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JULY 2023
Bidenomics, Independence Day, SCOTUS Decisions, Worker Insurgence, Trump Trial, Bans Off Our Bodies!
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Supreme Court Decisions and Ethics Issues. | |
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SCOTUS just denied Affirmative Action in higher education, undermined President Biden’s Student Loan Relief Plan for over 43 million Americans, gave businesses a license to discriminate, and weakened the Voting Rights Act.
The MAGA Justices on the Supreme Court who took away our freedom to decide what happens to our bodies are attacking our freedoms once again. They know their agenda is unpopular so they want to rule over, not represent us. But we have seen that many can stand up to the money.
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We need ethics reform!
But even if this court were ethical, they are taking away our freedoms and ruling for the wealthy few instead of protecting everyday Americans.
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“Revelations of Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito’s corruption are merely the latest and most egregious breaches of trust from this Supreme Court. For the sake of justice on every issue we care about, Congress must immediately pass a binding code of ethics for the Supreme Court to create needed accountability, as the Court’s self-policing is clearly failing.” – Alliance for Justice
“It’s shameful how Justice Thomas and Justice Alito have been so cavalier about their violations of what would be expected of a justice of the supreme court. Here we have a body chosen for life, never have to run for office, nominated, confirmed, for life, with no accountability for their ethics behavior. 30% seems high.”
-Representative Nancy Pelosi
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President Biden believes that the best way to grow the economy is to grow the middle class. He took office with a theory and a plan to move from trickle-down economics to Bidenomics—and that plan is working. The U.S. has seen the strongest growth since the pandemic of any leading economy. We’ve added 13M jobs—including nearly 800,000 manufacturing jobs. Unemployment fell below 4% by the end of the President’s first year in office—beating expectations by 4 years—and has stayed there ever since. Unemployment rates for African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and people with disabilities have reached record lows. There have been 10.5M applications for new small businesses in 2021 and 2022—strongest 2 years on record. Inflation is now less than half of what it was one year ago.
“Bidenomics is about growing the economy from the middle out and the bottom up, not the top down. It’s an economic vision where we make smart investments in America, educate and empower American workers, and promote competition to lower costs and help small businesses.”
| The White House also launched Invest.gov, a new website showing the historic public and private sector investments President Biden’s Investing in America agenda is bringing to states and territories across America. | |
MAGA Tax Breaks to the Wealthiest. | |
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“Immediately after demanding deep cuts to programs for working families in debt ceiling negotiations, House Republicans have now released their tax plan to hand billions of dollars in tax cuts to corporations and their wealthy owners. Republicans’ goal is to slash taxes for the wealthy and corporations―and to do so on the backs of working families.
Kevin McCarthy has already called for creating a commission to further cut support for working families. And Republicans want to pay for their corporate tax handouts by revoking green energy tax credits from last year’s Inflation Reduction Act, which are meant to speed the U.S. transition away from fossil fuels and toward renewable energy sources.” – Americans for Tax Fairness
“This budget would destroy Social Security as we know it. It would raise the retirement age and slash middle class benefits. Not a single Democrat should take the bait. Instead, they should fight to protect and expand Social Security and Medicare, and pay for it by requiring the wealthy to pay their fair share. Then, let the American people decide which plan they prefer.” – Social Security Works
| UPS:Teamsters: 340,000 UPS workers are gearing up for a massive, nationwide strike. Working at UPS used to provide a comfortable, middle-class life. But the company has spent decades eroding pay and working conditions and even trying to gigify jobs. Now workers are fighting back. If they don’t get a fair contract deal by July 31, 2023, workers could go on strike. It would be the largest single-employer strike in U.S. history. | |
United Auto Workers: Since 2019: Inflation is up 18%. Autoworker pay is up 6%. Ford, GM, & Stellantis CEO pay is up 40%. The Big Three have made $250,000,000,000 in profits. 150,000 autoworkers’ contracts expire on September 14th. Workers need COLA (Cost-of-Living Adjustments) now.
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Starbucks Workers: are protesting reports that some Starbucks stores banned LGBTQ+ Pride displays this year after backlash against companies like Target, where angry customers tipped over Pride displays and confronted workers. The union also says Starbucks officials have warned workers that unionizing could threaten their health benefits, including gender affirming care for transgender workers.
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After months of negotiations, the IBEW’s Railroad members have what they’ve long sought but that many working people take for granted: paid sick days. “We’re thankful that the Biden administration played the long game on sick days and stuck with us for months after Congress imposed our updated national agreement,” – Railroad Department Director Al Russo
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Defend Our Bodies and Our Freedom. | |
A majority of Americans disapprove of the overturning of Roe v Wade — support for reproductive freedom is increasing even in Republican states. Attacks on our bodily autonomy serve as a Trojan horse for extremist politicians. Elections matter! We’ve got to organize to elect legislators who defend our bodily freedom. | | |
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“Approximately 1 in 5 (or an estimated 25.5 million) women in the U.S. reported completed or attempted rape at some point in their lifetime.
Republicans ban abortions with no exception for rape or incest even though more than 75% of Americans support allowing legal abortions in cases of rape and incest.”
DemLabs Rape by the Numbers
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No one is above the law – not even a former president of the United States. Donald Trump is being arraigned after a grand jury of everyday Americans reviewed mountains of evidence and he was indicted by the Department of Justice on 37 criminal counts. Let’s be clear: Any other individual who intentionally took these classified documents and obstructed law enforcement from attempting to return them would end up in prison. | |
An Illinois state representative, Abdelnasser Rashid, was visiting family with his wife and three children in the West Bank when he said his hometown was attacked by a violent mob. “What was supposed to be a vacation turned out to be a nightmare,” said Rashid. “It seems ever more clear to me that ultranationalist West Bank settlers today are pursuing the same objective espoused by that American settler in 1988: to drive Palestinians out. They are undoubtedly feeling emboldened by the new Israeli government — the most pro-settlement and anti-Palestinian to date.”-Ori Nir, New York TImes | |
The GOP’s Inhumane Immigration Policies. | |
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America’s Voice:
Many observers have become numb to the way Trump and the MAGAfied Republican Party have radicalized on immigration. Their anti-immigrant policy and political agenda is a point of depressing near-unanimity throughout the GOP at odds with the national interest and real attempts to fix a broken immigration system. The once-fringe immigration proposals pushed by former President Trump are now the backbone of the GOP’s immigration and border security platform in the 2024 race, GOP candidates are scrambling to outdo each other with statements and proposals ideologically aligned with Trump’s golden escalator speech.
It’s important to note that Ron DeSantis’ favorability continues to decline nationally.
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Ohio’s Upcoming Election. | |
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Ohio has a critically important special election on August 8th! The Republican legislature has placed an issue on the ballot to increase the threshold for passing ballot measures from 50% to an extremely daunting 60%. The impetus: They are hoping to kill a ballot measure protecting abortion rights. Let’s defeat them.
Threatening freedom to vote. Threatening reproductive freedom.
| Congratulations to Heather for being given the GAIN Power Lifetime Achievement Award! | In Memory of Daniel Ellsberg, Pentagon Papers. | |
Daniel Ellsberg who leaked the voluminous, top-secret history of the Vietnam War known as the Pentagon Papers, a disclosure that led to a landmark Supreme Court ruling on press freedoms and enraged the Nixon administration — serving as the catalyst for a series of White House-directed burglaries and “dirty tricks” that snowballed into the Watergate scandal — died at 92.
The ruling was hailed as a victory for the First Amendment and an independent press, and seemed to blunt the government’s use of prior restraint as a tool to block the publication of stories it did not want the public to read.
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What is America to me?
A name, a map, the flag I see,
A certain word, ‘Democracy’.
What is America to me?
The house I live in,
A plot of earth, a street,
The grocer and the butcher
And the people that I meet,
The children in the playground,
The faces that I see;
All races, all religions,
That’s America to me.
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When we organize, we can change the world. | | |
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We are so glad to be your partner in this movement for democracy and justice for all.
– Heather Booth and the Team
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Newsletter Designed by Cara Homick | | | | |
