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Archive for the ‘Action Alerts’ Category

Tomorrow, Saturday, the U.S. House of Representatives will vote on health care reform. The future of health care for you, me, and every American hinges on this historic vote. So now is the time to make your voice heard.

Please send an e-mail to your representative today and ask him or her to support a health care reform bill with a strong public option.

Unless we pass a strong bill, the color of your skin, your ethnic background, and where you live will continue to influence your access to health care, as well as the quality and cost of your care.

Leaders of the Congressional Black Caucus came by the War Room today to urge us to help them pass real health care reform with a strong public option. With your help NOW, we can end discrimination in health care coverage and ensure access for every American.

Click here to send an e-mail to your representative in Congress and tell him or her to support health care legislation with a strong public option requiring all individuals to have insurance.

So, this is it. Let us ensure that Congress stops a system that delays, denies and defends the lack of care.

Click here to listen to a personal message from Congressional Black Caucus Chair Barbara Lee. Then, send a letter to your member of Congress now to urge him or her to support real health care reform with a strong public option when the vote takes place tomorrow.

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We received this message from our good friends in the Mar-Saline Branch of the NAACP out of Marshall Missouri – Regarding the Heather Ellis case:

This is a call to action for ALL NAACP Units in the State of Missouri—we are taking it to the streets. There will be a protest demonstration November 16th beginning at 11 AM in Kennett, MO.— Protest led by the Rev. Bonner, President of the Sikeston NAACP. Do not know the starting point. We will be under the direction of our State Conference President.

Be there and God Bless— Safe travel.

For more information, contact Mary Ratliff; President of the Missouri State Conference of the NAACP

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We received this message from our good friends in the Mar-Saline Branch of the NAACP out of Marshall Missouri – Regarding the Heather Ellis case:

This is a call to action for ALL NAACP Units in the State of Missouri—we are taking it to the streets. There will be a protest demonstration November 16th beginning at 11 AM in Kennett, MO.— Protest led by the Rev. Bonner, President of the Sikeston NAACP. Do not know the starting point. We will be under the direction of our State Conference President.

Be there and God Bless— Safe travel.

For more information, contact Mary Ratliff; President of the Missouri State Conference of the NAACP

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Think Congress has heard enough about health care reform? Probably not, considering dozens of representatives and senators are still sitting on the fence.

They need to hear from you today!

Join the NAACP’s “Can You Hear Us Now” Congressional call-in days. Our goal is to make 88,000 calls to Congress by Thursday, October 29.

Do not leave the future of your health care to chance — call your representatives today to make sure they are working to champion quality, affordable health care for all Americans.

It is easy to call. Just call the number below and you will be connected to your representative’s office. We have provided a sample call script for you to follow, and once you are done, let us know what happened on the 880 site.

HOW TO CALL:
Call 1-800-577-1635 to be connected to your Members of Congress.

SCRIPT:
Hello, my name is ________. I live in [city or town] and I am a voter in your district. I am calling you today in conjunction with the NAACP to urge you to enact real health care reform that includes a public option.

We believe that a public option is the only way to keep insurance companies honest, ensure competition and provide quality, affordable health care for all Americans. Thank you.

Please, join the NAACP and call your representatives this week during our “Can You Hear Us Now” Congressional call-in days.

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Police shot and killed Mark Anthony Barmore, a 23-year-old black man, in a church day care center a few weeks ago in Rockford, Illinois. We have also learned that one officer involved in this killing has been accused of several other questionable police shootings. As you can imagine, tension is running high in the Rockford community and we are deeply concerned.

I thought you should know what the NAACP is doing about it.

Today I will be leading a delegation of NAACP leaders and staff to launch the NAACP’s investigation of this police killing and the police department itself.

In Rockford today, we will address a rally of community leaders and report on NAACP’s engagement with the Department of Justice to thoroughly investigate this awful tragedy.

We are also working with Congress to require the establishment of national standards for use of force, and training in use of force, for law enforcement officers. Currently, there are as many use-of-force policies as there are law enforcement agencies in our Nation today, and there are as many interpretations of those policies as there are law enforcement officers. This lack of uniformity is one of the core reasons behind the tragedy in Rockford and in too many other instances across the Nation.

We thank the Department of Justice for taking this case seriously through the outreach efforts its Community Relations Service. But to help re-establish trust in the community and to ensure that the Rockford police department is operating with integrity, we need a federal investigation into this case. Please, sign our petition urging the Department of Justice to conduct a full investigation of this shooting and the ongoing use of force by the Rockford police department.

So what actually happened in Rockford? Eyewitnesses say that outside a church day care center, Mr. Barmore encountered two police officers who apparently were looking for him on an allegation of domestic violence. He ran inside the church, and the officers followed him, guns drawn, without a warrant. After Mr. Barmore entered a small boiler room, the police demanded he come out. He slowly exited the room with his hands up. Then, witnesses say, police shot him — in front of small children in the day care center.

While he lay face down, witnesses say, police shot him three more times in the back! Additionally, officers have been using intimidation tactics against witnesses, such as sitting outside their homes and slowly driving by their homes.

We all must act to stop this kind of police abuse, so I need your help now.

Please, sign the petition and help us promote smart and safe law enforcement policies. I will be keeping you updated on the killing in Rockford and our efforts to investigate it – and prevent future tragedies.

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THE ISSUE:
Tom Perez was nominated by President Barack Obama to serve as Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights in March 2009. On June 4, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved of this nominee and sent him to the full Senate for confirmation. Now, finally, it appears that the nomination of Tom Perez might come before the full Senate for confirmation as early as Monday, September 14, 2009.

Tom Perez has a breadth and depth of experience in public service, civil rights, management, and leadership that make him an exceptional candidate for this post, and the NAACP strongly supports his nomination. The mission of the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division is to ensure equal treatment and equal justice under the law by enforcing and defending the civil rights of all Americans in areas such as education, employment, housing, voting, criminal justice, and public accommodations. Over the past 8 years, the civil rights division has been woefully misdirected, inactive, and has suffered from a high staff turn-over, combined with low morale, which has effectively decimated the division. As a result, the American people, and especially our nation’s racial and ethnic minority communities, are clearly facing a crisis in confidence as a result of the sketchy civil rights enforcement. Tom Perez is the right person at this time to work with Attorney General Eric Holder to rebuild not only the Civil Rights Division, but also our country’s reputation as a defender of the rights of all Americans to pursue the Constitutional promises of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

With experience in the executive and legislative branches at both the federal and state levels, Tom Perez has a proven track record in the area of civil rights enforcement, understands the issues he will face, is committed to securing and defending civil rights, and has the proven management abilities necessary to effectively restore integrity to the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division at this pivotal juncture. He has worked in practice at the Civil Rights Division, where he began as a federal prosecutor in the Criminal Section, and rose to become its Deputy Chief. In January 1998, Mr. Perez became Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights. He is well versed in not only many of the issues facing the Civil Rights Division at this time, but he is also keenly aware of how the division should be operating, and the challenges he will face in the upcoming years.

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The new agency would address the flaws in the current regulatory system overseeing and helping to enforce consumer protection laws

THE ISSUE:
President Obama has proposed establishing a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA), which would be charged with overseeing consumer protection in the home mortgages and financial services areas. Specifically, the President is proposing that we take all of the agencies that are currently meant to monitor and protect consumers’ interests when it comes to financial products and put them under one agency, thereby consolidating authority in one place with a new emphasis on protecting mortgage loans and financial services for consumers.

Our current system of consumer protection fails to protect American families from the most basic abuses that can cost households hundreds of thousands of dollars, and even their homes. Current laws and enforcement allow a range of institutions to escape supervision because responsibility for consumer protection is fragmented across too many regulators and many finance companies are not regulated at all at the Federal level. Regulators have spent recent years asking “What’s the effect on the financial firm?” without asking “What’s the effect on consumers?” As a result, among other problems, regulators permitted inappropriate mortgages and abusive credit card practices. Sadly, many of the worst abusers targeted low-income families and racial and ethnic minorities.

In the recent crisis, many of the people who were targeted by unscrupulous lenders lost their savings, their financial security, and in too many cases their homes. Furthermore, millions of American families saw their retirement savings or even their children’s college funds fall dramatically. Unregulated markets and over-reliance on the flawed judgments of credit rating agencies increased the instability of the financial system, which in turn exposed individual investors to tremendous risk. As proposed, the CFPA would focus on the core reforms that will address the causes of the current crisis, make the system more stable and resilient and give the government tools to better anticipate, avoid and address a potential future crisis.

The NAACP strongly supports this much needed consumer protection proposal and would in fact strengthen it by making civil rights an important component of the new agency’s stated mission and create a Civil Rights/Fair Lending Compliance and Enforcement Office. This office should serve a dual function – first to insure that the CFPA itself operates in a manner that affirmatively furthers fair housing and second to insure that financial market players comply with fair lending statutes. The CFPA must have the appropriate power and resources to vigorously enforce the fair lending laws under its auspices – Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA), Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, Community Reinvestment Act, and other appropriate fair lending statutes. It must have sufficient authority and resources to conduct fair lending examinations, engage in compliance activities, and write rules. This office must be headed by a senior level administrator who reports directly to the Director of the CFPA.

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THE ISSUE:
A “vulture fund” is a private company that buys up the debt of poor countries at a big discount from the original owner with the purpose of suing the indebted country in court once it has some money (often after debt cancellation). This practice comes at the expense of the citizens of these indebted countries — some of the most impoverished people in the world — as well as taxpayers in countries like the United States, who bear part of the cost.

There are a number of countries that continue to face crippling debt in Africa and throughout the world. For example, in Sub-Saharan Africa, the approximate number of people living on less than a dollar a day has actually increased since 1990. If current trends are not reversed, Africa will be the only region in the world where there will be more poor people in 2015 than there were in 1990. Debt cancellation gives impoverished countries a chance to start fresh and spend more money on health, education, and other essential social services. But while countries and international organizations have been giving some countries debt relief, “vulture funds”, which make huge profits at the expense of the citizens of these indebted countries often undermine any benefits that debt relief may have brought.

The actions of several unethical vulture funds are threatening to undo some of the hard-won gains of the international campaign for impoverished country debt cancellation. In 2007 one such vulture fund won $15 million from Zambia, money that was freed up by debt relief and should have been used for the fight against HIV/AIDS and poverty. Zambia was not alone: a 2007 report on vulture funds by the International Monetary Fund showed that 11 out of 24 heavily indebted poor countries (HPIC) were involved in litigation worth a total of about $1 billion on original claims of $427 million. Now Liberia, a country emerging from decades of devastating civil war, faces the possible threat of vulture lawsuits as it tries to clear up its illegitimate debt with the international community. HIPCs are particularly vulnerable to vulture funds which purchase the defaulted debts of HIPC countries at much reduced prices and litigate against the debtor for inflated sums, often in U.S. or English courts, making huge profits on the backs of the world’s poorest citizens.

The United States must work to help the world’s poorest countries eliminate debilitating debt which undermines their ability to provide basic human needs such food, housing, education, health care and infrastructure development for their people. To assist in this struggle, Congresswoman Maxine Waters (CA) and others have introduced H.R. 2932, the “Stop Very Unscrupulous Loan Transfers from Underprivileged Countries to Rich, Exploitive Funds Act” or the “Stop VULTURE Funds Act”. This legislation would prohibit any U.S. person from engaging in debt profiteering at the expense of another nation and would prohibit any U.S. Court from issuing a judgment which would further sovereign debt profiteering.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS IMPORTANT MATTER!!!
If you have any questions, call Hilary Shelton at the Washington Bureau at (202) 463-2940.

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THE ISSUE:
On Tuesday, July 28, 2009, the Senate Judiciary Committee, by a vote of 13 yeas to 6 nays, supported the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to serve as an Associate Justice on the United States Supreme Court. The full senate is expected to begin debate on the nomination on Tuesday, August 4, with a final vote on her confirmation scheduled for the end of the week. If confirmed Judge Sotomayor will take a seat on the highest court of the land when it begins its next session in October.

Sonia Sotomayor is an excellent choice. The daughter of immigrant parents (her father, a tool-and-die worker with a third grade education, died when she was nine years old; her mother, a nurse, raised Judge Sotomayor and her brother on a very modest salary), she grew up in the housing projects in the Bronx. She went on to graduate from Princeton University summa cum laude in 1976, and then from Yale Law School (where she was the editor of the law journal) in 1979.

After law school she got a job as an assistant district attorney in New York City, where she prosecuted cases involving police brutality, murder, child pornography and assaults. After a time in private practice, she was nominated in 1991 by President George H. Bush to serve as a federal judge for the U.S. District Court, southern District of New York. Six years later, she was nominated by President Bill Clinton to serve as an appellate judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, where she has served since 1998. She has been a prosecutor, private litigator, trial judge, and appellate judge. No one currently on the Court has that complete package of experience. If confirmed for the Supreme Court, Judge Sotomayor would bring more federal judicial experience to the Supreme Court than any justice in 100 years, and more overall judicial experience than anyone confirmed for the Court in the past 70 years. She has been a big-city prosecutor and a corporate litigator, a federal trial judge on the U.S. District Court, and an appellate judge on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.

A thorough review of Judge Sotomayor’s record shows that she is an intelligent jurist with mainstream values, a proven commitment to civil rights protection and an even temperament. Her 17 years on the federal bench show that she takes an impartial and balanced approach to the cases before her, and that she is above all fair.

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