Opioids or Marijuana: Which Rx Would You Prefer?
CAN YOU GET AN Rx FOR MEDICAL MARIJUANA?
 |
MARIJUANA |
 |
FOREIGN POLICY |
 |
FEDERAL WORKFORCE |
 |
CANDIDATES |
 |
BORDER WALL |
 |
BERNIE SANDERS |
 |
BANKING
Ask your Senators to oppose forced arbitration by banks
|
Every year, millions of Americans are tricked by big banks and
payday lenders who bury arbitration clauses in contracts, making it nearly
impossible to take companies to court when they do wrong.
Forced arbitration clauses,
also known as “ripoff clauses,” are a bad deal for consumers and working
families, but the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) just took a big
step towards ending this sneaky practice.
The CFPB released a new rule
that would limit forced arbitration by restoring consumers’ right to band
together in lawsuits to hold companies accountable. Unfortunately, Republicans
in the House voted last week to kill the CFPB rule.
When you sign a contract that
has an arbitration clause in it, your chances of holding the company
accountable for fraudulent behavior — like overcharging you or opening up
accounts in your name — plummet.
Arbitration clauses worked in
Wells Fargo’s favor for a long time. Last year, when the company was busted for
opening bogus accounts customers didn’t ask for, they invoked forced
arbitration clauses to get lawsuits thrown out. By stripping customers of their
right to band together and sue Wells Fargo for fraud, they mostly got away with
unethical practices that damaged the credit scores of thousands of their
customers.
To make matters worse,
corporations get to pick private arbitration firms to decide the case, which results in those same firms siding with
corporations 93 percent of the time.
The CFPB’s rule
was put in place to protect consumers and shouldn’t be stopped by
Congress. That’s why we need you to reach out to your senators
today and tell them to support it!
Congress is on recess for the
rest of the month, but when they get back they could vote to stop the CFPB’s
rule. As long as Congress doesn’t interfere, the new CFPB rule will allow
consumers to hold big banks and payday lenders accountable in court when they
break the law.
 |
AMERICAN DREAM |
HOT ON THE RIGHT: “House Republicans have
launched a new website that slams the media for focusing on ‘chaos’ instead of
what they see as a productive first 200 days,” from The Hill:. “The website,
‘Did You Know,’ claims that media coverage doesn’t focus on the issues
important to Americans. It also calls out the press for not writing more about
the legislative achievements of the House GOP. ‘House Republicans aren’t
distracted by the newest countdown clock on cable news or partisan sniping in
Washington, D.C.,’ the website reads. ‘You don’t care about those things. You
care about finding a good job, taking care of your family, and achieving the
American Dream, and so do we.’ It comes as [Trump] hits his 200th day in
office. Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) had set the 200th day as a bigger marker for
Republicans than Trump’s first 100 days.”
 |
ADDICTION |
From a Forward article
A few weeks ago, Bethany Mandel, a Forward
columnist, called me to discuss a provocative idea for a column: The opioid
epidemic that is sweeping like a plague across America was growing among Jews,
too, especially the Orthodox. As an Orthodox Jew herself, Bethany was most
familiar with the heart-breaking number of deaths caused by drug overdoses in
her community, but I urged her to look beyond to get a sense of what is
happening to American Jews more broadly. She did. And the response has
been overwhelming.
Her first column, arguing that it was time to admit the opioid crisis is also a Jewish one, offered a snapshot of communities burying their young, from Orthodox synagogues in Long Island to Reform synagogues in Ohio.
The following day, Bethany acknowledged why this crisis is so profound for her. When she was 19 years old and a sophomore in college, her own father committed suicide; the family found out afterwards that he was addicted to painkillers. “He had battled addiction my entire life,” she wrote, “and it almost certainly played a part in the decision to end his own life.”
So many readers wrote to her with their own stories of pain and, sometimes, redemption, that she shared some of these stories in another column. Bethany told me afterwards that she’s never experienced such an outpouring of reaction. “People feel like this is going on and their voices are being totally ignored,” she said.
We are doing our best here not to ignore those voices. As another reader, Sharon Leder, wrote on Scribe, our contributor’s network, Bethany “deserves unending gratitude for blowing the whistle on Jewish denial of addiction in our midst.”
Bethany isn’t the only courageous woman speaking out about this epidemic. As my colleague Avital Chizhik-Goldschmidt reported, Ruchie Freier, the only Hasidic woman judge in Brooklyn, strongly rebuked the Orthodox school system for contributing to the epidemic by discriminating against students with special needs, some of whom suffer serious psychological harm, addiction and even death.
Silence only deepens the heartbreak. If you wish to share your stories, and your solutions, write to us at community@forward.com
Her first column, arguing that it was time to admit the opioid crisis is also a Jewish one, offered a snapshot of communities burying their young, from Orthodox synagogues in Long Island to Reform synagogues in Ohio.
The following day, Bethany acknowledged why this crisis is so profound for her. When she was 19 years old and a sophomore in college, her own father committed suicide; the family found out afterwards that he was addicted to painkillers. “He had battled addiction my entire life,” she wrote, “and it almost certainly played a part in the decision to end his own life.”
So many readers wrote to her with their own stories of pain and, sometimes, redemption, that she shared some of these stories in another column. Bethany told me afterwards that she’s never experienced such an outpouring of reaction. “People feel like this is going on and their voices are being totally ignored,” she said.
We are doing our best here not to ignore those voices. As another reader, Sharon Leder, wrote on Scribe, our contributor’s network, Bethany “deserves unending gratitude for blowing the whistle on Jewish denial of addiction in our midst.”
Bethany isn’t the only courageous woman speaking out about this epidemic. As my colleague Avital Chizhik-Goldschmidt reported, Ruchie Freier, the only Hasidic woman judge in Brooklyn, strongly rebuked the Orthodox school system for contributing to the epidemic by discriminating against students with special needs, some of whom suffer serious psychological harm, addiction and even death.
Silence only deepens the heartbreak. If you wish to share your stories, and your solutions, write to us at community@forward.com
NOTE: The news sources here vary. Not all sources have the same credibility, but in an effort to share some different perspectives, they are included here. This compendium itself cannot claim to be unbiased. Please take into consideration where these different perspectives originate in assessing their value. Thank you.
Comments
Post a Comment