Join members of the NWSOFA Gun Violence Prevention Issues Team
as we meet for our first Action Lunch at Coffee Planet in Rolling Meadows.
After a brief lunch to connect with each other over good food and conversation, we will be calling voters in the state of Washington to urge them to vote for a ballot initiative which would expand background checks for gun purchasers in their state.
Following the time set aside for calling Washington residents, we will be walking in pairs to visit local merchants to check out their interest in posting a “No Guns” sign and to engage them in conversation to measure their awareness of the right they have to post this sign. After our visit with the local merchants, we will return to the Coffee Planet to de-brief and discuss next steps. Hope to see you there!
@ Target with Assault Weapons ready to fight off terrorist
CIR Planning Team.. What an Event they Produced on 6/28
Comprehensive
Immigration Reform
Organizational
Meeting
& Phone Bank
Thursday, June 24, 2014
6:30 – 9:00 PM
Coffee Planet (Rolling Meadows, IL)
1450 Golf Rd,. Rolling Meadows, IL 60008
Join the Immigration Reform CIR Dream Team as we expand our efforts in the North West Suburbs. Organization, goals, and action plans will be discussed from 6:30- 7:30 pm .
The August 1st Day of Action (DOA) will be the main topic.. what topics, updates to the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill is happening .. a look at where the House of Representatives leaning and the current plight of the refugees at the boarder.
After a Great Rally on 6/28 held by OFA Chapters across the Chicago Metro area … We are headed to our next NATIONAL DAY OF ACTION.. AUG 1ST.
It’s Working…. We are changing the way Illinois politicians are looking at Immigration through our ACTIONS:
Come join us to get folks involved in the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Movement.
Join us on the 10th and 24th of July (Thursday) from 7-9pm at the Coffee Planet. Meet the team, have some coffee and makes some calls to others progressives to get involved.
We discuss the political news of the day and how it impacts our Issues and events coming up and make calls to invite others to come. Don’t like making calls, come and write letters to the editor-LTE, or help make posters if there’s a rally coming up.
Please call Sara 847-372-5594 to confirm so we know how many lists to bring.
7pm – 9 pm Arlington Heights Library 500 N. Dunton
Friday, August 1st, 2014
Despite over a year of opportunity since the Senate passed a bipartisan bill to fix our broken immigration system, grow our economy, and strengthen our families and our communities, Speaker John Boehner and House Republicans have failed to act.
Their inaction is costing all of us and it’s time to make sure that we are letting our neighbors know what has happened in the fight for reform, how our communities would benefit from reform, and what we can do in what continues to be a long term fight.
OFA will kick off our August campaign with Community Action Planning Sessions, where we will continue to build this movement for reform by telling the story of the campaign for reform over the past year, arming ourselves with an understanding of the benefits of reform, and the cost of a year of inaction by the House, and empowering ourselves and other members of our community with the tools we need to keep the fight going.
Did you know that by the House NOT passing CIR it is costing the US $37,000,000 per day in lost revenue.. That’s $13 billion a year.. Every Year until it’s passed.
Come join us to get folks involved in the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Movement.
On Monday, July 14, 2014 Northwest Suburbs Organizing for Action (NWSOFA) held a “Raise the Minimum Wage Petition Drive.”
Raising the minimum wage isn’t just the right thing to do for workers; it would also boost our economy and our community. Despite support from 7 out of 10 Americans — including President Obama, members of Congress and state and local officials — lawmakers have refused to raise the minimum wage. The current national minimum wage is $7.25. Raising it to $10.10 would help over 28 million workers.
NWSOFA volunteers want to let our lawmakers know the American people support Raising the Minimum Wage. On this national day of action, OFA Chapters across the nation continued the petition drive and have collected over half a million in support to let Congress know it’s time to “Raise the Wage.”
Those volunteers who collected signatures at the Arlington Hts. Library and Harper College were inspired by the eagerness of people to make their voices heard. Kathy Carter of Arlington Hts. said “I am always encouraged by the positive response to our request for signatures to Raise the Minimum Wage. It tells me that a wide range of Americans support this effort…we will prevail!”
Gayle Lewis brought her daughter to help out and stated, “Both myself and my 13 year old activist daughter felt energized and excited at the end of the day. We talked to many people who were passionate about our cause, which gave us great hope!”
Helen Tan stated regarding the students at Harper College, “Students understand what it’s like to live on minimum wage”. She had a very enthusiastic student sign up; made sure he got more information on NWSOFA and was eager to have his picture taken while he was signing the petition.
It was a very inspiring day for all. For more information on NWSOFA and events like, this please check out our web site at NWSOFA.org.
NWSOFA Held Their
“Taste of OFA” to Rave Reviews
Special Report on the 7-16 Meeting By Kym Garnett
On Wednesday, July 16th at 7:00 p.m. NWSOFA held its “Taste of OFA… Issues You Can Believe In” July monthly chapter meting
A great crowd came from all over the NW Suburbs to get a taste of what OFA is.
Michael Hopkins, exclaimed at the end it was, “Wonderful,informative and inspiring!”. He was excited to be with a group of like-minded, progressives who are working to make a difference.
Diane Salvato said,”I was glad to see all the new faces interested in progressive issues.”
This is a crucial time for many of our important issues: gun violence prevention, immigration reform, climate change, healthcare, women’s rights, and fiscal and economic issues.
The NWSOFA Issue teams each presented the “Good News” that has been accomplished but gets drowned out in all the “noise”. They also encouraged all our new folks to come to events coming up and get involved in what you are passionate about.
The Fiscal Issues and Stand with Women Teams have been working on the need to raise the national minimum wage which is $7.25 to $10.10. They have been holding petition drives in support of this. To date they’ve collected over 900 signers.Those are added to those collected nationally from OFA chapters across the country. We have over 500,000 and will be sending them to congress. Raising the wage would be a tremendous boast to families, women who are the majority of minimum wage earners and to our overall economy.
The Gun Violence Prevention Team delivered over 1,800 “Not One More” postcards to Rep. Roskam’s office. These were the result of the plea from the father who lost his son in the shooting in CA. The safety of our children has to be a priority and our members of congress must know we will hold them accountable. Paul Culhane’s comment was it was “not just Newton, or or Colorado or California- also DeKalb!”.
The Affordable Care Act Team presented plenty of good news. Over 9 million Americans now have health insurance that couldn’t get it before. The number of uninsured has dropped dramatically. Lives have been saved. It’s so important that anyone who has a major life event, birth of a baby, loss of job, child who reaches 27,etc. can still get on ACA before the next enrollment period in Nov.
Our Climate Change Team also had lots of good news with the new EPA Carbon Rules that have been issued to reduce carbon emissions by 30%.This team has partnered with Sierra Club and other environmental groups to provide numerous in-depth presentations on the reality of climate change, solutions and hope we can make towards saving our world for future generations. Climate “deniers” are living in fantasyland while the rest of us know reality.
The highlight of the evening was a presentation by Marlene Rivera, Comprehensive Immigration Reform Lead for the Chicago area. Her own personal story and the economic losses we are having now as a country from the House of Representatives not passing comprehensive immigration reform are devastating to families and a huge loss to our economy over ?? million per month and ?? trillion per year.
Another newcomer’s comment summarized the impact of the evening, “A fabulous display of fact and emotions in equal measure on a range of important issues!”
Thorium, Molten Salt Reactors, and Green Energy
Special Report on the 7-17 Meeting
On July 17,Tim Pearson, Vice-President of NEXTCHEM Process Analyzers, Inc. , gave a stellar Thorium, Molten Salt Reactors, and Green Energy presentation.
Both informative and intriguing, the perception of nuclear energy created in our current high pressure uranium nuclear reactors compared to the possibility of nuclear energy created in low pressure thorium nuclear reactors bordered on being a paradigm shift.
“Seriously, it was a great talk. Thanks also for everyone who came and contributed to the discussion. It is really a blessing to be able to have a thoughtful discussion probing some of the options of these important issues.”
The Attendees responded:
“It was a very effective presentation. It definitely moved the needle on the technical guys, those just wanting to know more, and on those totally against all nuclear energy.”
“My head is still swimming, but feel I got a rudimentary education on this.”
“It was a very informative and thoughtful discussion. I appreciated the expertise in the room.”
“Tim was very informative and the attendees were well informed. Thorium looks promising but I suspect it will take years to develop: So we still need quick implementation of massive numbers of wind and solar facilities to reduce fossil fuel impacts. We also need large investments in battery and material research.”
Some key points from the presentation were:
Currently there is a tremendous amount of radioactive uranium nuclear waste sitting in holding tanks around the world. Thorium Molten Salt Reactors can use this waste to generate electricity. The waste is enough to replace the electricity generated by coal and natural gas plants throughout the world for 70 years.
Thorium is generated in the manufacturing of wind, solar, electric battery, cell phones, television and other electrical components. This radioactive Thorium could be consumed in Molten Salt Reactors allowing more green manufacturing jobs in the U.S. and bringing some home from China.
For Thorium generated electricity, within 10 years 83% of its spent fission products are stable and can be partitioned and sold, such as for low radiation medical use. The remaining 17% of its fission products go to geologic isolation for 300 years, compared to all of the uranium fission products, which were supposed to go to Yucca Mountain for 10,000 years of isolation, but instead are just sitting around all over the world.
India has a working model Thorium reactor, and is planing to build viable Thorium reactors. India has 15% of the world’s coal reserves, as well as 15% of the world’s Thorium. Let’s hope they do. If India burns all that coal releasing the CO2, then our world is toast.
Molten Salt Reactors can readily be turned off and restarted. The first model at Oak Ridge was shut down for the weekends, because the engineers did not want to work weekends.
It is most difficult to develop nuclear bombs from Thorium, and detection of Thorium nuclear bomb development is easily detected. Long term Thorium could possibly become an important part of our zero carbon future.
Thorium nuclear energy could also be part of the Illinois energy mix related to the EPA Clean Power Plan proposals released June 2. Each state, including Illinois, will be implementing a carbon system to reduce CO2 emissions 30% by 2030. Each state will individually be assigned flexible criteria to meet its goal. Illinois currently depends on nuclear energy, and good, bad or indifferent, realistically nuclear will be part of the Illinois energy mix. An alternative to uranium nuclear energy is thorium nuclear energy.
NWSOFA is a whole, diverse wonderful family of people who want to do more than talk about the social issues. We explore and dig deep on the facts and decide what actions we can take that can have an impact locally and nationally. NWSOFA members not only “talk the talk”, but we “walk the walk”.
All our teams have numerous events that will enlighten and inspire you and yes, challenge you to make the effort to make a difference.
We invite you to join us!
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NWSOFA is working hard on using all the social media tools to connect progressives to get the word out on Immigration, The Economy, Healthcare, Climate Change, Women’s Rights, Marriage Equality & Gun Violence Prevention.
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Checkout our WebSite Also … Contains Calendar of Events, Past and Present Newsletters, and Information from each and every Issue Team
NWSOFA New Facebook Public Page
Post articles of common interest .. see what the progressive community in the Northwest Suburbs is talking about.
NWSOFA
We Were Very Busy,
Busy, Busy in Week
Monday DOA Raise the Wage Petition Gathering
NWSOFA Chapter Meeting “A Taste of OFA… Issues You Can Believe In” on Wednesday On Thursday this last week we had a presentation on Thorium… alternative to Nuclear
Notice: This is a public meeting / events.
NWSOFA is a 501(c)4, non-partisan organization.
All opinions are solely those of NWSOFA
It’s time to Act .. It Is Time To Get Involved
Over the years the American Citizens have lost their voices, believing that we can not make a difference. We have been beat down by the constant droning noise of the conservative right. This onslaught has made us like sheep .. afraid to express our views. Not anymore! OFA gives us back our voices and by working together we are making change one issue at a time. Together we can and will make a difference.
Thank You to our NWSOFA Issue Leads for 2014 !!
Just Click on the Photo to link the NWSOFA e-magazines daily & archived articles
