The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform met this morning to continue to play politics with women’s health. Chairman Darrell Issa refused to allow a minority witness to testify at the Committee hearing and the photo to the right of an all-male panel at the hearing tells a succinct story about the GOP war on women.

While Issa’s political circus will finish up today, an extreme measure which would allow any and all insurers and employers to deny employees health benefits and services based on their personal religious or moral objections awaits a vote in the Senate.

Please contact your Senators right now and urge them to stand firm against extremist attacks on women’s health and access to contraceptive care. http://j.mp/ABFLiV

A vote on the Blunt Amendment to the Surface Transportation bill could come as early as TODAY!

Take action and tell your Senator to vote NO on the Blunt amendment today.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, better known as the stimulus, turns 3 this week. Did it work? Michael Linden, Director of Tax and Budget Policy at the Center for American Progress, answers that question in a new video by looking at three broad but important indicators for the American economy. All three were in bad shape before the stimulus began, and all three turned around at almost exactly the moment the stimulus started. Coincidence?

USAction affiliates, joined by the AFL-CIO, Working America and members from AFSCME, CWA and SEIU said, wait a minute.

In more than a dozen states, we came together in coalition and organized Walk in My Shoes: A Day of Action in Support of Jobless Americans. In some cases, we literally delivered old shoes to congressional district offices and asked members to walk in our shoes when it comes to building an economy that works for all of us and promoting economic security – the things that keep our families together and our communities whole.

Check out some of the events below:

• Florida Consumer Action Network, joined by the AFL-CIO, rallied in Lakeland to call on Rep. Dennis Ross to vote to extend unemployment insurance benefits. The event received coverage in the Lakeland Ledger and resulted in FCAN’s recruitment of several new activists.
• United Action for Idaho presented eight pairs of worn-out shoes with stories attached to Senator Mike Crapo’s district office to demand that UI be extended with no barriers. The group met with the senator’s press secretary for 40 minutes, and secured a promise that Sen. Crapo would vote for a UI extension with no barriers.
• Maine People’s Alliance organized out-of-work Mainers to visit the offices of Senators Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe in Portland, Augusta and Lewiston/Auburn. The visitors delivered more than 700 messages from constituents in support of extending UI benefits and opposing barriers.
• Florida Consumer Action Network, joined by the AFL-CIO, rallied in Lakeland to call for an extension of unemployment insurance benefits.
• Michigan Citizen Action, joined by AFSCME and CWA members and several local elected officials, visited Rep. Fred Upton’s district office in Kalamazoo. Several unemployed workers were able to go inside the congressman’s district office and share their stories with Rep. Upton’s district director. The event received newspaper, radio and TV coverage.
• Missouri ProVote, along with Missouri ARA and the AFL-CIO, delivered petition signatures and a pair of work boots to Senator Claire McCaskill’s office to urge her to support extending UI with no barriers. Three unemployed workers shared their very moving stories.
• New Hampshire Citizens Alliance challenged Rep. Charlie Bass to “walk in the shoes” of the 9,000 Granite Staters who stand to lose UI benefits if Congress does not act. “Americans have lost their jobs and their homes and now some in Congress would steal their unemployment insurance,” said Olivia Zink, NHCA community organizer.
• Citizen Action of New York met with Rep. Richard Hanna at his district office in Binghamton. The meeting was covered by all four local TV stations.
• ProgressOhio printed out the stories of unemployed Ohio residents and created storyboards in front of Senator Rob Portman’s district office. Each storyboard was fronted by a pair of shoes. “Rather than play politics with the lives of millions of working people and their families, lawmakers should pass a full extension of unemployment insurance without restriction or delay,” said ProgressOhio Executive Director Brian Rothenberg. ProgressOhio was joined by unemployed workers, activists, Occupy Colombus, Working America, ARA and Communities United.
• Oregon Action and leaders from local labor groups gathered in front of Rep. Greg Walden’s Medford office. The meeting included several unemployed workers who would be hurt by being cut off UI. Walden’s staff said that Walden supports drug testing and other barriers to workers. One local TV news gave pre coverage at noon. Oregon Action also had people call in to support our position before, during and after the event.
• West Virginia Citizen Action Group, joined by AFL-CIO, West Virginia Council of Churches, CWA and the American Friends Service Committee, held a press conference at the state capitol. The event drew radio and TV coverage.

Nearly 40,000 of us have already signed on to support Sen. Whitehouse and his bill to tax the super-rich. And we’ll be delivering all your signatures to the Senate in-person.

Right now, Sen. Whitehouse’s “Buffett Rule” has 10 cosponsors. Many more agree, but haven’t signed on yet. That’s where you come in.

Will you write your Senator today and ask them to co-sponsor the “Paying a Fair Share Act”?

Every letter you send helps because whether your Senator is a dead-set 1%’er or a die-hard friend of Occupy, they all know that if you’re willing to write them a letter, you’re willing to talk to friends and family about why the super rich should pay their fair share.

And in an election year, showing politicians that we know their voting record and are willing to speak out is the best tool we have to make change. Send your Senators a personal message asking them to cosponsor the Buffett Rule.

Already taken action? Tell your friends and family about the Buffett Rule today.

As the wars of the past decade recede, we should use this as an opportunity to invest hundreds of billions of dollars that would have been spent on war and weapons into job creation here at home.

But the military-industrial complex will put up a fight over every piece of pork that keeps them fat and happy. Led by defense contractors like Lockheed Martin, defense lobbying increased 10% in 2011. With Pentagon budget cuts scheduled for 2013, their effort will undoubtedly intensify.

But they have a jobs problem, illustrated by the chart below which debunks a main talking point of the defense industry.

As William Hartung writes:

“Plans for cutting the federal deficit have raised an important question: what impact would military spending reductions have on jobs? 

Contrary to the assertions of the arms industry, maintaining military spending at the expense of other forms of federal expenditures would actually result in a net loss of jobs.  This is because military spending is less effective at creating jobs than virtually any other form of government activity.
…
The question is not whether military spending creates jobs – it is whether more jobs could be created by the same amount of money invested in other ways.  The evidence on this point is clear.

• A billion dollars devoted to a tax cut creates 34% more jobs than a billion dollars of military spending ;
• Spending on clean energy production produces one and one-half times more jobs ;
• And, spending on education creates more than two and one-half times more jobs.”

Hartung closes with the most salient point, one we’ve been making for years about budget priorities — “The more money we spend on unneeded weapons programs, the more layoffs there will be of police officers, firefighters, teachers and other workers whose jobs are funded directly or indirectly by federal spending.“

This shouldn’t even be a choice. The workers that serve us in the public sector should not have to pay for the crimes of the 1% that got us in this economic mess. And the 1% defense contractors should not win out over the education of our children or the safety of our neighborhoods simply because they can spend $15 million lobbying Congress for more weapons and war.

USAction co-founded Health Care for America Now (HCAN) and helped lead the field campaign in dozens of states in the historic campaign to make health care a right in our country. Now, when Republicans are campaigning to repeal the new law, a new book dramatically tells the story of our grassroots, coalition campaign that triumphed over the tea party, Chamber of Commerce, health insurance industry and Republican Party.

Written by HCAN Campaign Manager Richard Kirsch, Fighting for Our Health: The Epic Battle to Make Health Care a Right in the United States offers a vivid, first-person account of how health care reform came to be. The book brings readers inside the biggest and most consequential issue campaign in American history. Fighting for Our Health recounts how a reform campaign led by grassroots organizers played a crucial role in President Obama’s signing historic health reform legislation in March of 2010.

The action takes place inside the Beltway — the White House, Congressional anterooms, and the streets of DC — and at hundreds of town meetings, demonstrations, and confrontations in places like Danville, Virginia and Lincoln, Nebraska, where we turned out and raised our voices

Most powerfully, it is the story of the triumph of thousands of people who had seen loved ones die, families go bankrupt, small businesses ruined, and futures destroyed by the health insurance system in the United States.

Check out the book’s website here: http://www.fightingforourhealth.com and on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/#!/ffohbook.

Originally posted on the Milwaukee Public Television website: http://www.mptv.org/video/watch/?id=1121

American health care costs too much and covers too few. The Affordable Care Act is tackling the problems, piece by piece. But how will this law change American health care? Will it help people with poor or no insurance? And will the Act survive the courts, lobbyists, and legislators? With host DENISE CALLAWAY. And with guests, in order of appearance — BILL PETASNICK, CEO, Froedtert Health; PATRICIA McMANUS, PhD, President & CEO, Black Health Coalition of Wisconsin; SUSAN GIAIMO, PhD, Political Scientist, Marquette University, Author, Markets and Medicine: the Politics of Health Care Reform in Britain, Germany, and the United States; and ROBERT KRAIG, PhD, Executive Director, Citizen Action of Wisconsin.

Originally posted on ProgressOhio’s website: New Report Documents Influence of American Legislative Exchange Council in Columbus

COLUMBUS, OH – A new report released today by People For the American Way Foundation, Common Cause, the Center for Media and Democracy and ProgressOhio reveals the deep ties between the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and Ohio’s legislature.

Through a side-by-side comparison of ALEC legislative models and actual Ohio bills, the report shows how Ohio’s legislators are working in tandem with corporate leaders to deregulate key industries, privatize education and dismantle unions.

The report, ALEC in Ohio: The Corporate Special Interests that Help Write Ohio’s Laws, is available here.

President Obama asked for the “Buffett Rule” in his State of the Union speech, calling it “common sense”. Sen. Whitehouse, a Democrat from Rhode Island, answered the call. But we need your help to make it happen. Sign our petition today to show your support!

Under the current laws, loopholes and special provisions allow some of the wealthiest Americans to pay lower effective tax rates than middle class families. For example Mitt Romney paid only 13.9% on his millions in income in 2010. That’s just not fair. It’s time that the 1% paid the same tax rates as the 99%.

Sign our petition, and we’ll present it to Sen. Whitehouse’s office this month. By showing your public support, this will help his office generate momentum to encourage other Senators to sign on too.

Share on Twitter by tweeting:

ACTION: Make the 1% pay their fair share! Support @SenWhitehouse’s “Pay A Fair Share Act” http://j.mp/A70mpw