Category Archives: ELIZABETH WARREN

Needham Letter: Women for Warren! (Elaine Becker, Dorothy DeSimone, Gemma Leghorn)

Letter to the editor – We support Elizabeth Warren because as a grandmother, as mothers, and as daughters we understand the importance of having a no-compromise, no-exceptions advocate for women’s rights in the U.S. Senate.

Scott Brown is a member of the Republican Party whose members have introduced bills that severely restrict a woman’s right to make decisions about her health and her body, in some cases by imposing invasive and humiliating roadblocks.

Brown himself co-sponsored a bill that, under the guise of protecting religious freedom, would have allowed all employers to deny contraception benefits to women employees. He voted against the nomination of Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan, a Princeton, Oxford and Harvard Law School graduate and Solicitor General, claiming she lacked experience. Of course, that was just a cover for Scott Brown to vote the Republican Party line.

Elizabeth Warren will stand up for women.  If some day a young Needham woman testifies before Congress on a controversial topic, Elizabeth will praise her good citizenship and defend her against the slurs and vilification of right wing Republicans.

Elizabeth understands that women have come too far to take a step backward.

Elaine Becker (a grandmother, mother, and daughter)  

Dorothy DeSimone (a mother and daughter)               

Gemma Leghorn (a daughter)

AFL-CIO’s Trumka: Elizabeth Warren is THE champion of working people

AFL-CIO Richard Trumka speech to be delivered today (via Politico) —

There may be dozens of reasons for us to vote for her, but it’s crazy not to vote for her because she’s a woman, or because she’s a college professor or for any other superficial reason.

The other bad reason to vote against her is because Scott Brown seems like the guy some of you supported years ago who served in the State Senate. Let me be perfectly frank with you– the Scott Brown you know is not the Scott Brown who’s serving in Washington today. The new Scott Brown votes every time with the 1 percent and the Tea Party. …

Do we want a buddy who will pat us on the back? Who wears a Bruins jersey with the boys?

Or a leader who will fight for our right to form unions and bargain for a better life?

Do we want just another Wall Street lawmaker, bought and sold?

Or do we want someone who’s so much more than a champion of Wall Street reform?

We’re talking about the person who visualized and campaigned for a new federal agency to protect you and me, to protect Main Street from Wall Street and prevent a repeat of the financial meltdown that threw millions and millions of workers out of the job market in 2008.

Elizabeth Warren is THE champion of working people,

and we have the power to put her in Washington!

Read more: as quoted in Politico

Firefighters Endorse Elizabeth Warren: Scott Brown is NOT for Us. Period.

from the Professional Firefighters Association of Massachusetts –  On Friday, September 21, 2012, the assembled delegates at the Professional Fire Fighters of Massachusetts meeting in Lawrence unanimously adopted the Executive Board’s motion to endorse Elizabeth Warren for U.S. Senate.

Your Executive Board did not arrive at the choice without patient and proper vetting. They were careful to ensure that this process did not deviate from our mission to support the issues important to our fire fighters.  I appreciate that many of our members have personal priorities that will influence their view of this Senate race, but the Executive Board chose to approach this endorsement based on the issues that effect us all.  When looking at our safety on the job, pay, pensions, healthcare, and our right to collectively bargain, the choice is clear:

Scott Brown has not voted our way. Period.

Take a look for yourself.

  • Brown voted to continue a filibuster against the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act (Cloture vote on H.R. 847, 12/9/10)
  • Brown voted to continue a filibuster against the IAFF’s collective bargaining bill (Cloture vote on S. 3991, 12/8/10)
  • Brown voted to abolish the FIRE and SAFER Grant programs in five years.  An amendment to “sunset” (ie kill) the two programs offered by Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) during committee consideration of a FIRE/SAFER Reauthorization was adopted by a vote of 9-8, with Brown providing the decisive vote to eliminate federal aid to fire departments.  (Coburn Amendment to S.550, 5/18/11)
  • Brown voted for the devastating “Cut, Cap, and Balance” budget proposal, which would slash billions of dollars of federal aid to local governments, leading to widespread layoffs of fire fighters and other municipal workers.   Other provisions in the plan would have prevented the government from generating revenue in the future, ensuring that the federal government would be unable to respond to public safety challenges in the future.  (HR 2560, motion to table 7/22/11)
  • Brown voted against the Teachers and First Responders Back to Work Act, which would provide $1 billion to hire fire fighters.  A bill that would have provided 22,000 police, fire, and teacher jobs in Massachusetts. (S. 1723 Senate vote 10/20/11)

you can download a copy of the letter at the PFFM website

Big Volunteer Turnout in Needham Today!

Today we had so many volunteers to knock on doors for Elizabeth–we ran out of walk-sheets! There are only 6 more weekends til the November.

This is how Elizabeth will win: on the ground, voter by voter. 

Join us for the next canvass–we’re doing at least one every weekend, now thru November 6!

Let us know when you are available: needham4elizabeth@gmail.com

On the Issues

Put the candidates next to each other and see where they stand on the issues.

Bookmark, print out, share, this handy breakdown of Elizabeth Warren and Scott Brown on the issues:

https://needham4elizabeth.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/warren-contrast-one-pager.pdf

(It’s a pdf of campaign literature volunteers are bringing to the doors–voter-by-voter, it’s how we’ll win!)

Polls show that Elizabeth is surging. As voters learn about Brown’s record, they see that he is not who he says he is, and that he is not standing up for us and our Massachusetts values.

Help get the word out!

(for more side-by-side comparisons, see the RESOURCES/Policy page)

“A hugely consequential Senator”

“Few in her party have made a more compelling case that

successful capitalism requires

a dose of government to guarantee

fair competition,

economic justice,

and the public infrastructure

businesses require.”
As Wellesley for Elizabeth puts it:
“Elizabeth would be a HUGELY CONSEQUENTIAL Senator. Scott Brown is a skilled local politician. We have a choice to make.”

Elizabeth supports fair pay for women.

Elizabeth supports fair pay for women.  This year Scott Brown joined 100% of Republicans to vote against continuation of the Lily Ledbetter Equal Pay for Equal Work bill.  Watch this great interview about the devastating impact of income discrimination on American women and American’s families. Our whole country suffers when women still have to fight this fight.

http://video.msnbc.msn.com/now-with-alex-wagner/48726515#48726515

(info via Wellesley for Warren)

Name it, Change it

from The Nation – the Herald printed a front page carrying a huge photo of Warren (see left), IDing her only as “Liz” and, yes, “Granny.” David Bernstein of the Boston Phoenix quickly tweeted, “Not a Quote. Not a Howie column. Just the Herald calling her granny.” Actually “Liz” is pretty tame, since she often gets “Lizzie.”

Apparently Carr felt he was so clever early on likening Warren to “Granny Clampett” of Beverly Hillbillies fame that he has kept it up to this day.

“Name It. Change It”—a nonpartisan project of WCF Foundation, Women’s Media Center and Political Parity—weighed in this week, “Since her debut in the political arena, Elizabeth Warren has been a lightning rod for media attention from both supporters and oppenents. However, there comes a time when it is vital to draw distinctions between the legitimate commentary she receives based on her politics and the repeated attacks launched against her because of her age and gender.…

“Again and again, Name It. Change It. has noted that The Boston Herald is engaging in a one way rhetorically sexist battle against the Democratic nominee for the Massachusetts senate seat. No other mainstream media outlet has shown Warren such disrespect as a woman running for office.” Well, I suppose that’s a relief (so far).

“While Carr has dedicated many of his vitriolic columns to Warren, the demeaning and sexist rebranding of Elizabeth Warren as ‘Liz’ or ‘Lizzie’ in the headlines of other Herald reporters and columnists such as Hilary Chabot, Michael Graham, Kimberly Atkins, and Jennifer C. Braceras, continues unabated and unremarked by any other media observers. What began as one man’s crusade against Warren has become the collective action for a large part of the paper’s editorial staff.”

Read more: http://www.thenation.com/blog/169203/boston-herald-vs-elizabeth-warren-will-sexism-win

Small Businesses: The Heart and Soul of Our Economy

Elizabeth Warren has a piece in Politico today about small business and the system fixed against their success. Read the whole thing at this link; a sample is below!

I meant what I said.

I stood before a group of voters in Massachusetts last year and talked about what it would take to move forward as a nation. I laid out how we all needed to invest in our country, to build a strong foundation for our families today and make sure the next kid with the great idea has the chance to succeed.

But too often that kid can’t succeed because the system is rigged against him.

Small-business owners bust their tails every day.

They’re the first ones in and the last to leave, six and often seven days a week. That’s how my Aunt Alice ran her small restaurant, where I worked as a kid. My brother and my daughter both started small businesses. And I’ve visited and talked with small-business owners across Massachusetts. From the insurance agency in Brockton to the coffee shop in Greenfield and the manufacturing plant in Lawrence — all started and run by people with good ideas and a determination to succeed.

I believe in small businesses. They’re the heart and soul of our economy.

They create jobs and opportunities for the future.

Washington politicians line up 10-deep to claim they support small businesses, but they avoid talking about a harsh reality: The system is rigged against small business.

These owners can’t afford armies of lobbyists in D.C., but the big corporations can. It’s those armies of lobbyists that create the loopholes and special breaks that let big corporations off the hook for paying taxes. While small businesses are left to pay the bills.

We’ve got to close those loopholes and end the special breaks — so small businesses have a level playing field and a fair chance to succeed.

When small businesses grow and flourish, we should applaud their success, and the companies should benefit from their hard work and clever ideas. But here’s my point: If a business makes it big, the reward shouldn’t be the ability to rig the system to stop the next guy.

If a business takes its profits to the Cayman Islands, ships its jobs overseas or finds a loophole to avoid paying its fair share of taxes, then that business now has a leg up over every small business and start up that can’t take advantage of those loopholes. Sometimes the big can get bigger not because they are better but because they can work the system better. That’s bad for every small business in America.

…

For the small businesses that can’t spend millions of dollars to hire lobbyists who get them special deals or hire armies of lawyers to move their money overseas or restructure their operations to take advantage of every loophole, it isn’t a game.

Washington is rigged to work against their interests with real-life consequences. They compete against the big companies, working hard to hold on to the American dream of providing a better life for their kids and grandkids. They see how the game is rigged.

We face a real choice in this country between the Republicans’ “I’ve got mine,” approach and the belief that, as a nation, we reward success and hard work — keeping the playing field level so that everyone with a good idea, a dream of making it big and plenty of determination has a chance to make it.

We must be committed to the American dream, the approach that made us the most prosperous and strongest country in the world and built a future of opportunity for our children and grandchildren.

The choice is ours.