NELP Unemployment Insurance Lobby Day! $405 is NOT ENOUGH!

NELP UI Lobby Day! $405 is NOT ENOUGH!

New Yorkers, NOW is the time to make your voices heard in Albany!

Join us on Tuesday, February 24^th, as we call on our elected leaders to support UI Reform!

Unemployment has been surging in New York State, and yet our Unemployment Insurance (UI) system remains woefully out-of-date, giving working families a maximum of only $405 in UI benefits. Is that enough to support a family - to cover food, housing, and medical costs? We say, "NO!" It's about time New York makes long-overdue changes that allow more working families to access benefits, particularly in these tough economic times.

So, how will these changes be made?

A recent bill was introduced in the State Assembly (A4920) that would increase the amount of benefits available to working families facing joblessness and allow more families throughout the state to be eligible for benefits. We need to let leaders in Albany know that A4920 is important to families in New York, and that we call on them to support the bill’s proposed changes to UI!

Join us on Tuesday, February 24^th as we visit our elected officials in Albany

and let them know we support A4920!

We will be meeting at the Westminster Presbyterian Church at 10:30 AM before heading out to meet with various elected officials for the day. All transportation costs (subway, travel to Albany) will be covered, and meals will be provided. See below for more details about travel and meeting places.

Please contact Christine, at criordan@nelp.org or 212.285.3025 ext.302, if you are able to attend or would like more information. Click here for a UI Lobby Day flyer. We hope to see you there!

Travel and Meeting Details:

In Albany, we'll be meeting at Westminster Presbyterian Church, 85 Chesnut St., at 10:30AM. Parking is on Chesnut St., between Dove St., and South Swan St., on the left-hand side of the street. Entrance to the church parlor is on Chesnut St. We'll be done by 4:30PM, and meals will be provided. Please click here for a map.

If you are leaving from the NYC Area, we can provide transportation. Meet at the NELP Office at 6:30AM - the office is located at: 75 MAIDEN LANE, SUITE 601, at MAIDEN LANE and WILLIAM ST., near the A, C, 2, 3, J, M, Z,4 & 5 subway lines. Please RSVP so we can accommodate those wishing to attend who need transportation.

A4920 Basics

• Provides benefits for educational workers, workers who leave their jobs due to domestic violence, and long-term unemployed workers in job retraining
• Provides higher benefits for low-wage working families
• Raises the maximum UI benefit incrementally over a number of years, and provides for automatic adjustment with wages by 2013
• Makes New York’s UI system more sustainable through better financing
  

Christine Riordan, Policy Analyst
National Employment Law Project
75 Maiden Lane, Suite 601
New York, NY 10038
Tel: 212.285.3025 ext. 302
Fax: 212.285.3044
Email: criordan@nelp.org
Web: www.nelp.org

LET THE REVOLUTION BEGIN!

Thanks for all you do!
Live your values. Love your country.
And, remember: TOGETHER, We can make a DIFFERENCE!

FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues, etc. This constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

71% of Americans want to see Bush investigated <---

Posted: Alternet: February 13, 2009.
By: Stephen Pizzo, News for Real.

Rumsfeld Knew His Guys Were Torturing People to Death, Which Is a Serious Crime,

AND, 71% of Americans want to see Bush investigated.

It's about time Obama's team hightailed their way over to court to start doing it.

During the Bush years the boogeyman used to keep Americans cowed was the real or imagined threat of imminent terrorist attack. Now we have a new president – and a new boogeyman ---> the economic meltdown. Don't get me wrong. Anyone who's read this column over the past few years knows I've been Chicken Littling about the financial house of cards for a long time. And, now that it's finally collapsed, it's even worse than I predicted, and getting worse with each passing day. Which is why Obama and his team are on the tube night and day talking about nothing else -- as if Americans are concerned about nothing, which isn't true.

71% of Americans are in favor of an investigation into the possible misuse of the Department of Justice by the Bush administration according to a Gallup poll released yesterday.

That's a pretty startling number, even for those of us who've been arguing for investigations for some time now. After all, Obama didn't get 71% of the vote, which means a lot of folks who voted for McCain equally want justice applied. One reason for this surprisingly robust groundswell for investigations may be because each day, formerly secret Bush-era documents surface, truly shocking our conscience. Just yesterday the ACLU got it's hands on a real smoking gun memo written for then Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld.

This document informed Rumsfeld that those he'd tasked with beating information out of suspected terrorists had not just tortured them, but, tortured some of them, to death. In other words, they murdered them. No, I'm not kidding. Here read the original document yourself. If Rumsfeld had been, say, some local police captain in charge of these guys, this document would make him – at very least – accessory-after-the-fact, to murder. He not only conspired to keep this evidence secret, but did not report this as the crime it is, nor order the perpetrators arrested, charged and put on trial. There's a legal name for this crime: “Misprison of a Felony.” Defined here as:

“The failure to perform a public duty...Misprision is a versatile word that can denote a number of offenses. It can refer to the improper performance of an official duty...The most familiar and popular use of the term misprision describes the failure to report a crime....The first Congress passed a misprision of felony statute in 1789. The statute holds, "Whoever, having knowledge of the actual commission of a felony … conceals and does not as soon as possible make known the same to some judge or other person in civil or military authority under the United States" is guilty of misprision of felony and can be punished with up to three years in prison. Under the federal statute, the prosecution must prove the following elements to obtain a misprision of felony conviction: (1)another person actually committed a felony; (2)the defendant knew that the felony was committed; (3)the defendant did not notify any law enforcement or judicial officer; and (4)the defendant took affirmative steps to conceal the felony.”

As for Rumsfeld, this document, the crimes it describes, and the available evidence indicate that, were he charged for misprison of a felony, he would be found; guilty on each count.

(An aside: Chances are very good that other high-placed officials in the Bush administration saw this document as well. A prosecutor and grand jury can find out just who else's chestnuts are in this particular fire.)

I am completely sympathetic to the extraordinary economic burden Obama and his team shouldered on January 21. But during the campaign it was Obama himself who posited the notion that a president had to be capable of do “more than one important thing at a time.” The economic meltdown – likely the worst since the Great Depression – demands immediate and intense attention.

But the economy is not the only thing that melted down during the Bush years. Core American values melted down as well, and require equally urgent attention from this new administration. Because America's strength and moral authority in the world don't flow solely from a robust US economy, but also by an unswerving adherence to a unique and lofty set of moral values. Both the economy and our moral authority need urgent and immediate repair. Obama needs to work night and day to return health and stability to our economy. He also needs to work night and day to restore our moral authority.

And, this can only be accomplished by holding those who so despoiled our national soul accountable for their (well-documented) crimes. So far though, I've not seen a glimmer that Obama, or his Attorney General, Eric Holder, have the stomach for real investigations that could lead to real crimes and real prosecutions.

For example, even though Obama has repeatedly promised to lift the many lids of secrecy the Bush administration slammed down on the public's right to know, he hasn't. It's currently just as hard to get information and documents about the Bush years out of the Obama administration as it was to get the same out of the Bush folks themselves.

sfgate.com -- For the second time this week, the Obama administration has gone to court in San Francisco to argue for secrecy in defending a terrorism policy crafted under George W. Bush - in this case, wiretapping that President Obama denounced as a candidate. (Full Story)

The Obama Administration must be told to keep their promise and loosen up, to release the kind of hard evidence We need to fully know what crimes were committed, by whom, where, when and how many.

To help get this message through to them please sign this petition.

This is a must. Who says?

Just 71% of the people they represent. That's who.

One more thing. Now that the Obama folks have those documents, they also have constructive knowledge of felonies committed. Which means if they don't investigate and prosecute, they may be the next ones found guilty of misprision of a felony. Ya know?

(For more Bush administration documents see the Document Drawer at -- http://www.bushproject.com)

LET THE REVOLUTION BEGIN!

Thanks for all you do!
Live your values. Love your country.
And, remember: TOGETHER, We can make a DIFFERENCE!

FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues, etc. This constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.