Our roads have never been safer, car safety regulations work! – National Consumers League

It’s hard to measure things that don’t happen. But the recent news that Americans killed in traffic accidents has declined to the lowest point since the 1940s – especially in certain states – is evidence that people have not been dying in nearly as large numbers on our highways as they once did. This truly great news can be directly attributed to the years of work by consumer advocates, groups like Mothers Against Drunk Driving, and government regulators.

I would like to credit auto manufacturers but it’s hard to do, given that they fought very sensible and lifesaving technologies – like seatbelts and airbags –  tooth and nail  and still fight efforts like making backup cameras standard in all  cars and trucks.  They have developed some tremendous safety technologies – like Electronic Stability Control to prevent rollover in SUVs and cars – and for that we can all be grateful.

Back to these very promising numbers. According to the Iowa State Department of Transportation, there were only 317 fatalities in Iowa in 2013 the lowest number of traffic deaths since 1944. Similar results in Ohio: 982 motorists and pedestrians died in Ohio in 2013, the lowest number since the state began keeping records in 1936. In New Jersey, state police reported 542 traffic deaths on highways and main streets in 2013, another all-time low. Eighty-five people were killed in Wyoming traffic accidents last year, the state Highway Patrol said Monday. The last time there were fewer than 100 deaths in Wyoming was in 1945. The South Carolina Highway Patrol said traffic deaths dropped by 125 over 2012 figures, a decrease of 17 percent.

According to the Washington Post, the national statistics, compiled by the Department of Transportation, won’t be released until later this year. But the early data is encouraging: In October, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said the number of fatalities for the first half of the year had declined 4.2 percent from the same period in 2012.

When I first worked on auto safety for Consumers Union, the number of people dying on our highways each year was well over 40,000. The falling fatality numbers of today are part of a national trend that experts attribute to stronger regulation and better built cars with many safety technologies standard equipment:  head, side and lower body airbags, side, frontal and offset crash testing of cars and awarding five stars to those that perform well and sharing that information with consumers so they can make informed buying decisions. Electronic Stability Control (ESC) to prevent often deadly vehicle rollovers. We have cars that are far better designed and today auto makers not only acknowledge that safety helps sell cars but they advertise that their car or van received five star ratings in crash tests. That is progress!

The reduction in numbers is especially good news when we consider that the number of vehicles in the United States has increased significantly. The Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics reported there were 253 million registered vehicles in the United States in 2011, compared with just 161 million in 1980.

The AAA says that younger drivers and passengers are less likely to be involved in fatal accidents than in years past. The number of fatalities among adolescents between age 10-15 fell by almost 4 percent between 2011 and 2012, the last year for which federal statistics are available, while the number of teens who died in accidents fell by 5.7 percent.

How many parents have their teenagers alive and well today? How can we count these priceless lives saved?  These are young people who might have otherwise died on the road  had we not had strong education campaigns about drinking and driving and cars designed to withstand crashes far more effectively.

Consumer advocates and those who support us should be shouting from the hilltops that sensible regulations requiring safer cars and testing of those cars and advertising which are safest has saved thousands of lives this year and will likely continue to do so in the future. NCL is proud to be among the groups that have long advocated for strong safety regulations for automotive vehicles  and we can see from these very uplifting reports, our efforts have paid off handsomely.

In a win for consumers, Volcker Rules take effect – National Consumers League

By Sally Greenberg, NCL Executive Director
This week marked a milestone for the Dodd-Frank law: a new set of rules to prevent banks from taking huge risks with other people’s money. The new regulations come under the umbrella of the Volcker Rule, named after former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker.  The Volcker rule was just approved by five of the nation’s Government regulators and is a sweeping set of new rules for the nation’s biggest banks. Thankfully, the Volcker Rule bans financial institutions from the kind of ultra-high-risk trading that nearly collapsed the world’s financial system.

Despite a fierce lobbying effort to prevent the new measure, it won out. The Volcker Rule will prohibit banks from trading for their own profit rather than on behalf of customers. We are pleased that the rules came out stronger than anyone expected. Commentators believe that consumers won this round. “Big banks lost,” said Mark Williams, a former Fed bank examiner who now teaches at Boston University. “Wall Street aggressively fought the Volcker rule.”

 

The new rule will ban federally insured banks from betting on risky investments such as private equity and hedge funds. Private equity funds buy companies and turn them around before selling them, while hedge funds often employ complex trading strategies. These investments have proved highly profitable in the past, but are also extremely risky because they are often so complicated that most of the world, including experts in this stuff, often don’t understand how these investments work. That is by design.

 

The Volcker Rule also closes a critical loophole. “The Volcker rule will make it illegal for firms to use government-insured money to make speculative bets that threaten the entire financial system, and demand a new era of accountability from CEOs who must sign off on their firms’ practices,” President Obama said in a statement. The rule goes into effect in April but banks have until July 2015 to comply.

 

Also, financial firms may buy and sell securities as a way to hedge bets, but they also take a lot of risks in the process and when they fail, they can bring down others with them. For example, JPMorgan Chase & Co. suffered more than $6 billion in losses from positions by a trader who was known as the “London Whale” for his oversized hedges. JPMorgan Chase is the nation’s largest bank and this risky trading has huge repercussions in the financial industry.

 

Now the Volcker rule will require banks to continually monitor and adjust hedging strategies to ensure they don’t become overly risky bets that damage investors.

 

Another feature of the new rule is that institutions will have to document rationales for hedges.  Fed Gov. Daniel Tarullo, who heads the agency’s bank supervision and regulation committee, said the “Whale” episode provided “a real-world example of what should not happen in a banking organization.”

 

Banks will be required to keep records to back up their positions, and chief executives will be required to sign off on their firms’ compliance. They are also being asked under the new rule to structure employee compensation so that it does not “reward or incentivize” engaging in prohibited proprietary trading practices or expose the bank “to excessive or imprudent risk.”

 

Two Senators who pushed for the rule back in 2010, Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Carl Levin (D-Mich.), said they were pleased that it was tougher than what regulators originally proposed.

 

Merkley, who is a great consumer and worker champion, joined Levin in a statement on the new regulation, saying the Volcker rule “was intended to change the culture and practices at our nation’s largest financial firms, to prevent Wall Street and the big banks from making swing-for-the-fences bets that put depositors and taxpayers at risk. The regulators have taken a serious step forward in mandating critical changes.”

 

This is an important victory for taxpayers and the public and a defeat for Wall Street.

 

For that we need to thank the heads of the five regulatory agencies who hung tough in the face of strong industry lobbying and opposition, including Comptroller of the Currency Thomas J. Curry, who said at a recent FDIC board meeting, “Issuing a final rule is only the beginning of the process. The OCC will be especially vigilant in developing a robust examination and enforcement program that ensures our largest institutions will remain compliant.” It’s about time.

Another nominee for the US Court of Appeals in DC needlessly blocked – National Consumers League

By Sally Greenberg, NCL Executive Director
The US Senate has rejected President Obama’s pick to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia yet again. The nominee, Georgetown Professor Cornelia Pillard, is a highly qualified lawyer who has very strong credentials and a very moderate record.

Senate was not able to reach the 60 votes needed to overcome a GOP procedural blockade as the measure failed by a vote of 56 to 41. Two Republican women Senators – Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, voted to support the nominee. Nina – the name Professor Pillard goes by – is a friend of consumers and a personal acquaintance. I know her to be moderate in every way.

Senator Patrick Leahy, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, stated that he believes the minority in the Senate doesn’t want women on the Court. “Women are grossly underrepresented in our federal courts. So what kind of message are Senate Republicans sending by refusing to even allow a vote on three of the most qualified female attorneys in this country?” When I say Pillard is a moderate, I’m talking about the fact that she worked twice in the administration of President Bill Clinton — at the solicitor general’s office, which handles Supreme Court cases, and later in the Justice Department.

Democratic White Houses in the last 30 years, and democratic DOJs, in my experience, don’t hire anything but moderates or moderate liberals. Republican administrations, by contrast, tend to hire people far more on the right wing side of the spectrum than democrats hire on the left. For whatever reason, that is the reality. Yes, Professor Pillard supports a woman’s right to choose, a position held by the majority of Americans, but it doesn’t make her a radical of any description. She is utterly moderate in every way.

Nina also worked for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and has argued nine cases before the Supreme Court.  How many lawyers can say they even argued one case before the Supreme Court? And several were cases in support of consumer’s access to the courts. Senator Dick Durbin, a member of the Judiciary Committee, and Senator Leahy, the chair are now saying the time has come to change the rules, perhaps requiring only a majority vote for confirmation. That has its pitfalls for the Democrats if they were to lose the Senate.

In the meantime, there are 18 vacancies in the US Courts of Appeals nationally and 74 vacancies in US District Courts that need to be filled. Holding up nominees for no good reason – they are all highly qualified and all are moderates who embody the President’s vision – could cause a showdown in the coming weeks. I hope the minority in the Senate comes to its senses and approves these qualified candidates.

Tuesday’s election results show moderation wins the day – National Consumers League

By Sally Greenberg, NCL Executive Director
Tuesday’s election results – Terry McAuliffe winning the governorship in Virginia and Chris Christie winning a second term as Governor of New Jersey, are both victories for moderation, in my view. McAuliffe’s opponent, currently the attorney general of Virginia, Ken Cuccinelli, is cut out of the Tea Party mold and is shockingly right of center. 

He supported a “personhood amendment” which granted full rights to “preborn human being[s] from the moment of fertilization”  as a state senator, and according to a  recent Washington Post editorial, “his motivating passions were God, guns, gays and abortion; as attorney general, he won notoriety mainly by fighting the Obama administration over health care and climate change.” Cuccinelli also bullied the State Board of Health into imposing such strict requirements on abortion clinics in VA that most, if not all, will have to close their doors. Well, Cuccinelli lost the election to McAuliffe by a margin of 56,000 votes, which isn’t huge,  but enough votes to give McAuliffe a decisive win.

The Governor-Elect is a democratic operative, close to the Clintons, he has never held elective office and has no governmental experience. Nevertheless,  the voters of Virginia, by and large a conservative lot, turned away from the extremism of Cuccinelli and his Tea Party beliefs. And the pundits agree that Cuccinelli would have been trounced far more decisively had the Obama Administration not managed to so badly bollix up the Affordable Care Act’s roll-out. Secondly, a more moderate republican, Chris Christie,  won a landslide second term  in New Jersey.

Christie is no liberal, far from it, but he is a pragmatist, which Cuccinelli is not. Christie was willing to accept the help of President Obama, welcomed him to the state,  and even hugged the president- much to the chagrin of Tea Party activists and other Republicans who have refused to work with Obama in any fashion –  after Hurricane Sandy destroyed big sections of the Jersey shoreline. Even Governor Christie was surprised, commenting, “President Obama came in, he did a good job, I said nice things about him, so all of a sudden, I’m a moderate.” Yes, in this environment and compared to many in his party,  that does make Governor Christie a moderate, though there are probably few ideas that NCL and Governor Christie would agree on,  he didn’t run scared from the Tea Party. So strike two votes for moderation.

It seems clear that American voters like candidates who want to get the job done, who don’t take orders from any one interest group, and who aren’t motivated by a rigid ideology. This election proves once again that moderation wins elections and is a cautionary tale as we approach the presidential race in 2016.

Across the Atlantic, finding common ground with consumer advocates – National Consumers League

By Sally Greenberg, NCL Executive Director
I’m spending the first part of this week in Brussels with colleagues from across the pond in a meeting with the Trans Atlantic Consumer Dialogue (TACD). The TACD is a forum of US and EU consumer organizations which develops and agrees on joint consumer policy recommendations to the US government and European Union to promote the consumer interest in EU and US policy making.

The TACD was launched in September 1998, at the end of the inaugural meeting which took place in Washington and gathered more than 60 consumer representatives from the US and the EU.TACD’s objectives are to provide a formal mechanism for EU and US consumer representatives to input to EU and US political negotiations and agreements as well as explore ways of strengthening the EU and US consumer view at the international level. TACD champions the consumer perspective in transatlantic decision making.

It is our mission to ensure that EU/US policy dialogue promotes consumer welfare on both sides of the Atlantic and is well informed about the implications of policy decisions on consumers. The TACD provides a common voice for EU and US consumer organizations ensuring that key consumer priorities are promoted and advocated within EU-US regulatory and governmental processes, helping to protect health and safety and assure truth and fairness in the marketplace. Through meetings and multi-stakeholder conferences TACD contributes to the exchange of information, dissemination of knowledge and sharing of expertise on key consumer issues in the EU and the US. 

TACD works with stakeholders such as the Transatlantic Legislators Dialogue (TLD) and the Transatlantic Business Council (TABC) through the Transatlantic Economic Council (TEC), of which TACD is a member of the advisory group, to find areas of commonality and to seek increased consensus. It was a pleasure to be a part of this conference.

Spreading consumer awareness about dietary supplements around the globe – National Consumers League

By Sally Greenberg, NCL Executive Director

NCL was invited to present at a conference on health and nutrition at the charming seaside town of Dalian, a one and a half hour flight east of Beijing. Our past work surveying consumers on dietary supplements and NCL’s focus on the safe use of medication, no doubt, generated the invitation. The tour guide described China’s shape on a map as that of a rooster, with Beijing being the eye and Dalian being the beak. So there I was in the rooster’s beak, meeting academics, scientists, community workers, and doctors from around the world.

Much to my surprise, the hosts of the conference included NCL’s presentation entitled “Dietary Supplements: What Consumers Should Know,” as one of the conference’s keynote addresses. That put me at the podium with seven other presenters, all of them men who were either doctors or academics. This was an eminent group: for example, another keynoter, Sir Roy Calne, a doctor at Cambridge University in the UK, had performed the first liver, heart, and other organ transplants during the 1960s.

From the outset, the connection between the different presentations seemed to be a stretch. Many of us found ourselves at this conference asking each other, how is it you came to be invited? No one was quite sure. But looking back over the past several days, I don’t think I’ve ever been with a group of such accomplished, smart, thoughtful, and interesting people. One group of presentations focused on reports and research in pediatrics. That brought together an incredible group of mostly female pediatricians including surgeons, pediatric cardiologists, radiologists, and many more who discussed issues ranging from child abuse to ER and child trauma. These women were uniformly impressive, friendly, and approachable. The nice thing, too, is that because I was the only female in the opening session and talked about the importance of consumer awareness and a consumer voice on dietary supplements (based on a terrific presentation that our staff prepared for me about dietary supplements and how they can be beneficial or dangerous), these women doctors instantly knew who I was, were grateful a woman was represented as a keynoter, and came to know and like the work NCL is doing to reach out to consumers.

I also had the chance to meet Australian Paul Miller, who is with the Olive Council in his country. He is working to help expose and ferret out the problem of adulterated olive oil in markets around the world. This is a rampant problem that degrades the quality of olive oil world wide, creates a competitive disadvantage for those olive oil producers who play by the rules, and steals money from the wallets of consumers who pay far higher prices than they should for adulterated olive oil. This issue hits home for NCL, given our experience fighting food fraud, and testing products such as adulterated lemon juice. We hope to work with Miller and government regulators in the US and elsewhere to help expose this problem. NCL is grateful to the organizers of this BIT First Annual Conference on Food and Nutrition for including a consumer voice in the program. I found the gathering unusually rewarding, made many new friends and contacts for NCL, and learned a great deal from the many academics and doctors from around the world who are engaged in such noble and important work.

The undeserved reputation of “Pink Slime” is tested again – National Consumers League

By Sally Greenberg, NCL Executive Director
Schools not only educate the next generation, they play an important role in the nutritional development of our children.  With concerns over obesity, we expect schools to provide meals that not only taste good, so students will eat the meals, but that are also healthy from both a nutritional and food safety perspective.  The schools are to do all this at a time of increasing fiscal constraints.  Not an easy task.

Unfortunately, there are public misconceptions on products that can help schools meet these competing demands.  Case in point, lean finely textured beef (LFTB), or as it has been pejoratively referred to as, “pink slime.”  This term is inflammatory and has nearly eliminated the possibility of constructive dialogue over the benefits of this lean beef supply for our school systems or other commercial uses.  The negative buzz led many states to reject its use in schools and caused retail outlets to limit its use.  When the dust settled last year after the “pink slime” controversy, only three states opted to purchase products with LFTB.  This school year, four additional states are providing schools with the option.  We applaud this action.

Not surprisingly, with the increase in the number of schools making the conscious decision to purchase products with LFTB, the negative buzz is starting again.  This is a good product. The product is as lean as meat can be, so its use cuts down on fat and calories.  As I noted in a blog last year, “NCL is in agreement with the Consumer Federation of America that manufacturers of hamburger patties may replace LFTB with something that has not been processed to assure the same level of safety. CFA also expressed concerns that NCL shares about the potential effect this recent controversy may have on companies who seek to apply innovative solutions and new technologies to enhance food safety.”

It’s also interesting to remember that Phillip Boffey of the New York Times cooked hamburger made with LFTB and attested to its good taste. Of more importance than taste, the product has an exemplary safety record of over 20 years; it is produced in a state-of-the-art facility, and it is tested repeatedly for safety. Al Almanza, Administrator of USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, in the recent Politco piece on schools reintroducing LFTB into their menus, noted that the product is safe.  “Isn’t that what we want – a safe product to feed our families?” he said.

If consumers and school lunch administrators can get past the false information and the negative buzz, the fact is, LFTB can answer many of the competing demands of low fat, good taste, and product safety consistent with fiscal constraints.

We expect a lot from our schools.  We should not limit their choices in how to meet our expectations, especially not when the limitation is based on politics or publicity rather than facts and sound science.

Growing concern over a flawed USDA plan for pork plants – National Consumers League

By Sally Greenberg, NCL Executive Director
This week’s Washington Post ran an expose story – one we were glad to see – about the misguided Department of Agriculture (USDA) plan to roll out a meat inspection program nationwide that will allow pork plants to use their own inspectors and replace USDA inspectors.

According to the Post story, the plan “has a history of producing contaminated meat at American and foreign plants.”  The Post noted that the USDA’s decision to allow federal inspectors to be replaced at plants by private employees that serve as inspectors had produced “serious lapses that included failing to remove fecal matter from meat” in three of the five plants that had participated in a pilot program for more than a decade.

The Post went on to note that plants using the same procedure in Australia and Canada also ran into problems. In one case, a Canadian company had to recall 8.8 million pounds of beef products for E. coli contamination. A Government Accountability Office (GAO) report last month even said that it would be difficult to recommend rolling out the plan nationwide.

NCL has been working with a coalition of food safety and worker safety groups since the moment the USDA announced its disastrous campaign to shift oversight to private companies, to increase line speeds, and endanger both workers and consumers. But the USDA simply won’t listen. The tide should be turning though. We have a new bill this week from Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) called the Safe Meat and Poultry Act, which addresses concerns about the line speeds and potential for food safety outbreaks in the USDA plan, the GAO report, and now this Washington Post story. We urge the USDA to listen at last to critics and give up this program, for the sake of the health and safety of all Americans.

Let’s celebrate this Labor Day by fighting for the country’s low-wage workers – National Consumers League

By Sally Greenberg, NCL Executive Director

With Labor Day 2013 upon us, we have the opportunity to stand with low-income workers in the District of Columbia (DC) and by extension, all of the working poor. NCL has taken part in two recent campaigns in DC in an effort to lift up those who are often exploited and toil for unconscionably low wages. The first campaign supports the efforts of Good Jobs Nation.

NCL joined with this worker organization to help publicize the low wages federal contractors are permitted to pay those who serve food in the museums and tourist locales around the city. Twice in the past month our staff and our six summer interns hopped the DC Metro down to the National Mall to support walk-outs and rallies by hundreds of minimum wage employees. We’ve helped to publicize the fact that contractors who run fast food outlets like Subway and McDonalds, and who secure lucrative contracts with the federal government to provide meals at places like the Air and Space Museum and Union Station in Washington DC, often pay less than the DC minimum wage of $8.25 an hour, and sometimes even less than the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour.

We think tourists and taxpayers would be unhappy to learn that many of these federal contractors are not playing by the rules and are engaging in wage theft, which includes not paying the requisite time and a half for overtime or paying less than the required DC or federal minimum wage. All the while, these contractors are reaping millions in profits from tourists who have little choice but to eat in these establishments when they visit DC’s many wonderful sites. We, Good Jobs Nation, and many other groups are calling on President Obama to sign an Executive Order requiring federal contractors to pay a living wage to all workers. We urge everyone to go to the Good Jobs Nation website and sign the letter to the President.

We’re committed to supporting these workers in their efforts to earn not only the minimum wage but the DC living wage – which has been evaluated to be $12.50 an hour. If workers received a living wage they would make $26,000 annually working a 40-hour work-week. The second major DC-focused campaign is the DC City Council’s legislation, passed by an 8-5 tally, requiring that big box stores operating in DC, that have $1 billion in corporate sales and at least 75,000 square feet, pay a living wage of $12.50. Walmart has three stores operating in the District already, but because of the Council’s action, they are threatening to stop construction on the other three and take their business elsewhere. The bill now sits on DC Mayor Vincent Gray’s desk; NCL has written to the Mayor asking him to support the Council’s measure. Both campaigns have one thing in common: they are aimed at improving the wages and living conditions of the District’s working poor, who often are left to try and raise families on incomes of $15,000 or less in a very expensive city.

The argument from Walmart and its supporters is that these jobs, indeed, any jobs, are better than no jobs. A Washington Post article written by Jim Tankersley on August 8, debunks this claim showing raw statistics that demonstrate how Walmart affects a community and the number of jobs available. “Economic research suggests that the net job-creation benefits of a new Walmart usually prove minimal, at best. That is because when Walmart opens a store, it often drives other retailers out of business, forcing their employees out of work.

A 2004 paper from economist Emek Basker of the University of Missouri found that the introduction of a Walmart to a community usually raised retail employment by 100 jobs at first, but that number fell to a net gain of 50 jobs in the long run. A year later, a trio of economists from California and Massachusetts found that a Walmart entry reduces employment by 150 jobs in the long term. A 2008 study of Maryland Walmarts (sic) found the stores reduced overall retail employment in the areas where they were introduced but pushed up retail wages.” If Walmart effectively stalls job creation and then reduces the overall number of jobs in the long term, perhaps DC would be better without Walmart’s jobs. These parallel campaigns are front and center during this Labor Day.

We think both President Obama and the DC Mayor (with kudos to the DC City Council) have a unique opportunity to lift up the workers in DC and demand that that stores like Walmart and federal contractors who run the McDonalds and Subways provide a living wage to all workers. This seems like a reasonable request in light of the huge profits these companies make, and bringing these demands to fruition would be a very worthy way, indeed, to celebrate Labor Day 2013.

A day of celebration and reflection at the National Mall – National Consumers League

By Sally Greenberg, NCL Executive Director
Yesterday, Washington celebrated the 50th Anniversary of one of the world’s greatest events for the cause of civil rights. There were Americans from all states of the union at the March, and many great speeches. I joined the ceremonies in the morning by participating with citizens and elected officials working for DC Statehood at the DC WWII Memorial, then walked to the Lincoln Monument with the crowd to hear the speeches.  I also took a lot of pictures.

 

Congressman John Lewis, who was a King confidant and who was himself arrested many times, beaten and bloodied, and who is now a member of Congress from Georgia, spoke, as did Ben Jealous, head of the NAACP, Arline Holt Baker of the AFLCIO, Mary Kay Henry, head of SEIU, Randy Weingarten, head of AFT, Attorney General Eric Holder, and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who drew a rousing round of applause. Pelosi told the crowd she was at the march 50 years ago and heard MLK Jr. speak. She observed that then there were 4 Black members of Congress back then and a Catholic in the White House; today there are 43  Black members of Congress and an African American in the White House. The Black Caucus members “are the conscience of the caucus” Pelosi said. And I was personally so pleased that she also said we need “not just a minimum wage but a livable wage.” That’s what we are fighting for right now in DC!

We ought to have been celebrating the gains made in the last 50 years and there have been many. The overwhelming sense I had from the crowd, however, which was both heavily African America and union, is that while many important gains have been achieved since Martin Luther King made his “I Have A Dream Speech”, just when you think things are going well, something monumental sets you back. The theme for this march was why the senseless killing of Trayvon Martin, the FL teenager shot while he walked back from a convenience store carrying nothing more than a bag with Skittles, ever happened? Are “Stand Your Ground” laws a chance for racists to carry out vigilante justice and get away with it? And how different is Trayvon Martin from Emmett Till? Nevertheless, it was a great day in Washington, with excellent speeches and an opportunity to reflect on King’s Dream – with the Trayvon Martin case, immigration reform stalled, and 15 million workers making minimum wage and having to work 2-3 jobs to get by, though, today was a reminder of how much more we need to do to get our house in order.