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1997 File Photo/The Associated Press
Air Force personnel await transportation to missile silos after a 1997 briefing in Cheyenne, Wyo. Even after New START cuts are implemented, the United States will still have 1,550 warheads deployed, with thousands more in reserve.
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Tax season is upon us. We're all acutely aware of gaps between revenue and expenses. The imperative to cut federal spending is clear.

Tennessee congressman Stephen Fincher is very angry that the federal government is committed to preventing poor people from starving to death: Stephen Fincher, a deranged Republican congressman from Tennessee, is very angry that the federal government is committed to preventing poor people from starving to death: Republican Congressman Stephen Fincher of...
Justin Doolittle |Alternet 22 May 2013 Hits:44 ESJ Articles
Read moreThe latest in "healthy" foods that are not actually good for us is Greek yogurt. Over at Modern Farmer, Justin Elliott explains that every three to four ounces of milk produces only one ounce of the creamy snack, and what's left becomes acid whey, " a thin, runny waste product" too...
Kristen Gwynne | AlterNet 22 May 2013 Hits:255 ESJ Articles
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As President Obama hosts a press conference at the National Defense University CODEPINK and other activists will vigiling outside. President Obama will be speaking at the National Defense University on the topic of two of the most egregious crimes committed by this administration: drone strikes and Guantanamo Bay. CODEPINK and...
Alli McCracken | CodePink 22 May 2013 Hits:62 EWO Articles
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Will Governor Cuomo and NY legislature finally fix unfair laws, uphold justice and reflect the will of the people? In January of this year, during his 2013 State of the State speech, Governor Andrew Cuomo made a bold call to stop discrimination in New York. “We are one New York, and...
22 May 2013 Hits:66 War on Drugs - Criminal Injustice
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Tribal leaders trucked the battered old home to Washington to show the nation’s leaders what the housing crisis on reservations looks like in person. Last month, a new building joined the Washington Monument and the Capitol building on the National Mall. The small, run-down shack had previously housed 13 people, and...
Mark Andrew Boyer | Yes Magazine 20 May 2013 Hits:95 ESJ Articles
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Frustration with the failed execution of various weakly-constructed legal settlements stemming from widespread foreclosure fraud bubbled over today into a protest at Justice Department headquarters that culminated in homeowners being arrested. Using tactics and rhetoric familiar from 2011’s Occupy Wall Street demonstration, a group of activists and foreclosed homeowners marched on...
Alan Pyke | ThinkProgress 20 May 2013 Hits:115 ESJ Articles
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Dispensaries providing marijuana to doctor-approved patients operate in a number of states, but they are under assault by the federal government. SWAT-style raids by the DEA and finger-wagging press conferences by grim-faced federal prosecutors may garner greater attention, but the assault on medical marijuana providers extends to other branches of...
Clarence Walker | Drug War Chronicle 20 May 2013 Hits:181 War on Drugs - Criminal Injustice
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"The right of voting for representatives is the primary right by which other rights are protected," wrote Thomas Paine in 1795. Yet contrary to popular belief, there is no affirmative right to vote in the U.S. Constitution. This gap in our founding document has provided an opening for the wave of...
Brendan Fisher | PR Watch 19 May 2013 Hits:1045 CFTE Articles
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You can't hit 400 ppm CO2 and still think "all of the above" is a rationale energy strategy. A lot has happened in the last week. The Earth hit the 400 parts per million CO2 threshold for the first time in human history. Scientists tell us this is bad news if...
Tara Lohan | AlterNet 18 May 2013 Hits:247 SGW Articles
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In a David vs. Goliath scenario the Henry David T. puts itself between Energy Enterprise and New England's largest coal plant Stearing a lobster boat called the Henry David T., two climate activists on Wednesday attempted to blockade a shipment of West Virginia coal from arriving at Brayton Point Power Station...
Jon Queally | Common Dreams 18 May 2013 Hits:130 SGW Articles
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Listen "Live" on Monday, May 20th at 9pm EST Freeda Cathcart is running for the 17th House of Delegates in southwest Virginia. The Virginia Senate has recently passed the ERA but the House of Delegates has refused to bring it to a vote. Freeda promoted the petition to the White House...
18 May 2013 Hits:168 ERA Action Articles
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Brianna Pena, a 5-year-old, was told she could not return to her kindergarten classroom at her Bronx, NY, charter school until she was “psychiatrically cleared” to return by a medical professional. It was her first day at a new school. She didn’t know anyone and repeatedly cried, “Nobody cares about me!” School officials insist that...
David Rosen | AlterNet 18 May 2013 Hits:843 School to Prison Pipeline
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While women and men around the world applaud Angelina Jolie for her bravery in writing such a public opinion piece in the New York Times today about her preemptive double mastectomy, some of us know that our breasts and our lives just are not worth as much as hers. ...
Donna Smith | Donna Sicko's Blog 17 May 2013 Hits:761 HCA Articles
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The Obama administration has been procrastinating on its decision on the Keystone XL pipeline for years — and now comes word that it may kick the can even further down the road. From Reuters: The Obama administration is unlikely to make a decision on the Canada-to-Nebraska Keystone XL pipeline until late...
Lisa Hymas | Grist.org 13 May 2013 Hits:116 SGW Articles
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When I was a teenager, my mother posted this quote on her mirror: "having a child is like letting your heart walk around outside your body." Back then, the sentiment made me roll my eyes, but even then I knew I had an exceptional mother. She is fierce, yet gentle,...
Sheila Bedi | Truthout OpEd 13 May 2013 Hits:120 EMC Articles
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U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) is an original cosponsor of a joint resolution, introduced by U.S. Senators Ben Cardin (D-M.D.) and Mark Kirk (R-I.L.), to remove the deadline for states to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). When Congress passed the ERA in 1972, it provided that the amendment had to...
KRWG and Partners 12 May 2013 Hits:388 ERA Action Articles
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A fundamental struggle for democracy is going on behind the scenes in statehouses around the country, as a handful of wealthy individuals and foundations pour money into efforts to privatize the public schools. The implications are huge. But the school privatizers, and their lobbyists in the states, have so muddied the...
Ruth Coniff | The Progressive 12 May 2013 Hits:260 ECR Articles
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The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership is the latest plan of conglomerates to strengthen their grip over the planet. A corporate world order is emerging, and like any parasite, it is slowly killing off its host. Unfortunately, the "host" happens to be the planet, and all life upon and within it....
Andrew Gavin Marshall | AlterNet 12 May 2013 Hits:148 ESJ Articles
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Letter signed by 150 prominent donors says project is the most important environmental decision of presidency The biggest backers of the Democratic causes urged Barack Obama on Friday to take historic action on climate change by rejecting the Keystone XL pipeline. In a letter seen by the Guardian, 150 high-profile figures, who...
Suzanne Goldenberg | The Guardian 10 May 2013 Hits:358 SGW Articles
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Mr. President, as we prepare to celebrate Mother’s Day this Sunday, today I am introducing a joint resolution which would remove the deadline for the states' ratification of the equal rights amendment, ERA. I thank Senators Kirk, Mikulski, Murkowski, Harkin, Sanders, Levin, Menendez, Stabenow, Heinrich, Boxer, Gillibrand, Durbin, Lautenberg, Murphy,...
Sen Ben Cardin, Maryland 09 May 2013 Hits:608 ERA Action Articles
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New York's draconian sentencing laws, which became the template for the country, have been reformed somewhat. But they still have a long way to go. In 1973, two years after President Nixon declared a "war on drugs," New York Governor Rockefeller passed the toughest drug laws in the nation. The notorious...
Anthony Papa | AlterNet 08 May 2013 Hits:175 EMC Articles
Read moreMore than a dozen people have gathered at the entrance to The Breakers hotel in Palm Beach this morning to protest the private prison management company Geo Group and what protesters characterize as the company’s lobbying activities to benefit its business. The GEO Group, which is based in Boca Raton and...
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer 07 May 2013 Hits:225 EMC Articles
Read moreThere's a massive new federal crackdown on legal marijuana sales. In several West Coast cities, federal officials are initiating a new round of crackdowns against dispensaries that are seemingly complying with state medical marijuana law. In Seattle, 11 dispensaries received shutdown warnings. In San Francisco, almost half of the city’s small number of...
Nicole Flatow | ThinkProgress 06 May 2013 Hits:140 EMC Articles
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At the April Conference Call for the End Corporate Rule Issue Team, PDA endorsed the American Anti-corruption Act. I hope you'll go to http://www.represent.us and become a co-sponsor of the Act, joining what will be one million citizens by the end of 2013. We already have more than 360,000 signatures....
Walter Ebmeyer 06 May 2013 Hits:214 ECR Articles
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If you divided the entire country into people who know the ERA is in play and those who do not, it would be two very uneven groups. And within the group who knows it is and has always been in play you can find a tenacious sub-group who are half...
Zoe Ann Nicholson | Online with Zoe 05 May 2013 Hits:408 ERA Action Articles
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When we talk about the criminalization of communities and people of color, especially African Americans and Latinos in America, we often talk about the criminal justice system in America that disproportionately targets those communities.Schools are often the major accomplices in making this system run with the school to prison pipeline. Nothing exemplifies this more...
Sesali Bowen | Feministing 03 May 2013 Hits:204 School to Prison Pipeline
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A 19th century tool for instilling fear in the public to pay off debt "In the 1990s, Jack [Dawley's] drug and alcohol addictions led to convictions for domestic violence and driving under the influence, resulting in nearly $1,500 in fines and costs in the Norwalk Municipal Court. Jack was also behind...
Bill Berkowitz | AlterNet 02 May 2013 Hits:293 EMC Articles
Read moreThe US-EU free trade pact and the Trans-Pacific Partnership are about securing regulatory gains for major corporate interests. In polite circles in the United States, support for free trade is a bit like proper bathing habits: It is taken for granted. Only the hopelessly crude and unwashed would not support free...
Dean Baker 02 May 2013 Hits:157 ESJ Articles
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Just how real is the fracking "boom" when compared with other developments within the energy industry—specifically the exponential growth of renewable energy? The practice of hydraulic horizontal fracturing or fracking to extract natural gas from the shale beds of the U.S. began, for all practical purposes, in 2007. Since that time, the...
Jay Warmke | EcoWatch 28 Apr 2013 Hits:451 SGW Articles
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Wage theft is fast becoming a top trend of the 21st-century labor market. Imagine you’ve just landed a job with a big-time retailer. Your task is to load and unload boxes from trucks and containers. It’s back-breaking work. You toil 12 to 16 hours a day, often without a lunch break....
Lynn Stuart Parramore | AlterNet 28 Apr 2013 Hits:802 ESJ Articles
Read moreAlmost one hundred years after women won the right to vote, the 2012 election will go down in history as a groundbreaking, glass-ceiling-smashing milestone for women. Female voters made a big impact, especially in swing states like Virginia. Women threw their support behind candidates who support women. WOMEN MATTER. And...
J.C. Wilmore | The Richmonder 28 Apr 2013 Hits:254 History
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Failed gun control legislation and a fertilizer plant explosion reveal how poisoned by big money our government is. If you want to see why the public approval rating of Congress is down in the sub-arctic range — an icy 15 percent by last count — all you have to do is take...
Bill Moyers and Michael Winship | Bill Moyers.com 27 Apr 2013 Hits:387 ECR Articles
Read moreWe now have 12 states whose legislatures have formally endorsed an amendment overturning Citizens United v. FEC (four of which have specifically endorsed ending corporate personhood): California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Vermont, and West Virginia. People in cities, towns, and counties all across...
Sean Barnett | NOVA Move to Amend 26 Apr 2013 Hits:202 ECR Articles
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Judge Shira Scheindlin says unnamed witnesses have committed perjury and orders officers to come back to court. The federal judge presiding over the landmark case against the New York police department's controversial stop-and-frisk policy has complained that witnesses have perjured themselves during the hearings. Judge Shira Scheindlin ordered two officers to come...
Ryan Devereaux | The Guardian 24 Apr 2013 Hits:198 EMC Articles
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The banksters are cashing in off their own disaster. The big banks are buying up distressed real estate by the boat load, and renting or selling it back to the public for huge profits. And, in addition to making it even more difficult for economically-strapped Americans to become home owners,...
Louis Hartmann | Thom Hartmann.com 23 Apr 2013 Hits:511 ECR Articles
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The communist enemy, with the "world's fourth largest military", has been trundling missiles around and threatening the United States with nuclear obliteration. Guam, Hawaii, Washington: all, it claims, are targetable. The coverage in the media has been hair-raising. The US is rushing an untested missile defense system to Guam, deploying...
Tom Engelhardt | TomDispatch.com 22 Apr 2013 Hits:258 EWO Articles
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The deal would include major papers such as the L.A. Times, the Chicago Tribune, and the Baltimore Sun. The billionaire oil moguls Charles and David Koch are pushing ahead with their plans to purchase several news outlets across the United States, according to a detailed report in the New York Times on Sunday. At...
Annie Rose Strasser | ThinkProgress 22 Apr 2013 Hits:175 ECR Articles
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Shortly after one chamber of the General Assembly voted today to enact a constitutional amendment expanding voting rights for convicted felons, the other chose to reject a proposed amendment that would have allowed more citizens to vote absentee. Non-violent felons will now be able to vote immediately after discharging their criminal...
Doug Denison | The News Journal 20 Apr 2013 Hits:362 Restoration of Voting Rights
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Steingraber and two others faced a judge yesterday after protesting the industrialization by oil and gas companies of the pristine Finger Lakes region. This article was published in partnership with GlobalPossibilities.org. In an act of civil disobedience which she called a “last resort” after having taken “every legal avenue to raise serious health,...
Alison Rose Levy | AlterNet 20 Apr 2013 Hits:466 SGW Articles
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It's still a fairly bold prediction, considering lawmakers' track record on the issue. I attended a forum on marijuana legalization at The Brookings Institution Monday, where Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), one of a handful of Congressional champions of marijuana law reform, was one of the speakers. Along with his general optimism for where...
David Borden | Drug War Chronicle 19 Apr 2013 Hits:231 War on Drugs - Criminal Injustice
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The landmark class-action suit has revealed a lot about the NYPD, and it's not pretty. The city of New York is in the midst of a landmark class-action lawsuit. The suit, Floyd v. the City of New York, alleges that the NYPD has routinely violated the Constitution by stopping and searching...
Kristen Gwynne | AlterNet 19 Apr 2013 Hits:257 EMC Articles
Read moreThe U.S. stands out among advanced countries for its highly regressive tax code. It’s a sign of how well relentless propagandizing works that Joe Stiglitz has to devote a lengthy op-ed in the New York Times to debunking the idea that our income tax system, whose salient characteristic is low tax...
Yves Smith | Naked Capitalism 16 Apr 2013 Hits:343 ECR Articles
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The deterioration of the nation’s public transportation, like the deterioration of health care, education, social services, public utilities, bridges and roads, is part of the relentless seizing and harvesting of public resources and programs by corporations. These corporations are steadily stripping the American infrastructure. Public-sector unions are being broken. Wages...
Chris Hedges | Truthdig 15 Apr 2013 Hits:246 ECR Articles
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The law is trailing far behind public opinion in both issues. On the heels of last week’s historic Pew poll finding that a majority of Americans now support legally regulating marijuana, "The Colbert Report" did a rousing and hilarious segment on the parallels between the momentum for marijuana legalization and marriage equality. Stephen Colbert...
Tony Newman, Jag Davies | AlterNet 13 Apr 2013 Hits:699 EMC Articles
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Ann Wright addresses the crowd outside Rockefeller Center. (WNV/Eric Stoner) With drones seemingly more in the public’s conscience than ever, anti-drone activists have just launched their most ambitious campaign to date. Called the “April Days of Action,” the newly-formed Network to Stop Drone Surveillance and Warfare is coordinating protests in dozens...
Eric Stoner | Waging Nonviolence 12 Apr 2013 Hits:363 EWO Articles
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The "good guy with a gun" seems to do a lot more policing than protecting. In Texas, hundreds of thousands of students are winding up in court for committing very serious offenses such as cursing or farting in class. Some of these so-called dangerous criminals (also known as teenagers) will face...
Steven Hsieh | AlterNet 12 Apr 2013 Hits:522 School to Prison Pipeline
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The shady people and companies behind the push to expand drug testing. The annual Drug & Alcohol Testing Industry Association (DATIA) conference, held in 2012 in San Antonio, Texas, looks like any other industry gathering. The 600 or so attendees sip their complimentary Starbucks coffee, munch on small plates of muffins...
Isabel Macdonald | The Nation 12 Apr 2013 Hits:243 War on Drugs - Criminal Injustice
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IPS joined other members of the U.S. Robin Hood Tax campaign in Washington DC, where officials from the finance and climate ministries of select developed countries met to discuss how to mobilize private sector investment in developing countries to address climate change. Chanting, "Human need, not corporate greed! Robin Hood...
Lacy MacAuley and Janet Redman | IPS 11 Apr 2013 Hits:186 SGW Articles
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WASHINGTON -- Contrary to assurances it has deployed U.S. drones only against known senior leaders of al Qaida and allied groups, the Obama administration has targeted and killed hundreds of suspected lower-level Afghan, Pakistani and unidentified “other” militants in scores of strikes in Pakistan’s rugged tribal area, classified U.S....
Jonathan S Landay | Miami Herald 10 Apr 2013 Hits:234 EWO Articles
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From Food & Water Watch: Washington, D.C.— As the Senate’s Energy and Natural Resources Committee conducts confirmation hearings to fill the position of Secretary of Energy, Americans Against Fracking, a broad-based coalition of public health, consumer, labor and environmental groups, today sent the committee a letter urging it to reject Dr....
Bob Downing | Ohio.com 10 Apr 2013 Hits:239 SGW Articles
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Here's an outrage that must be changed: Big Pharma has been systematically price-gouging the Medicare program for seniors and people with disabilities -- and raking in billions in excessive profits. The 11 largest global drug companies made an astonishing $711 billion in profits over the 10 years ending in 2012,...
Ethan Rome | The Huffington Post 09 Apr 2013 Hits:532 ECR Articles
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On Tuesday March 27th 2013, Kofi Annan gave a speech at the Graduate Institute in Geneva. In his usual careful and diplomatic tone, Annan spoke firmly against Western calls for more direct military intervention in Syria. "Further militarization of the conflict, I'm not sure that is the way to help the...
Nicolas J.S. Davies | AlterNet 09 Apr 2013 Hits:267 EWO Articles
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In the Nation, Isabel Macdonald has an excellent long read on the history of U.S. drug testing, beginning with a government program to test returning Vietnam War veterans and the drug-testing provisions in President Ronald Reagan’s Drug Free Workplace Act as part of the misdirected War on Drugs. Even then,...
09 Apr 2013 Hits:334 ECR Articles
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A new report shines a light on a harrowing “debtors’ prison” system in Ohio — one that violates both the United States’ and the Ohio constitution. The Americans Civil Liberties Union on Friday revealed that courts in Ohio are illegally throwing poor people in jail for being unable to pay off...
Annie-Rose Strasser | ThinkProgress 09 Apr 2013 Hits:527 EMC Articles
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America’s largest corporations have stashed nearly $1.5 trillion in offshore tax havens like Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, and Ireland — countries where they do little business but claim massive profits due to low tax rates. As a result, corporate tax rates fell to a 40-year low in 2011 even as...
Travis Waldron | ThinkProgress 07 Apr 2013 Hits:582 ECR Articles
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On Thursday, an Augusta, Ga., judge issued the latest rebuke against a private probation firm that is holding poor individuals criminally responsible for their failure to pay fees. This time, Sentinel Offender Services had held open an arrest warrant on an individual whose probation term for reckless driving had expired two...
Nicole Flatow | ThinkProgress 07 Apr 2013 Hits:411 EMC Articles
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Anger at the so-called Monsanto Protection Act — a biotech rider that protects genetically modified seeds from litigation in the face of health risks — has been directed at numerous parties in Congress and the White House for allowing the provision to be voted and signed into law. But the...
Natasha Lennard | Salon.com 05 Apr 2013 Hits:518 ECR Articles
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Hundreds of New York City's lowest-paid workers walked off the job Thursday at over 60 of the city's fast food restaurants to say, "We deserve better." In what people are calling the largest ever protest of its kind, over 400 workers from the country's biggest corporate "food" chains—including McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Pizza...
Lauren McCauley | Common Dreams 04 Apr 2013 Hits:294 ESJ Articles
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Until progressives come up with a compelling new political approach to business, we will be playing a whack-a-mole defense with the corporate-welfare bills that pop up constantly and define the “pro-business” legislative agenda across America. A case in point is the stupefying proposal before the Maryland General Assembly to give...
Jamie Raskin | The Nation 03 Apr 2013 Hits:299 ECR Articles
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In a victory for social justice, human decency and those who stand against the private prison industry and its nihilistic agenda of mass incarceration, GEO Group will no longer hold naming rights of the football stadium at Florida Atlantic University. GEO Group is a multi-billion dollar private prison corporation whose...
David Zirin | The Progressive 03 Apr 2013 Hits:294 EMC Articles
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State Senator Joyce Elliot argued in favor of Arkansas being the 36th state to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment in front of the Senate State Agencies Committee this morning. The ERA debate has been brought to committee every two years in Arkansas and every time, it is shot down. A...
Kimberley A. Johnson | Liberals Unite 03 Apr 2013 Hits:375 ERA Action Articles
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Iran is hobbled by sanctions, its skies filled with U.S. spy drones, its offshore waters with U.S. warships--and yet all we ever hear about is the existential threat they pose. Had you searched for “Israel, nuclear weapons” at Google News in the wake of President Obama’s recent trip to the Middle...
Tom Engelhardt | TomDispatch.com 03 Apr 2013 Hits:331 EWO Articles
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A parade of politicians and law enforcement officials has created a Pandora’s box that’s trapped countless low-income offenders. California’s colossal calamity known as the Three Strikes sentencing law was made less strident by voters last fall. But according to a profile by Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone, the wreckage from 16 years of...
Steven Rosenfeld | AlterNet 03 Apr 2013 Hits:341 EMC Articles
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Sen. Joyce Elliott will try again today. A resolution for Arkansas to ratify the federal Equal Rights Amendment is on the Senate State Agencies Committee agenda at 10 a.m. this morning. The only point of interest is what fanciful argument will be mounted by Republicans to defeat the concept of equal rights...
Max Brantley | Arkansas Blog 02 Apr 2013 Hits:349 ERA Action Articles
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'As a government employee, you can’t testify against the government.' James Hansen, the NASA scientist credited with raising the earliest and most consistent alarm over the dangers of human-caused global warming and climate change has announced that he's leaving his government job so that he can put his full energies into...
Jon Queally | Common Dreams 02 Apr 2013 Hits:376 SGW Articles
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The Pentagon’s budget is now on a downward path which just got steeper with the advent of sequester. Declining budgets may last a decade or more. However, the Pentagon and the White House are well behind the curve when it comes to making appropriate changes to defense posture and strategy. Such...
PDA (Project on Defense Alternatives | Press Release 02 Apr 2013 Hits:259 EWO Articles
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Even as state officials scramble to put in place major health reforms for 2014, a new proposal to guarantee medical care as a human right and create a single-payer system for all citizens is moving toward a Colorado vote. Health Care for All Colorado and a current board member of the...
Michael Booth | Denver Post 01 Apr 2013 Hits:365 HCA Articles
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A pipeline that ruptured and leaked at least 80,000 gallons of oil into central Arkansas on Friday was transporting a heavy form of crude from the Canadian tar sands region, ExxonMobil told InsideClimate News. Local police said the line gushed oil for 45 minutes before being stopped, according to media reports. Crude...
Lisa Song | Inside Climate News 01 Apr 2013 Hits:373 SGW Articles
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Ten years after the Iraq debacle, are we -- mind-bogglingly -- headed to war with Iran? Signs increasingly point to yes. A gold star if you can guess who made the following four statements without clicking on the links. Hint: Two were by an aggressive, hawkish, Republican, one of which was...
Falguni A. Sheth | Salon.com 01 Apr 2013 Hits:346 EWO Articles
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On Tuesday, April 2, there will be a vote in the Arkansas legislator to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment making it the 36th state to ratify leaving two more states needed to add the ERA to the United States Constitution. Please help make this a reality by joining advocates across...
31 Mar 2013 Hits:367 ERA Action Articles
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The ERA Action Team will be front and center at this most important event and we invite you to join us. Tammy Simkins, an ERA Action co-founder, is a featured guest speaker. Please plan on attending & share with your social media contacts, friends, and neighbors. Details from event organizers: Almost...
31 Mar 2013 Hits:550 ERA Action Articles
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How the industry uses the high court to allow bribery and evade the FDA. The Supreme Court oral arguments on marriage equality deserved all the attention they received — but it’s another case heard this week that will affect even more people over the course of their lifetimes. And it could...
David Dayen | Salon.com 31 Mar 2013 Hits:462 ECR Articles
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If a woman in Virginia has a miscarriage without a doctor present, they must report it within 24 hours to the police or risk going to jail for a full year. At least, that’s what would have happened if a bill introduced by Virginia state Sen. Mark Obenshain (R) had become...
Ian Millhiser | ThinkProgress 20 May 2013 Hits:265 Virginia
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Update: Barbara Parramore was taken into police custody Monday evening. Today I am participating in a non-violent and peaceful protest called Moral Mondays. I join ministers, students, teachers, and other concerned citizens at the state capitol in Raleigh because I am deeply concerned about the legislation of this session of the...
Barbara Parramore | AlterNet 20 May 2013 Hits:243 North Carolina
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The Florida teenager who was arrested two weeks ago for causing a small explosion on the campus of her high school will not be charged with a crime. Kiera Wilmot, 16, was arrested by police in Bartow, Florida, after conducting an unauthorized science experiment which lightly damaged an eight ounce...
Ned Resnikoff | MSNBC.com 16 May 2013 Hits:340 Florida
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As some of you might know already, Nuns on the Bus will be making a pass through the south in June. Below are the dates in our states: 6/3 - Orlando, FL, 3pm - Daniel Webster - lobby visit 6/4 - Tallahassee, FL, 10 am - Marco Rubio - lobby visit 6/5 -...
Edward Savela 14 May 2013 Hits:115 Alabama
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As the shutdown of LSU’s Earl K. Long Medical Center in northern Baton Rouge occurred and patients made the trip to private clinics, so too did U.S. Rep. Bill Cassidy. The Republican congressman from Baton Rouge was a longtime physician and liver specialist at the Earl K. Long facility when he...
Jordan Blum | The Advocate 13 May 2013 Hits:148 Louisiana
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Neither soaking rain nor the lack of permit from the City of Atlanta prevented advocates for the legalization of cannabis--commonly known as marijuana--from speaking out at the Great Atlanta Pot Festival 2013. Paul Cornwell, Atlanta Coalition for the Abolition of Marijuana Prohibition (CAMP), and the festival organizer, was turned down for...
Gloria Tatum | Atlanta Progressive News 12 May 2013 Hits:140 Georgia
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Spokane City Councilman Jon Snyder and President of Aging and Long Term Care of Eastern Washington Nick Beamer announced that the Sequestration cuts passed by Congress are poised to have a negative effect for area seniors who depend on the services ALTCEW provides. For the five-county area served by Aging and...
City of Spokane 10 May 2013 Hits:855 Washington
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One of the consequences of Gov. Bobby Jindal’s policy of shrinking state government is the impact of cuts on good programs. But crisis is the mother of inconsistency, and once again the anti-government administration has tried to offset budget cuts by raising fees for some state programs. This time, it was...
The Advocate 06 May 2013 Hits:159 Louisiana
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The Boston Marathon bombings happened more than 2,700 miles away, but for the men and women working on the third floor of a Metro Police building, that couldn’t have mattered less. They were monitoring every emerging detail, every lead, every newscast with this in mind: Was it the start of something...
Jackie Valley | Las Vegas Sun 06 May 2013 Hits:144 Nevada
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On Saturday, as Texas hosted the National Rifle Association’s annual convention, the Texas House passed 12 gun bills to make it even easier to obtain and possess firearms in the state. The onslaught of legislation contains provisions to allow college students to carry handguns in class and to block any...
Aviva Shen | ThinkProgress 06 May 2013 Hits:362 Texas
Read moreClean energy opponents turned to dirty tactics this week at the North Carolina legislature to advance a bill repealing the state's groundbreaking renewable power program. In a contested vote that led to an outcry from Democrats, the Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday advanced a measure to roll back the 2007 state...
Sue Sturgis | Facing South 06 May 2013 Hits:152 North Carolina
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Last week, an exchange between Jeff Flake, Janet Napolitano, and Chuck Schumer exemplified all that is wrong with the way in which immigration gets discussed within Washington and how far removed the beltway is from the daily reality and aspirations of people who are marching for immigrant rights this week. When...
Pablo Alvarado | Huffington Post 05 May 2013 Hits:292 Arizona
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An arbitrator said that a picket line of retired longshore union workers that closed a key Port of Tacoma container terminal early Tuesday was not allowed under the provisions of the longshore contract, according to the group that was the subject of the protest. The Washington United Terminal was reopened Tuesday...
John Gillie | The News Tribune 02 May 2013 Hits:274 Washington
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Within hours of renowned climate scientists announcing a staggering milestone in carbon dioxide emissions, Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn rolled out the booster wagons for Big Coal and celebrated his state's five-fold increase in record coal exports. Gov. Quinn, once hailed by the Sierra Club as "the clear choice for Illinois voters...
Jeff Biggers | Huffington Post 02 May 2013 Hits:183 Illinois
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Whether she runs for governor or not, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan would need nine lives to bring the state's notoriously broken regulatory system into compliance with the nation's most reckless coal industry. With state coal production soaring against national trends, Illinois cemented its reputation as the worst rogue state for...
Jeff Biggers | AlterNet 02 May 2013 Hits:265 Illinois
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In August 2011, Donald Perry -- a soup kitchen manager and homeless outreach worker -- picked up a homeless man and gave him a ride to a nearby town. Along the way they were stopped by a state police officer. Shortly before Donald stopped the truck the homeless man fled...
Elaine Arsenault | Change.org 29 Apr 2013 Hits:1302 Massachusetts
Read moreMADISON – Concerned Wisconsinites packed halls in Milwaukee and Madison this week to testify against Governor Walker’s regressive 2013-15 biennial budget proposal. Over the course of three hours, residents spoke out during public hearings hosted by Democratic members of the state Joint Finance Committee in opposition to key elements of...
United Wisconsin | Press Release 27 Apr 2013 Hits:1381 Wisconsin
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"We are over-tested, under-resourced and fed up!" Hundreds of Chicago students are taking up the mantle in the fight against the role of standardized tests in public school closures as they walked out of a state exam Wednesday. Their message: "We are over-tested, under-resourced and fed up!" Over 300 students from over...
Lauren McCauley | Common Dreams 27 Apr 2013 Hits:455 Illinois
Read moreThis legislature has already attacked the poor by denying 500,000 people access to healthcare, by refusing billions of Federal dollars, and then denying benefits to an estimated 165,000 unemployed North Carolinians by refusing even more money. They raised taxes on 900,000 poor and working people and cut taxes on 23...
Rev. Dr. William J. Barber | North Carolina NAACP 26 Apr 2013 Hits:284 North Carolina
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BALTIMORE–Local labor organizations are claiming victory this week after brokering a pair of agreements that will ensure the use of union labor in every aspect of a new $375 million downtown Baltimore casino project. Backed by special legislation from the Maryland state government, the proposed Horseshoe Casino is expected to create 1,200 permanent jobs. UNITE HERE and several...
Bruce Vail | In These Times 25 Apr 2013 Hits:174 Maryland
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Rep. Colleen Hanabusa (D-Hawaii) will challenge Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) in a Democratic primary, a source close to the congresswoman said Tuesday. Schatz was recently appointed to replace Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), who died in December at age 88. Inouye’s dying wish was for Hanabusa to take his place in the Senate,...
Cameron Joseph | The Hill 23 Apr 2013 Hits:218 Hawaii
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U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu on Tuesday found herself in line to possibly chair the powerful Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, if she wins reelection next year. The dominoes are set to potentially fall in place for her after it was announced that U.S. Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., would retire and...
Advocate Washington Bureau 23 Apr 2013 Hits:239 Louisiana
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While Senate leaders, including Arizona's John McCain and Jeff Flake, hammered out immigration reform details last month, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio reminded the nation how rogue law enforcement can still undercut legislative efforts for a pathway to citizenship. In a demonstration of his notorious intimidation tactics, Arapio's deputies raided three...
Jeff Biggers | Huffington Post 23 Apr 2013 Hits:359 Arizona
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Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) is retiring rather than seek re-election in 2014, according to two senior Democratic strategists familiar with his plans. First elected in 1978, Baucus has been the top Democrat on the powerful committee since 2001. The likely Democratic candidate to succeed him would be former...
Paul Kane | Washington Post 23 Apr 2013 Hits:1208 Montana
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Two top Democratic fundraisers in Florida have committed to providing the money and know-how to get the question of legalizing medical marijuana on the state ballot in 2014. "I'm prepared to keep raising money and writing checks until I get the signatures to put it on the ballot," attorney John Morgan...
Barbara Liston | Reuter's 22 Apr 2013 Hits:322 Florida
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Last week, Virginia’s Board of Health voted to finalize unnecessary regulations that will force many of the state’s abortion clinics to shut down. Those new restrictions — which are known as the Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers, or TRAP laws — are already having their intended effect. Hillcrest Clinic, which...
Tara Culp-Ressler | ThinkProgress 22 Apr 2013 Hits:1859 Virginia
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Republicans in Benton County, Arkansas are not happy that their state legislators have agreed to expand Medicaid under Obamacare. In this month’s newsletter, columnist Chris Nogy encouraged his fellow Republicans to utilize their 2nd Amendment rights to make sure that lawmakers — particularly Republicans who vote with Democrats — are held accountable: So...
Zack Ford | ThinkProgress 22 Apr 2013 Hits:296 Arkansas
Read moreOn April 15, 2013, the Northeast Alabama Labor Council in Gadsden endorsed HR 676, national single payer health care legislation sponsored by Congressman John Conyers. President Garry "Gabby" Frost brought the resolution before the council in response to an appeal from the All Unions Committee for Single Payer Health Care--HR 676...
Kay Tillow 22 Apr 2013 Hits:225 Alabama
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The 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King's "Letter from Birmingham Jail" was observed with events throughout the city and extended to Washington D.C. where Rep. Terri Sewell marked today by reading an excerpt of the famous treatise. Sewell, D-Birmingham, used her time on the House of Representatives floor to read a...
Jseoph D. Bryant | AL.com 21 Apr 2013 Hits:283 Alabama
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“It was like a dream. From the Rules Committee committing to end the packing of endorsement caucuses by elected officials, to our anti-fracking resolution coming out of committee stronger than when it went in and then passing on the consent calendar, to the sold-out PDA luncheon and the overwhelming win...
Dr. Bill Honigman, PDA California State Co-Coordinator 16 Apr 2013 Hits:437 California
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The governor's spokesman called the effort to promote an integrated prom in Wilcox County a 'silly publicity stunt.' A group of teens backed by a liberal group in Georgia want to end the segregated prom that exists in Wilcox County. But the governor thinks that effort is “ a silly publicity...
Alex Kane | AlterNet 15 Apr 2013 Hits:430 Georgia
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“Every Constitution written since the end of World War II includes a provision that men and women are citizens of equal stature. Ours does not.“ Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg The Equal Rights Amendment is up for a vote in Illinois on Tuesday at 8:30 a.m. What’s fantastic is that there...
Kimberley A. Johnson | Liberals Unite 14 Apr 2013 Hits:487 Illinois
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Seventeen bills introduced in the Arizona legislature in 2013 can be tied to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), and every member of the Republican leadership in the state are current or recent ALEC members, according to a new report from the Center for Media and Democracy and its allies...
Nick Surgery | PRWatch 14 Apr 2013 Hits:153 Arizona
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Restaurant chains like McDonald’s want to keep their lucrative tax credit for hiring veterans. Altria, the tobacco giant, wants to cut the corporate tax rate. And Sapphire Energy, a small alternative energy company, is determined to protect a tax incentive it believes could turn algae into a popular motor fuel. To...
Eric Lipton | The New York Times 14 Apr 2013 Hits:341 Montana
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The vice chairwoman of the State Board of Elections says she has “some glaring issues” with the practicality and cost of Virginia’s new photo ID legislation for voting that Gov. Bob McDonnell signed into law last month. Kimberly T. Bowers, a Democrat, was appointed to a four-year term as one of...
Markus Schmidt | Richmond Times Dispatch 14 Apr 2013 Hits:1258 Virginia
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Tennessee lawmakers have elevated hatred for government and disgust for poor people to an art form. If you're worried about where America is heading, look no further than Tennessee. Its lush mountains and verdant rolling countryside belie a mean-spirited public policy that only makes sense if you believe deeply in the anti-collectivist,...
Les Leopold | AlterNet 14 Apr 2013 Hits:448 Tennessee
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Sen. Mary Landrieu's re-election campaign reported Thursday that it raised $1.2 million during the first quarter of 2013, leaving the three-term Democrat with $3.46 million in available cash for her 2014 race. Sen. Mary Landrieu and Rep. Bill Cassidy NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune archive Landrieu's campaign reported that two...
Bruce Alpert | NOLA.com 14 Apr 2013 Hits:280 Louisiana
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Who will be the next victims of a tar sands spill? activists ask Oklahoma grandmother Nancy Zorn, 79, locked herself to a piece of heavy machinery Tuesday morning in protest of TransCanada's Keystone XL pipeline construction, halting work on a construction site of the tar sands harbinger for several hours. Starting early...
Jacob Chamberlain | Common Dreams 13 Apr 2013 Hits:333 Oklahoma
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A new women's health center in Wichita, Kan., opened last week in the midst of a massive legislative effort to restrict abortion access across the state, which has long been on the front lines of the abortion wars. Although George Tiller, the director of the last clinic that offered abortions in...
Hunter Stuart | The Huffington Post 12 Apr 2013 Hits:297 Kansas
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A Molokai resident expresses joy as the march passes by her home, which is located across the street from Monsanto’s fields. (WNV/Imani Altemus-Williams) At 9 am on an overcast morning in paradise, hundreds of protesters gathered in traditional Hawaiian chant and prayer. Upon hearing the sound of the conch shell, known...
Imani Altemus-Williams | Waving Nonviolence 12 Apr 2013 Hits:334 Hawaii
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“In the absence of state law, business entities are nothing.” A Pennsylvania judge in the heart of the Keystone State’s fracking belt has issued a forceful and precedent-setting decision holding that there is no corporate right to privacy under that state’s constitution, giving citizens and journalists a powerful tool to understand...
Steven Rosenfeld | AlterNet 12 Apr 2013 Hits:318 Pennsylvania
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Today, the Virginia Board of Health will take a final vote on regulations that would restrict women's access to reproductive health care by imposing standards that would force women's health centers in Virginia to undertake massive renovations or close altogether. The proposed regulations are the result of legislation passed by...
DPVA 12 Apr 2013 Hits:584 Virginia
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Concerns about next year's budget continued to pour in Wednesday to the House Appropriations Committee, which took a second day of testimony from the public about Gov. Bobby Jindal's spending proposals. Robert Aguilar, a board member for the Louisiana Assistive Technology Access Network, or LATAN, asked lawmakers to provide money...
Associated Press 12 Apr 2013 Hits:235 Louisiana
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Members of the Democratic group Progress Kentucky were behind a leaked recording of a private conversation among Sen. Mitch McConnell and his campaign staff about potential rivals, a local Democrat alleges. The tape was not made by bugging the Republican senator’s office but by standing in the hallway while the conversation occurred,...
Rachel Weiner | The Washington Post 12 Apr 2013 Hits:199 Kentucky
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Former state representative Robin Kelly (D) easily won a special election in Illinois’ 2nd congressional district Tuesday, capturing the seat once held by embattled Democrat Jesse Jackson Jr. With 20 percent of precincts reporting, the Associated Press called the race for Kelly, who led Republican nominee Paul McKinley 89 percent to 7 percent. Kelly’s fate was essentially sealed...
Sean Sullivan | The Washington Post 11 Apr 2013 Hits:211 Illinois
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Before Wednesday, Sen. Joe Manchin III was not known for crafting complicated legislation. He was known for shooting it. That is not a metaphor. In 2010, Manchin, a Democrat from West Virginia, filmed a campaign ad that highlighted his outsider politics, his distance from President Obama, and his love of firearms, all...
Ed O’Keefe and David A. Fahrenthold | The Washington Post 11 Apr 2013 Hits:102 West Virginia
Read moreLawmakers on both sides of the gun control issue reacted cautiously Wednesday to a new bipartisan deal to expand background checks on the eve of a critical vote. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid scheduled a Thursday vote on a motion to proceed with debate on gun control legislation, including the new...
Bruce Alpert | NOLA.com 10 Apr 2013 Hits:118 Louisiana
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Most of the inmates in New Jersey’s jails are incarcerated because they were charged with a crime and are awaiting trial, and nearly 40 percent of them would have been released immediately had they been able to afford bail, according to a new study. The report by the Drug Policy...
Nicole Flatow | ThinkProgress 09 Apr 2013 Hits:350 New Jersey
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A four-year-old boy accidentally shot and killed the wife of a deputy sheriff in Tennessee. Here’s a perfect example of the dark side of America’s gun culture: a four-year-old boy accidentally shot and killed the wife of a deputy sheriff in Tennessee. The Associated Press reports that the boy grabbed a...
Alex Kane | AlterNet 09 Apr 2013 Hits:293 Tennessee
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MILWAUKEE (WITI) — Lawmakers from the Joint Finance Committee are holding a public hearing in Greendale Thursday, April 4th to discuss Gov. Walker’s proposed budget and to get feedback on a wide range of issues from taxes, residency rules, BadgerCare, education and mass transit. Before the hearing began, nearly 50 people...
Angelica Duria | Fox6Now 09 Apr 2013 Hits:482 Wisconsin
Read more| Mon May 27, 2013 @ 9:00PM - 10:00PM PDA ERA 3 State Strategy Call (559) 726-1300; Access Code: 787085# |
| Tue May 28, 2013 @ 9:00PM - 10:00PM Clean, Fair, Transparent Elections IOT Call (559) 726-1300; Access Code: 314363# |
| Wed Jun 05, 2013 @ 9:00PM - 10:00PM Economic and Social Justice Issue Team Call (559) 726-1300; Access Code: 781761# |
| Mon Jun 10, 2013 @ 8:30PM - 09:30PM End Mass Criminalizations IOT Call (559) 726-1300; Access Code: 331473# |
| Tue Jun 11, 2013 @ 9:00PM - 10:00PM End Wars and Occupations Issue Team Call (559) 726-1300; Access Code: 952870# |
| Tue Jun 18, 2013 @ 9:00PM - 10:00PM Healthcare for All Issue Team Call (559) 726-1300; Access Code: 733525# |
| Wed Jun 19, 2013 @ 9:00PM - 10:00PM Stop Global Warming Issue Team Call (559) 726-1300; Access Code: 661274# |
| Mon Jun 24, 2013 @ 9:00PM - 10:00PM PDA ERA 3 State Strategy Call (559) 726-1300; Access Code: 787085# |
| Tue Jun 25, 2013 @ 9:00PM - 10:00PM Clean, Fair, Transparent Elections IOT Call (559) 726-1300; Access Code: 314363# |
| Wed Jun 26, 2013 @ 9:00PM - 10:00PM End Corporate Rule IOT Call (559) 726-1300; Access Code: 754227# |
PDA is organized around several core issues. These issues include:
Each team hosts a monthly conference call. Calls feature legislators, staffers and other policy experts. On these calls we determine PDA legislation to support as well as actions and future events.
| Thu May 23 @ 7:00PM - 08:00PM PDAVA10 - The Progressive 10th Weekly Conference Call Conference Call: (424) 203-8400 |
| Mon May 27 @ 9:00PM - 10:00PM PDA ERA 3 State Strategy Call (559) 726-1300; Access Code: 787085# |
| Tue May 28 @ 9:00PM - 10:00PM Clean, Fair, Transparent Elections IOT Call (559) 726-1300; Access Code: 314363# |
| Wed May 29 @ 6:00PM - 08:00PM Glimpse of the Prison Industrial Complex from the Inside Busboys & Poets 1025 5th Street NW Washington, DC, USA |
| Thu May 30 @ 6:00PM - 07:30PM Rep. Mark Pafford will host Town Hall Meeting Auditorium at Keiser University 2085 Vista Parkway West Palm Beach, FL 33411 |
| Thu May 30 @ 7:00PM - 08:00PM PDAVA10 - The Progressive 10th Weekly Conference Call Conference Call: (424) 203-8400 |
| Fri May 31 @ 7:00PM - 09:00PM PDA Meeting: End the War on Drugs; Florida Medical Marijuana Initiative Mid Bay Club Apartments, 11950 N Bayshore Drive, North Miami, FL 33181 |
| Wed Jun 05 @ 6:00PM - 08:00PM The Human Costs of The Prison Industrial Complex Busboys & Poets 1025 5th Street NW Washington, DC, USA |
| Wed Jun 05 @ 9:00PM - 10:00PM Economic and Social Justice Issue Team Call (559) 726-1300; Access Code: 781761# |
| Thu Jun 06 @ 7:00PM - 08:00PM PDAVA10 - The Progressive 10th Weekly Conference Call Conference Call: (424) 203-8400 |