to a legal married couple as we could get in the state of New York. We were together for 32 1/2 years, hoping to one day marry in our state. She died in 2006. I am not considered to be her widow. I am not considered to be legally related to her at all even though we shared our lives completely for over 32 years. It's time to repeal DOMA.

I agree with Florence. We must end this unjust policy. But much like the historic vote last night in New York, it's going to take a lot of hard work and our collective grassroots advocacy. And I believe it's going to take telling more stories like Florence's.
If you've been impacted by DOMA, click here to sign the petition and tell us your story at repealDOMA.com. It's imperative that we begin to tell the stories of the Americans hurt every day by the injustice of DOMA, so that we can put faces and names to this discriminatory policy. Only then will we truly be able to start changing hearts and minds, both among my colleagues in Congress and around the country.

We did it with "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and we'll do it with DOMA. The time to start is now.

Thank you for standing with me and DFA for equality for all Americans.

--Senator Kirsten Gillibrand

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