Support against all odds

On May 13, three of my fellow San Jose Council Members and the Mayor proposed a fiscal and public safety emergency that would strip city workers of their benefits and take away their collective bargaining rights. This bill is substantially similar to the attacks on workers rights that were recently rammed through Wisconsin’s legislature by its rabidly anti-worker governor, Scott Walker. But then, there was a huge backlash. As part of that backlash, thousands of San Jose residents—and thousands more across the country—signed a petition I started to Mayor Reed and the San Jose City Council, urging them to resolve our city’s fiscal situation in cooperation with our workers. Because of our efforts, the bill has been postponed to August 2! Now, I need help to keep my petition growing. If I can get a total of 10,000 signatures by August 2, it will send a really powerful message that attacks on collective bargaining won't be tolerated in San Jose. I will do everything within my power to convince the Mayor and my fellow council members to work with our city’s workers to solve our San Jose’s budget challenges, rather than attacking them. So far, this has been a tough fight. But with the votes postponed, we're winning. On Aug. 2, the city is scheduled up the "fiscal and public safety emergency" proposal, as well as proposals to retroactively reduce pension benefits that our workers have already earned and are contractually entitled to. Measures like these historically have been held to be illegal, and will no doubt lead to lengthy and expensive lawsuits. Instead of using these extreme tactics, we should work with our employees, who have shown their willingness to do their part to achieve fiscal reform. By myself, I am one City Council member. But together, we are powerful. I need your help to make sure our Mayor and City Council know that attacks on workers won’t be tolerated.

We need more Americans to buy American textiles. If we just spend an additional $30.00, per year on clothes made in America we would save hundreds of thousands of jobs! Not to mention the help it would be to our economy and the individual businesses! Most unionmade products available here are made in America!!! Just think of the economic boost it will be to keep all that money here, instead of sending it to China!!!

Capitol Hill needs to get priorities straight and stop putting the cart before the horse. What we need first is jobs! Nothing will get better until we have created jobs to provide income to American households... not the housing market, not the deficit, not the any part of the free market. Our nation's infrastructure is crumbling, so doesn't it make sense to focus on the horse that pulls the cart carrying all those ancillary issues? Any stimulus money our government has at it's disposal needs to be used to repairing and rebuilding roads, bridges, levees and dams we have depended on since FDR's program created them and brought us out of The Great Depression? Doing so would put countless numbers back to work, and that horse would be better able to pull the wagon that holds the debt ceiling and deficit issues we must ultimately address.

The Budget put forward by the House Progressive Caucus reduces the debt responsibly while protecting Medicare, Social Security and the Middle Class. Please know that when you stand firm behind our Party's true Progressive Principles that focus on creating good jobs for the middle class, investing in public education, ending Corporate Welfare and taxing the rich and corporations fairly, that we will all stand with you! We will support you, help to raise money for your campaigns and work to get out the vote to elect you! We will turn out in huge numbers to support you if you make our best case to the American people! You stand on the shoulders of courageous people like President Franklin D. Roosevelt, President Harry Truman, President John F. Kennedy, Robert and Ted Kennedy, and Reverend Martin Luther King. Men who risked everything to fight to create a Middle Class and defend the rights and dignity of every American! These great leaders knew that when you call on the people of this Country to do great things we answer the call! The CPC proposal: • Eliminates the deficits and creates a surplus by 2021 • Puts America back to work with a “Make it in America” jobs program • Protects the social safety net • Ends the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq • Is FAIR (Fixing America’s Inequality Responsibly) What the proposal accomplishes: • Primary budget balance by 2014. • Budget surplus by 2021. • Reduces public debt as a share of GDP to 64.1% by 2021, down 16.5 percentage points from a baseline fully adjusted for both the doc fix and the AMT patch. • Reduces deficits by $5.6 trillion over 2012-21, relative to this adjusted baseline. • Outlays equal to 22.2% of GDP and revenue equal 22.3% of GDP by 2021. Here is a link to the Peoples Budget http://grijalva.house.gov/uploads/The%20CPC%20FY2012%20Budget.pdf Eliminates National Deficit by 2021! We want to see every Democrat in Congress speaking in support of our values, our needs, our communities and our People's Budget! It's the way to victory for every American and for the Democratic Party in 2012! Please call a Press Conference and stand together on the Capitol Steps in support of "The People's Budget"!

Since the beginning of his presidency we have heard President Obama talk about rebuilding our nation's infrastructure, but nothing has actually happened. No bills have been initiated, no money appropriated, and no projects started. When these steps are taken it may still take decades to see results. We have given away trillions to billionaire bankers and mega-corporations that have produced little or no benefit or relief to the poor and middle class. The time is now to improve our roadways, bridges, and rail systems and to develop new energy sources and move away from our dependence on foreign oil. The added benefit is the creation of hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of disparately needed jobs that will drastically improve, if not totally revive our dying economy.

For weeks, workers, faith leaders and community allies have working to defeat HB 474, a bill that attacks workers, weakens unions, and jeopardizes middle-class families. This so-called "right to work" bill is the first step in a larger effort to weaken New Hampshire’s middle class. The good news is: A bipartisan super-majority of representatives in the State House opposes HB 474. But even though we have the votes to defeat this bill, we could still lose. That's because Speaker of the House Bill O'Brien is refusing to announce when he'll hold the vote. Since Speaker O’Brien can hold the vote at any time he chooses, without warning or public debate, the big danger is that he’ll sneak through the bill when key legislators are absent—in the dead of night, on a low attendance day or over the winter. Holding a voce without adequate notice would be an undemocratic dirty trick. It’s only reasonable that New Hampshire working families have the notice we need to participate in our own state government. That's why we're respectfully asking that Speaker O’Brien honor the democratic process in New Hampshire, and give at least 48 hours notice before holding a vote.

Both the Federal and state governments have been depending on the working people and those who would like to be working to pay to run the government. Yet the laws are made to help the Rich and Wealthy corporations. It is time to flip the funding.

Congress and the President have put job creation on a back-burner in preference to measures that deal with inflation (which is very low); interest rates (also very low), and the deficit (high, but best lowered by a vibrant economy, which depends on plentiful jobs).

Elizabeth Warren is fighting for the protection of consumers. It is only fair that we as consumers fight for her, against the massive concentrated attack she is under from the GOP, the banking and insurance lobbies. Let's let the White House know we want her to head up the CFPB. The President can and should appoint her.

Congress has already voted to spend money. Now the Republicans want America to stiff its creditors by refusing to raise the "debt ceiling." I can't tell my tell my creditors I decided not to raise my debt ceiling. Tell Congress to label the debt ceiling bill the "America Is Not A Deadbeat Nation" bill and demand Republicans to vote yes or no on the question: "Does America cheat its creditors?"

I’m Will Towers, a corrections officer from Oakland, Maine. My co-workers and I are willing to work together with the state to help solve our state’s fiscal situation. But we’re not willing to have our rights attacked. Instead of working with Maine’s state workers, our rabidly anti-worker governor, Paul LePage, is attacking us and our unions. Last week, I learned that LePage and his friends in the legislature are pushing a bill misleadingly called “right to work,” starting with a hearing this Thursday at 2:30p.m. L.D. 309—the bill our legislators will be considering—doesn’t give workers rights. It takes them away. It directly challenges the right of me and my co-workers to bargain freely over our wages, benefits and working conditions. I’ve had enough of Gov. LePage and his friends in the Maine legislature doing the bidding corporate CEOs, Wall Street hedge fund managers and out-of-state special interest groups who poured money into Maine’s 2010 elections.