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ne California Communities United Institute Newsletter
www.CalComUI.org
Activism With A Heart
Justice
March 2013
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Do Our Letters Make A Difference?
"Nearly identical percentages of legislative staffers said postal mail (90%) and E-mail (88%) would influence an undecided legislator."* | |
*Congressional Management Foundation |
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Translation Available
To read any of the following articles in more than thirty languages, click on the link at the bottom of the article and then use the translation widget at the bottom of the web based copy of the article.
Traducción disponible
Para leer cualquiera de los siguientes artículos en más de treinta idiomas, haga clic en el enlace en la parte inferior del artículo y, a continuación, usar el widget de traducción en la parte inferior de la web según copia del artículo.
可用的翻译
阅读以下文章以三十多个语言的任何，单击底部的文章的链接，然后在网页的底部使用翻译构件根据文章的复印件。 |
翻訳可能に任意の 30 以上の言語では、以下の記事を読んで、記事の下部にあるリンクをクリックしてし、web ベースのコピーの記事の下部に翻訳ウィジェットを使用しています。 |
| Note: You can place this newsletter on your social networking site (such as Facebook ot Twitter) by clicking on the share buttons at the top of this newsletter.
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Join California Communities United Institute
The members of California Communities United Institute (CalComUI) get monthly E-mailed newsletters filled with information about legislation and other issues that affect each of the communities we serve. The newsletter helps you track the progress of the bills you care about.
Members also get E-mailed alerts about legislation of importance to the communities we serve. These alerts help members easily E-mail their elected officials on that legislation.
You can join CalComUI by visiting our web site and keying your E-mail address into the yellow box at the bottom of any page on the site. To start the process click here.
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Bee Sting Venom May Kill HIV | 
According to a study recently published in the Journal Antiviral Therapy, a substance called melittin, found in bee venom, may be able to kill the HIV virus.
To see a video on this subject, click here.
Scientists at the Washington University School of Medicine, in St. Louis, found that melittin, a toxin found in bee venom, physically destroys the HIV virus, a breakthrough that could potentially lead to drugs that are immune to HIV resistance.
To read more about this possibly break through therapy, click here.
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Maybe We Liberals Should Compromise |
 | | US Capitol Building |
According to the Congressional Budget Office, the federal government appears headed for a deficit of $845 billion for fiscal year 2013, which ends on September 30, 2013. Many states have been struggling with massive budget deficits as well.
Clearly more revenue is needed. But, perhaps liberals need to compromise and support more cuts as well.
Republicans in Congress have been pressing for significant budget cuts including cuts in the so-called "entitlement programs" such as such as Social Security, Medicare, Unemployment Insurance, among other programs.
By contrast, many liberal lobby groups have issued alerts asking people to resist any change in those entitlement programs. Maybe we should accept some changes in them.
To read about some changes that might be reasonable click here.
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Sequester Cuts May Especially Hurt Minorities |
The sequester cuts went into effect earlier this month. And there seems little progress in talks to approve new legislation to reverse the worst consequences of it. No one knows for sure what those effects will be, but many experts predict that minorities will be particularly hard hit by the sequester spending cuts.
To read of examples of the harm that will be done to minorities, click here.
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How VAWA Helps LGBT People |  For years people have associated the federal Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) as helping heterosexual women (and to a limited extent heterosexual men) who have suffered domestic abuse.
But early this month President Obama signed a renewal of this legislation which specifically adds LGBT people, Native Americans and immigrants to programs that serve domestic abuse victims.
The addition of LGBT people is sorely needed. Some authorities say that a quarter of gay men in America report having encountered intimate partner violence. The issue of same sex marriage is grabbing all the attention these days. However, arguably, the new VAWA law will benefit more LGBT people than the overturning of the Defense of Marriage ACT by the courts.
To learn some of the ways LGBT people will be helped by this new law, click here.
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Same Sex Marriage
Listen To The Supreme Court Hearings
|  This coming week the US Supreme will hold two historic hearings on same sex marriage.
On March 26 they will hold a hearing on whether or not Proposition 8 violates the US Constitution. This proposition, approved by California voters in 2008, amended California's constitution to ban the recognition of same sex marriages in California.
On March 27 the Supreme Court will hold a hearing on whether or not Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), approved by Congress in 1996, violates the US Constitution. Section 3 of DOMA prohibits the federal government from recognizing same sex marriages even when they occurred in states that recognize same sex marriage.
This means these couples are denied up to 1,138 federal benefits which are currently provided to heterosexual married couples.
To read more about these court hearings, and learn how you can listen to them, click here.
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