7vfx3

The National Soldiers Home Historic District in Milwaukee was recently named one of America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

The National Soldiers Home was created in 1867, just after the Civil War, under the authorization of President Abraham Lincoln. The 90-acre campus, located near Miller Park and the Clement J. Zablocki VA Medical Center, was built to provide care and a place of solitude for U.S. war veterans. Several historic buildings remain at the campus, which is owned by the Department of Veterans Affairs. However, maintenance has been deferred on many of the buildings and they are in poor condition. The Ward Memorial Hall building is in imminent danger of collapse and one portion of the roof of the Old Main building collapsed when a roof truss gave way under the weight of snow, according to the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

This afternoon Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) and Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) re-introduced the Equal Rights Amendment. The ERA currently has 160 co-sponsors in the House, including Congresswoman Gwen Moore (D-WI), Chair of the Congressional Women’s Caucus.

Feminist Majority President Eleanor Smeal spoke at a press conference today announcing the bill’s re-introduction, stating, “Women and men deserve and need full equal rights. Without constitutional equality, too many women, and thereby too many families, are cheated. Americans overwhelmingly support constitutional equality. It is time- in fact, it’s long overdue- for us to move forward. That’s why the Feminist Majority and other women’s organizations are this year going to score co-sponsorship of the ERA as a yes vote for constitutional equality for women; failure to co-sponsor will be on record as a vote against women’s constitutional equality. It is simple as that-do you value women as full equal citizens under the law or not?” The National Organization for Women will also score whether or not a Member of Congress supports the ERA.

Madison — Democrats are demanding that state officials free up $89 million in federal unemployment benefits for more than 10,000 jobless Wisconsin workers.
In a letter, Sen. Tim Cullen (D-Janesville) called on the state’s Unemployment Insurance Advisory Council to send lawmakers a bill that would allow Wisconsin to offer thirteen more weeks of federally funded extended unemployment benefits to jobless workers, or up to 86 weeks. The benefits ended on April 16.

“It is outrageous for Wisconsin to turn down $89 million that will go into the pockets of unemployed people and then get spent in our economy. And this is money we don’t have to pay back,” Cullen said.

A newly released agenda for the advisory council’s Thursday meeting shows that the panel is scheduled to take up the issue.

MILWAUKEE — A Milwaukee site whose history dates back to President Abraham Lincoln is in danger.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation has designated the Milwaukee Soldiers Home Historic District as one of the 11 most endangered historic places in 2011.

The 90-plus acre district is on the Clement Zablocki Medical Center grounds in Milwaukee. It was started as a recovery place for injured veterans, and was established in 1865.

Snow caused part of the roof on the main building to collapse this winter, leaving a gaping hole.

Washington, DC – United States Congresswoman Gwen Moore (D-Milwaukee) spoke in Washington, DC this morning as the National Trust for Historic Preservation named the National Soldiers Home Historic District one of the eleven most endangered historic places in the country. Congresswoman Moore said, “These buildings have served veterans since the Civil War.  They are a

Last week Congresswoman Gwen Moore (D-Milwaukee) wrote Governor Scott Walker and implored him to stop any efforts that jeopardize Federal funding for food stamps.

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has written to Wisconsin Health Services Secretary Dennis Smith informing him that proposed changes to FoodShare Wisconsin puts at risk Federal funding Wisconsin receives for food stamps. Just last week, USDA asked for a plan of corrective action as to how Wisconsin will scale back privatization efforts. If the state does not, USDA will suspend funds.
 
In her letter to Walker, Moore emphasizes that nearly 800,000 Wisconsinites rely on Federal funding to help feed their families, and all the resources used by Wisconsin families participating in Food- Share Wisconsin come from Federal dollars.

Madison – Federal officials are threatening to withhold new money and take back previous funds for Wisconsin’s food assistance program if state officials don’t scale back efforts to privatize it.

The letter from federal officials follows an April visit to Wisconsin by U.S. Department of Agriculture staff and goes a step further than similar past warnings by saying the state FoodShare program is already in violation of federal rules because of the privatization efforts by two governors.
Federal officials are also separately questioning a new privatization proposal put forward by Republican Gov. Scott Walker for FoodShare, the successor program to food stamps.
In a Wednesday letter to state Health Services Secretary Dennis Smith, Ollice Holden, a Midwest administrator for the USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service, warned that Wisconsin had overstepped boundaries laid out for the state last year. Failing to fix the problem could lead USDA to suspend payments to the state for administering FoodShare and seek to recover certain money already paid to Wisconsin, he said.

Small businesses are the backbone of our economy.  Nearly two out of every three jobs are created by small businesses.

If our small businesses are thriving, we will create jobs.  If our small businesses are growing, we will keep our economy moving in the right direction.

This week is Small Business Week, which is the perfect opportunity to reflect on what has been done to support the small business community and to refocus our efforts on helping American small businesses grow.

The medical director of the Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene says women will likely die of cervical cancer if Gov. Scott Walker’s budget proposal eliminating $266,400 for cervical cancer screening prevails.

“I see at least 1 – 2 high-grade lesions every day during cytologic evaluations,” Dr. Daniel Kurtycz says in prepared remarks to be given Wednesday to the Joint Finance Committee, which will consider Walker’s budget request. “Without follow-up, there is no doubt that some of these lesions will become invasive. Because cervical cancer takes at least two years to run its course, sometime after 2015, we will have women dying of cervical cancer as a predictable consequence of the funding reduction for testing in this budget.”

The Democratic women of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) are urging their Senate colleagues to fight harder for reproductive healthcare rights in the District of Columbia.

In a May 3 letter to the Democratic women of the Senate, the CBC members said they were “deeply disappointed” when Democrats agreed last month to a 2011 continuing resolution (CR) that included language barring D.C. from using local taxpayer dollars to fund abortion services for low-income women.

The CBC members said those women were “sacrificed” for the sake of a spending deal, which was negotiated by Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and the White House.