Archive for the ‘Alerts’ Category
Breaking News: The War on Women Hits Westchester!
October 18th, 2011 by catherineRight to Life County Executive
Cuts Funding for Contraception for Teens, Well-Baby Care and Sex Education
This is outrageous! Less than three months after the Department of Health and Human Services announced that contraception is so important that it is being designated preventive care, in accordance with the recommendations of the Institute of Medicine, and joining the list of key services such as mammograms, cervical cancer screenings, prenatal care, well-woman visits, and gestational diabetes screenings, Astorino puts his right-to-life, anti-birth-control, far-right mentality into action, attacking our teenagers’ health and rights.
Nothing seems more like preventive care than contraception!
Why is Astorino doing this? This is clearly not about reducing our taxes or about jobs.
Just like the tea baggers in Congress who are seizing every opportunity to attack women’s reproductive rights, Astorino has chosen this moment, when Westchester has sky rocketing unemployment and depleted tax revenues to put his personal anti-choice tea party stamp on our county.
Simply not funding contraceptives and not teaching sex ed does not make sex go away. Instead, it will most likely lead to a dramatic increase in teen pregnancies.
When these babies are then born there will be no well-baby care available because Astorino has cut that too.
Astorino is the true embodiment of the right-to-life philosophy: care about the fetus, but when it’s born, throw it and its mother under the bus.
Who is most effected by Astorino’s actions? Anyone who utilizes any one of Westchester County’s community health centers—teenagers, the unemployed, the working poor, those without health insurance.
Who won’t it affect? Astorino and his financially secure friends.
On Election Day
Astorino Wants Your Help In This Attack
Astorino has hand-picked candidates to challenge incumbents. The Astorino gang have all sworn their allegiance to him as attested to at the press conference held on October 7th. On the steps of the County office building and in their own press releases, these candidates have said they will be a [guaranteed] vote for the Astorino agenda and that they share his [governing] philosophy more than 99% of the time.
That means they too believe in outsourcing jobs including the Community Health Centers, as well as cutting funding for contraceptives for teens, well-baby care and sex ed.
Astorino and his gang are committed to creating a sick Westchester, not a healthy one!
Did You Know You’re Supposed to Vote on Tuesday?
September 10th, 2011 by catherineALERT!
THIS TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 13th IS PRIMARY DAY!!
If you are enrolled in the Independence Party
& live in
Westchester Legislative Districts 3, 4, or 7 Come Out and Vote for:
John Nonna (CLD 3),
Michael Kaplowitz (CLD 4) and
Judy Myers (CLD 7)!!!
The Good Guys
Nonna, Kaplowitz and Myers are 100% pro-choice.
They protect our women, children, and families.
They understand the importance of our clinics, childcare, and health centers.
The Bad Guys
Their opponents are handpicked by Right to Life County Executive Rob Astorino.
Their opponents will be a rubber stamp for the extremist Astorino Agenda, and do not care about our clinics, childcare, or health centers.
The Good Guys
Judy Myers is the sponsor of the clinic access bill which will protect women’s safety and privacy as they enter and leave reproductive health centers and is supported by Kaplowitz and Nonna.
The Bad Guys
The opponents are Astorino’s puppets.
Astorino is creating a mini-me brigade.
Astorino opposes the clinic access bill, so his handpicked opponents do too–either they are committed to opposing the clinic access bill, or refuse to take a stand!
Nonna’s opponent is presently seeking the Right to Life endorsement.
Kaplowitz’s opponent is already endorsed by Right to Life, like his mentor Astorino.
Importantly, our County legislators decide many reproductive rights issues including prisoners’ rights, Medicaid expenditures, and more. The cost to your tax dollars will be huge if legislators do not understand these obligations, and only try to grab headlines, like Astorino likes to do, with penny-wise pound-foolish cuts.
Westchester cannot afford Astorino’s handpicked puppets–his personal mini-me brigade.
The Message Here:
Vote For Myers, Nonna & Kaplowitz
TUESDAY, September 13th!
Primaries have a very low turnout because few people realize the election is occurring.
Thus your vote will have a multi-fold impact!
TELL YOUR FRIENDS TO VOTE!
*CLD 3: North Castle, Pleasantville, & parts of Harrison,
Mt. Pleasant, Ossining, Sleepy Hollow and Briarcliff Manor.
*CLD 4: New Castle and parts of Yorktown & Somers.
*CLD 7: Rye City, Mamaroneck Town, Larchmont, & parts of Harrison, the village of Mamaroneck, New Rochelle and Rye Town
County Executive Astorino ‘Blesses’ Sexual Harassment Email
May 17th, 2011 by catherineThe Sequence of Events
**Tuesday, May 10th, George Oros, who is County Executive (CE) Rob Astorino’s Chief of Staff, and the CE’s Liaison to the Board of Legislators (BOL) and a former County Legislator himself, watched a live in-house broadcast of a BOL Committee on Community Services meeting at which closure of mental health facilities was being discussed. The closure of these centers affects thousands of Westchester residents and is being proposed by the CE.
**While Legislator Judy Myers, who is a Democrat representing Rye City, Mamaroneck Town, Larchmont, and parts of the Village of Mamaroneck, New Rochelle and Rye Town and is the only woman in a leadership position on the BOL, was discussing the impact the closures will have on mental health patients, Chief of Staff George Oros expressed his response to her comments with the following email:
“Judy sounds so breathless – “ooooohhhhh yeeeeesssss.”
**Oros, at 4:02 p.m., emailed the above to Legislator Myers. Some say he did this accidentally—maybe yes, maybe no.
Oros – Disrespecting and Insulting ALL Women
As Phil Reisman pointed out, George Oros’ email was “… practically a direct quote from Meg Ryan’s fake orgasm scene in “When Harry Met Sally.” (Click here to read Reisman’s comments.)
Oros was not responding to what Legislator Myers was saying. Oros was sexualizing Legislator Myers. He took away her mental capacity and saw only a sexual object.
Legislator Myers was elected by thousands of constituents in her district to represent them on the Westchester County Board. They thought of her as a bright, articulate individual capable of looking out for their best interests.
Chief of Staff Oros stripped away all of that respect and replaced it with nothing more than the Old Boys Club idea that women serve only as subservient sexual entities.
The Role Modeling of CE Astorino
CE Astorino’s response to this sequence of events was to laugh it off and call it “silly.”
His explanation was that at one time Oros and Myers worked together as legislators and that that somehow made this okay.
Clearly Mr. Astorino does not understand that “harassment in the workplace” means exactly that—harassment by a co-worker in the workplace.
The expression a fish rots from the head applies here and the head is CE Astorino. He has made it clear that in this administration women are to be second class citizens. There is not one woman—not a single one—in a decision-making position working in the County Executive’s Office.
Oros’ frat house behavior cannot simply be dismissed as boys-will-be-boys. It is not simply silliness, but instead a serious offense. No one should be permitted to refer to another individual in such a derogatory and demeaning manner.
If it is okay when it happens to an elected official, then it will be okay when it happens to our daughters, sisters, mothers, partners, or aunts. We must be outraged now, before it hits any closer to home.
Take Action
Contact CE Astorino’s office and say, “We will not tolerate that behavior.”
Demand Mr. Oros’s immediate resignation. Contact the County Executive’s office at 914-995-2800 or by email at ce@westchestergov.com.
