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Laura Chinchilla

Posted in 51 Percent, ERA, Feminism, Feminist Majority, Health Care, tagged , , , on February 8, 2010| Leave a Comment »

As Anna rightly commented over at Violet’s place, it’s  a far more urgent thing we do to opine about the touch points clasped in a woman’s hand, than discussing the reaching arms of a woman who will now lead a country. How else would we stay in our proper little hole? Women still carry things. Men don’t. Ergo, women should have notes and be gracefully prepared for the unexpected, men should arrive to speak at awaiting TelePrompTers which always work. Did no one notice how oversized purses a had become again the required fashion?

The mark of the subordinate.

If we really had gotten past that trap, men would be sporting the biggest ones with the brightest logos.

Runners don’t carry purses. Women in charge don’t carry baggage. Their secretaries do.

But no, let’s discuss and apologize and defend and berate the triviality of how one  woman makes a speech – something most of us can’t even do very well. Let’s not discuss the portent and meaning of the first woman elected president of Costa Rica, who also has strong views on right to life, separation of church and state and misunderstands the use of “Morning-after Pill”.

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100208 – Monday Ketchup

Posted in 51 Percent, Congress, ERA, Feminism, Finance, Justice, LGBT, Politics, women, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 8, 2010| 1 Comment »

Yesterday, a coin initiated the Super Bowl XLIV. Today it blasted into outer space. NASA still has panache.

Photo by nasaimages.org

Space Shuttle Blasts off on Last Night Flight

Shuttle Endeavour blasts off on last planned night launch, taking new room to space station

By MARCIA DUNN

The Associated Press

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.

[Endeavour and six astronauts rocketed into orbit Monday on what’s likely the last nighttime launch for the shuttle program, hauling a new room and observation deck for the International Space Station….]

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=9774512

You know, I really don’t care what plastic Best Foods/Helmann’s is using, or what the reduced shelf breakage is; I want glass mayonnaise jars back!! Yes I know, glass takes energy to produce, but so does plastic, Every time I pick up a jar, I want to fling it down the aisle.  Who really knows what’s in this flavor of the month container? So, in light of that little tantrum,  I found that Mother Jones has put out an interesting article on the corrolation between Bisphenal ingestion in mothers and increased asthma in children.

Moms Get Plastic, Kids Get Asthma?

— By Julia Whitty| Wed Feb. 3, 2010 6:18 PM PST

[More bad news on the health effects of bisphenol A (BPA), that organic compound used as a building block in many plastics—including in plastic water bottles, food packaging, sunglasses, and CDs….]

http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2010/01/moms-get-plastic-kids-get-asthma

On February 4th, after waiting for more than nine months, and without the vote of yet to be sworn Scott Brown, M Patricia Smith, was finally confirmed as the Solicitor for The Labor Department. The vote was 60-32, with 3 not voting. Republicans have opposed Smith over the HELP (A wage watch effort.) program in New York.  One wonders however, after the final vote tally, what the game was really about. Would a filibuster have lasted any longer? If the 60 votes were there, why not get it over with?

OSHA inspectors were on site in Middletown Conn. this weekend, in the aftermath of the construction site explosion where at least 5 workers were killed and 12 were injured. The Solicitor is arriving at a momentous time.

Also, on February 4th, Martha Johnson was finally confirmed as Administrator of the General Services Administration (GSA). The Senate gave her the green light in a vote of 96-0, with 4 not voting.

Johnson waited ten months because of a concern Senator Kit Bond had about whether the GSA should close a federally owned building and relocate to leased space. Ridiculous!  Why should this have happened? What was the Senate game?

Finally, the Iowa Independent reports, that in a flurry of inanity and bad timing, (Didn’t the POTUS just tell the world that “don’t-ask-don’t-tell” had to go?) two State of Iowa Republican legislators are attempting to get certain forms of  bullying excluded from their anti-bullying bill passed in 2007. Apparently these two don’t think the words sexual orientation or gender identity ought to be in there. Jason Schultz and Matt Windschitl, shame on you!!! These Repugs have got to go!

GOP lawmakers want to exclude gay students from anti-bullying bill

By JASON HANCOCK 2/8/10 1:15 PM

[A pair of Republican state legislators has introduced a bill that would remove protections for gay, lesbian and transgender students from an anti-bullying law passed in 2007.

State Reps. Jason Schultz, R-Schleswig, and Matt Windschitl, R-Missouri Valley, sponsored the legislation to remove sexual orientation and gender identity as definitions used for purposes of protecting students in public and nonpublic schools from harassment and bullying…]

http://iowaindependent.com/27342/gop-lawmakers-want-to-exclude-gay-students-from-anti-bullying-bill?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+IowaIndependent+%28Iowa+Independent%29

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Tracks in the Snow: Health Reform

Posted in 51 Percent, Congress, Election, ERA, Feminism, Feminist Majority, Finance, Health Care, Humanism, Justice, NOW, Politics, PUMA PAC on December 28, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Part 8, the continuing saga of H.R.3590.

We’ve traveled a sad road from health reform hyperbole and buzzwords, in the Ohio debate, in 2008, to feeding and electing a lot of scalawag Blue Dog Democrats at any cost this year. We have had to learn all over again that presidential candidates DO often avoid saying what they mean, and not what we think, or want to hear. We had to learn again that media interjects it’s own desire for ratings over what the candidates are attempting to communicate. WE are the losers in this interchange.

Candidate Obama offered “universal health coverage“. Clinton disputed his term.

Perhaps this is part of the learning experience for us. When a lawyer or other skilled wordsmith uses a term like “universal” we must think critically about what the person really means and how the words are parsed. This IS a universal coverage bill. It applies to all of the United States, her territories, and her protectorates. It is NOT a universally applicable bill.

In fact, despite the benefits of the Mikulski amendment, 51% of the population will be treated differently under this bill, and this is not a good thing. When this bill becomes an act, much of what women need in health insurance will be subject to line item scrutiny. Native Americans, children, the homeless, and veterans will also be subject to line item scrutiny, while that of men will not. Women are still a special interest group, born out of recognition in the 60’s of their treatment as second-class citizens. The struggles to achieve equality for women have been left moldering at the gate of the ERA, shut by society’s errant deadline in 1982.

Though the ERA did not die, except for a few soldiers, most of us just didn’t know how to continue fighting for it. We walked away, defeated in our ignorance, or we tried to gain bits and pieces of equality through more line items in other bills. We had yet to learn to “never, never, never, give up”. Now, though our understanding of the ERA’s role and absence is reawakening, it does not yet inform our lawmaking in Congress. There are ways to again take up it’s banner, to fight the deadline, to start anew if need be, but not enough of us know that yet.

It is the recognition of the conundrum that the line items designed for us, and to protect us, are weak sisters as compared to full equality, and the privileges, responsibilities and authorities that equality bring.

In this regard, over at the Confluence, Riverdaughter has written clearly about the blow to Griswold and Roe that this bill will inflict.

After the 2008 presidential election of a thousand cuts, we have become more attuned. We have found a voice and we are gathering strength.

Congress has struggled mightily to achieve what our President put forth as his health agenda, and they are almost there. As he said, every criterion has been met. He is telling us that this was the health agenda for which we voted him into office. Someone gave him and Congress the green light to proceed.

This Congress and President were not sent to DC to get us single payer health insurance.  Even as an option, is was a toss off. Refresh your memory. Forget the YouTube, the Websites, the pundits who may have told you what a candidate did or did not say. Read the debate transcripts again.

[Editor’s note: This is part two of the transcript for the Democratic presidential debate sponsored by CNN and the Congressional Black Caucus Institute on January 21, 2008….

(Clinton)….: Well, first of all, if you don’t start out trying to get universal health care, we know — and our members of Congress know — you’ll never get there.

If a Democrat doesn’t stand for universal health care that includes every single American, you can see the consequences of what that will mean. I think it is imperative that we have plans, as both John and I do, that from the very beginning say, “You know what? Everybody has got to be covered.”

There’s only three ways of doing it. You can have a single-payer system, you can require employers, or you can have individual responsibility. My plan combines employers and individual responsibility, while maintaining Medicare and Medicaid.

I think that the whole idea of universal health care is such a core Democratic principle that I am willing to go to the mat for it. I’ve been there before. I will be there again. I am not giving in; I am not giving up; and I’m not going to start out leaving 15 million Americans out of health care.

Secondly, we have seen once again a kind of evolution here. When Senator Obama ran for the Senate, he was for single-payer and said he was for single-payer if we could get a Democratic president and Democratic Congress. As time went on, the last four or so years…

CLINTON: As time went on, the last four or so years, he said he was for single payer in principle, then he was for universal health care. And then his policy is not, it is not universal. And this is kind of like the present vote thing, because the Chicago Tribune, his hometown paper, said that all of those present votes was taking a pass. It was for political reasons.

Well, when you come up with a universal health care plan and you don’t have any wiggle room left, you know that you’re going to draw a lot of political heat. I am not running for president to put Band- Aids on our problems. I want to get to universal health care for every single American….

(Obama)….“Now, it’s fine for us to have a debate about how the best way to get there is, but to suggest somehow that I’m not interested in having anybody covered, or to suggest, as Hillary just did, that I was in favor of single payer — I never said that we should try to go ahead and get single payer. What I said was that if I were starting from scratch, if we didn’t have a system in which employers had typically provided health care, I would probably go with a single-payer system.”

What’s evolved, Hillary, is your presentation of my positions, which is what’s happened frequently during the course of this campaign.]

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/01/21/debate.transcript2/index.html

(Bolds above mine.) Well. We were never starting from scratch.

Dennis Kucinich said it best in June 2007:

New Hampshire Democratic Presidential Candidates Debate

Aired June 3, 2007 – 19:00   ET

[THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED….

…KUCINICH: I reject this whole approach.

And the American people should know that with half the bankruptcies in the country connected to people not being able to pay their doctor bills or hospital bills, premiums, co-pays and deductibles are going so far through the roof, 46 million Americans with no health care, another 50 million underinsured, there is only one way to get health care coverage for all Americans. And that is to have a universal, single-payer, not-for-profit health care system, Medicare for all.

Wolf, I have written the bill. It is H.R. 676, with John Conyers, supported by 14,000 physicians.

And you know what? What Senator Clinton, Senator Edwards, Senator Obama are talking about, they’re talking about letting the insurance companies stay in charge. They’re talking about continuing a for-profit health care system. And I think…]

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0706/03/se.01.html

Not Obama, nor Clinton, nor Edwards thought single payer could be achieved now, even if they did believe in it. Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich, on the other hand, was willing to fight for it.

Due to the corporate structure of the media, a whole lot of us never even saw or read the debates, because of the recession-based loss of financing for extras like newspapers, cable and dish. A bunch of us have never yet had access to broadband. We are awaiting the “Obama Version” of rural broadband access. That meant out of the many democratic debates, many of us had the potential to see only two. Those of us in this condition did our best, but how were we to clearly evaluate the candidates’ words as spoken from the mouths of others? In reading the transcripts every debate said pretty much the same. Obama says 95% of his plan is like Clinton’s. No one should be surprised, who was more connected, like for example, NetRoots.

If I believed that our vote had truly counted, I would have said so be it. This is what most of you wanted. The Congress we have is doing our job. However, I don’t think that. Someone took away electoral votes, Convention balloting, the right to present complaints in a court of law. Besides, someone paid 747.8 million dollars to elect the candidate of choice, 140.9 million more than all the Republican presidential candidates put together. Someone else paid the running tab of all those “congress critters”, as Blue Lyon likes to call them, along with River City Mud, FireDogLake and Corrente who articulated many of the deficits of the Senate bill.

At the last several came out against this bill; Naral, Now, Women Count: and others. These folks also:

“Physicians for a National Health Program” (PNHP) came out against the health reform bill, H.R.3590.

[Pro-single-payer physicians call for defeat of Senate health bill

Posted by Mark Almberg on Tuesday, Dec 22, 2009

Legislation ‘would bring more harm than good,’ group says

For Immediate Release

Dec. 22, 2009

Contact:

David Himmelstein, M.D.

Steffie Woolhandler, M.D., M.P.H.

Oliver Fein, M.D.

Mark Almberg, PNHP, (312) 782-6006, mark@pnhp.org

A national organization of 17,000 physicians who favor a single-payer health care system called on the U.S. Senate today to defeat the health care legislation presently before it and to immediately consider the ad..]

The AFL-CIO and SEIU said they were disappointed but sticking to it.

AARP, when I checked had maintained their position, stated on the 16th, in favor of the bill. They are most concerned about closing the “Doughnut Hole” that the last Medicare fiasco produced. This bill, reportedly, will do that.

Plus, AARP does carry it’s own health insurance company.

Money is God. Money is power. We choose to support corporations, the least transparent of all, or we choose to support government organizations and single payer systems subject to scrutiny. Someone championed the former. Someone voted for the former. Had either Clinton or Edwards won the presidency, we would have still had some version of what we now are getting – a combination employer/private insurance system articulating with Medicare and Medicaid. Though the debate details might haven been different, they still would have been over line items. I struggle to imagine whether we would have had a better line item presidential advocate for women. I hope so. I think so.

The Republicans are equally to blame in this debacle. Disingenuous arguments about the quality of these bills are no recourse, when they would not have voted for a single payer system either. Nor does it profit them to be so obsessed with controlling women’s genitals. Ridiculous stuff about death panels hardly helps. 39 Senators voted against H.R. 3950, all Republican. Thirty years from now when this bill/act is finally acceptable, that vote will look stupid. The political left swing that will come will cast those votes in a different light. Despite the bill’s horrible faults, Democrats still have eleven months to make it work for the benefit of the party. Clinton’s primary debate comment is right in that Universal Health Care is a core Democratic value.

It was never going to be easy to get back in balance so quickly, much less that left swing, that some say our country does on a fifty-year pendulum. The ravages of “rightness” are yet too great, too raw and open. We have been off balance to the right for so long this time, we have raised forty years worth of youngun’s to live with one short leg. Understandable leftist desperation of this system has made us grasp for an untenable coalition with DINOs and worse, while we let the oligarchs gain even more power.

This Congress and this President have produced something entitled “Universal Health Care”, whatever that might mean. While some us are telling the benefits of this bill, we know as Democrats it could be much, much better. We are about to be stuck with it. If we want single payer we are going to have to work some more.  If we want equality for women, it doesn’t come in this bill. We have to beat at it’s line items and sections until they are forged into something more acceptable.  Then we have to work for equality elsewhere, so that it may someday apply.

Though the House is in Holiday Recess, some few are working on the Reconciliation of the House and Senate bills now. H.R. 3590 and H.R 3962 are about to merge, travel to the President, and become law of the land, sometime next year, five days after the President signs it. So, for those of you who do have insurance, think about sitting down with your companies and getting some direction.

The next health care battles are here.

Never, never, never give up!

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091214 – Monday Ketchup

Posted in 51 Percent, Communications, ERA, Feminist Majority, Humanism, Indigenous, Justice, Politics, tagged , , , , , , , , on December 14, 2009| Leave a Comment »

It’s a world sprung anew. Even as we tweet away, others are watching. Transparency will be even more important – it’s time to end the Patriot Act. Only if we are vigilant about our rights, and work to be part of the legal architecture that builds around our new forms of communication, will those rights be upheld. It’s up to us.

Twitter Tapping

Published: December 12, 2009

The government is increasingly monitoring Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites for tax delinquents, copyright infringers and political protesters. A public interest group has filed a lawsuit to learn more about this monitoring, in the hope of starting a national discussion and modifying privacy laws as necessary for the online era.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/13/opinion/13sun2.html?src=tptw

I drove through Pecos once in 2006. It was in the evening, we were late, and my family, in the back of the RV was hot and already tired of the trip from SF to Leander, where my older daughter lived. There might have been three other cars on the road with me. A man was out on the main road with a big bunch of gorgeous looking cantaloupes – a tired man. His eyes bored right into mine as I passed. I hated myself even as I was doing it, but I passed him and his cantaloupes by.

Later, in the real estate news I saw homes going for next to nothing.  I saw a hundred acre farm, it could have been that tired old man’s, flat and plowed, with water and a home, for sale for less than most RV’s. Desperation builds desperate lives. Profit based prisons sprout and grow is such places. They are a disease of human nature preying on the desperate and less than equal. They do not provide equal protection under the law, as I think of it. They do not profit society. They profit people like those running the Vanguard Group and Geo Corporation and Wackenhut.

A Death in Texas

Profits, poverty, and immigration converge

Tom Barry

The Reeves County Detention Complex burns on the morning of February 2, 2009.

County Clerk Dianne Florez noticed it first. Plumes of smoke were rising outside the small West Texas town of Pecos. “The prison is burning again,” she announced.

About a month and a half before, on December 12, 2008, inmates had rioted to protest the death of one of their own, Jesus Manuel Galindo, 32. When Galindo’s body was removed from the prison in what looked to them like a large black trash bag, they set fire to the recreational center and occupied the exercise yard overnight. Using smuggled cell phones, they told worried family members and the media about poor medical care in the prison and described the treatment of Galindo, who had been in solitary confinement since mid-November. During that time, fellow inmates and his mother, who called the prison nearly every day, had warned authorities that Galindo needed daily medication for epilepsy and was suffering from severe seizures in the “security housing unit,” which the inmates call the “hole.”

http://bostonreview.net/BR34.6/barry.php

As the article below states, in fact, civil rights have been warred against since the law’s inception in 1964 – essentially how long our country has been leading off to the right. Human rights, that include equality by sex, were never achieved, even though some rights have been eked out law by law. It will take years to put us back on the path. The time to start is NOW and this looks like a start.

Civil Rights Division To Clean Up After 8 Years of Bush

Posted Wed, 12/09/2009 – 07:08

“Bush packed the Civil Rights Division with right-wing lawyers and administrators determined to erase even the most elementary gains made by minorities.”

The Obama administration has accomplished one solid achievement that may go down in the history books as at least a partial reversal of fortune for racial minorities in the United States. For eight long years, the Bush administration waged vicious political warfare against the very concept of civil rights, as we had come to understand it in America. Equal protection under the law became a dead letter in the U.S. Justice Department, whose Civil Rights Division was transformed into a bulwark of white male supremacy and petty reaction….]

http://www.blackagendareport.com/?q=content/civil-rights-division-clean-after-8-years-bush

A settlement from a Democratic administration, and for the individuals who fought for their rights:

Tribal Justice News

[Attorney General Holder, Secretary Salazar Announce Settlement of Cobell Lawsuit on Indian Trust Management (AG) 
On Dec. 8, 2009, Attorney General Eric Holder and Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar announced a settlement of the long-running and highly contentious Cobell class-action lawsuit regarding the U.S. government’s trust management and accounting of over three hundred thousand individual American Indian trust accounts…



http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2009/December/09-ag-1312.html
…]

http://nativetimes.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2740:tribal-justice-news&catid=55&Itemid=31

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Dec 9, 2009 – International Anti-Corruption Day

Posted in 51 Percent, Children, ERA, Feminism, Politics, War, women, tagged , , , , , , on December 10, 2009| Leave a Comment »

“It is not only governments and financial institutions that need to do more to prevent corruption and strengthen integrity. Corruption affects us all. It weakens democratic institutions, undermines the rule of law and enables terrorists to finance their nefarious work. On this International Day, let us all do our part to strengthen integrity, play by the rules, and turn the tide against this global menace.”

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon

Message on International Anti-Corruption Day

9 December 2009

Part of the chain of United Nations international observances that fall within the 16 days campaign to eliminate violence against women, this day arose out of the 43 page UN Resolution 58/4 on October 31, 2003. This resolution was made an official Convention by adoption in December 2005 after a minimum of 30 states (countries) had ratified the document and a Secretariat assigned. The Convention lays out definitions, agreements and procedures by which state and other entities such as regional economic organizations agree to abide, toward the elimination of corruption.

I have been unable to root out of the UN documents the most recent list of signatories to the Convention, however as of 2006, a total of 98 states had ratified it.

Education is an example of one area of human rights where the impact of corruption is different then men. UNIFEM has published a flagship biennial report entitled, “Progress of the World’s Women 2008/2009”. It part it indicates that women appear to be less tolerant and more vulnerable to corruption than men.

The U4 Anti Corruption Resource Center explains further that while there is no empirical evidence, there is a general consensus that women are disproportionately affected.  They make several points in this regard.

First, where women lack access to economic power, they are more reliant on public services. Where corruption occurs, those services suffer and undermine quality.

Second, without personal income it is more difficult to pay bribes and informal payments that may be part of the public system, and they may represent a higher portion of income for poor families. Since women head of households represent a disproportionate share of poor families, they are more greatly affected.

Third, in a non-equal world, poor families tend to reserve their available funds for boys.

Finally, women tend to have less access to redress, because of gender restricted roles and culture, and the lack of economic power, In a justice system that is gender based, rather than human based, women tend to lose out.

The thrust of these organizations is directed towards developing and war torn areas. However, their talking points resonate in the United States, as well.

Women here also represent a disproportionate share of poor heads of household. They are more likely to be dependant on public service. While most families may not make decisions by gender, over who should attend school, there is still disparity in educational choices and treatment. Since women are not equal under the eyes of the law, redress for grievances is different.

For further information, Transparency International has a wonderful resource page HERE.

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December 8th, 2009, Senate Health Battles to Date

Posted in 51 Percent, Children, ERA, Feminism, Feminist Majority, Great American Women, Health Care, I Own My Vote, just say no deal, LGBT, NOW, Politics, The New Agenda, women, tagged , , on December 8, 2009| Leave a Comment »

The continuing saga of H.R. 3590.

Members of the Senate have now submitted 150 amendments to H.R. 3590, including approved S.AMDT.2786, which changed the name of the bill to the PATIENT PROTECTION AND AFFORDABLE HEALTH CARE FOR ALL AMERICANS, and substituted the health care text for that of the original bill involving homeownership. As you may recall that amendment was approved on November 21st when the motion for cloture was agreed to.

Since that time the following additional five amendments have been approved, one amended amendment has been approved and one has been tabled:

S.AMDT.2791 – Mikulski Amdt. 2791 As Amended (by AMDT.2808.); To clarify provisions relating to first dollar coverage for preventive services for women.

S.AMDT.2826 – Bennet Amdt. No. 2826; To protect and improve guaranteed Medicare benefits.

S.AMDT.2870 – Whitehouse Amdt. No. 2870; To promote fiscal responsibility by protecting the Social Security surplus and CLASS program savings in this Act.

S.AMDT. 2899 – Stabenow Amdt. No. 2899; To ensure that there is no reduction or elimination of any benefits guaranteed by law to participants in Medicare Advantage plans.

S.AMDT.2926  – Kerry Amdt No. 2926; To protect home health benefits.

S.AMDT.2939 – Pryor Amdt. No. 2939; To require the Secretary to provide information regarding enrollee satisfaction with qualified health plans offered through an Exchange through the Internet portal.

And one motion to successful tabling of an amendment S.AMDT.2963 – Motion to Table Nelson Amdt. No. 2962; to prohibit the use of Federal funds for abortions.

On the other side, the following five amendments have been rejected and 4 motions have been rejected:

S.AMDT.2836 – Murkowski Amdt. No. 2836; To ensure patients receive doctor recommendations for preventive health services, including mammograms and cervical cancer screening, without interference from government or insurance company bureaucrats.

S.AMDT.2901 – Thune Amdt. No. 2901; To eliminate new entitlement programs and limit the government control over the health care of American families.

S.AMDT.2905 – Lincoln Amdt. No. 2905; To modify the limit on excessive remuneration paid by certain health insurance providers to set the limit at the same levels as the salary of the President of the United States.

S.AMDT.2927 – Ensign Amdt. No. 2927; Relative to limitation on amount of attorneys contingency fees.

S.AMDT.2942 – Gregg Amdt. No. 2942; To prevent Medicare from being raided for new entitlements and to use Medicare savings to save Medicare.

McCain Motion to Commit H.R. 3590 to the Committee on Finance; Service Members Home Ownership Tax Act of 2009.

Hatch Motion to Commit H.R. 3590 to the Committee on Finance; Service Members Home Ownership Tax Act of 2009

Johanns Motion to Commit to the Committee on Finance; Service Members Home Ownership Tax Act of 2009

McCain Motion to Commit H.R. 3590 to the Committee on Finance; Service Members Home Ownership Tax Act of 2009.

As you can see, with only twelve amendments dispensed out of one hundred and fifty, the battle and debate for our national health care is not done. It seems a little unrealistic for Reid to say they will be done by the Holiday Break- but hey, he’s the expert.

Senator Boxer’s successful push to get the “Nelson Abortion” abortion tabled , was tremendous. It might take some of the pressure off. HERE is the vote:

Grouped By Vote Position
YEAs —54
Akaka (D-HI)Baucus (D-MT)

Begich (D-AK)

Bennet (D-CO)

Bingaman (D-NM)

Boxer (D-CA)

Brown (D-OH)

Burris (D-IL)

Cantwell (D-WA)

Cardin (D-MD)

Carper (D-DE)

Collins (R-ME)

Dodd (D-CT)

Durbin (D-IL)

Feingold (D-WI)

Feinstein (D-CA)

Franken (D-MN)

Gillibrand (D-NY)

 Hagan (D-NC)Harkin (D-IA)

Inouye (D-HI)

Johnson (D-SD)

Kerry (D-MA)

Kirk (D-MA)

Klobuchar (D-MN)

Kohl (D-WI)

Landrieu (D-LA)

Lautenberg (D-NJ)

Leahy (D-VT)

Levin (D-MI)

Lieberman (ID-CT)

Lincoln (D-AR)

McCaskill (D-MO)

Menendez (D-NJ)

Merkley (D-OR)

Mikulski (D-MD)

 Murray (D-WA)Nelson (D-FL)

Reed (D-RI)

Reid (D-NV)

Rockefeller (D-WV)

Sanders (I-VT)

Schumer (D-NY)

Shaheen (D-NH)

Snowe (R-ME)

Specter (D-PA)

Stabenow (D-MI)

Tester (D-MT)

Udall (D-CO)

Udall (D-NM)

Warner (D-VA)

Webb (D-VA)

Whitehouse (D-RI)

Wyden (D-OR)
NAYs —45
Alexander (R-TN)Barrasso (R-WY)

Bayh (D-IN)

Bennett (R-UT)

Bond (R-MO)

Brownback (R-KS)

Bunning (R-KY)

Burr (R-NC)

Casey (D-PA)

Chambliss (R-GA)

Coburn (R-OK)

Cochran (R-MS)

Conrad (D-ND)

Corker (R-TN)

Cornyn (R-TX)

 Crapo (R-ID)DeMint (R-SC)

Dorgan (D-ND)

Ensign (R-NV)

Enzi (R-WY)

Graham (R-SC)

Grassley (R-IA)

Gregg (R-NH)

Hatch (R-UT)

Hutchison (R-TX)

Inhofe (R-OK)

Isakson (R-GA)

Johanns (R-NE)

Kaufman (D-DE)

Kyl (R-AZ)

 LeMieux (R-FL)Lugar (R-IN)

McCain (R-AZ)

McConnell (R-KY)

Murkowski (R-AK)

Nelson (D-NE)

Pryor (D-AR)

Risch (R-ID)

Roberts (R-KS)

Sessions (R-AL)

Shelby (R-AL)

Thune (R-SD)

Vitter (R-LA)

Voinovich (R-OH)

Wicker (R-MS)
Not Voting – 1
Byrd (D-WV)

If you want to know more go HERE.

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Our Boxer wins the Round-Nelson Tabled

Posted in 51 Percent, Children, ERA, Feminism, Feminist Majority, I Own My Vote, just say no deal, LGBT, NOW, Politics, The New Agenda, women, tagged , , , , , on December 8, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Link over to the Confluence HERE. They caught it as Senator Boxer was able to effectuate  tabling the  Nelson Amendment on abortion. I’ll have more later.

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The Monarchs Die

Posted in 51 Percent, Children, ERA, Feminism, Great American Women, NOW, Politics, Sports, women, tagged , , on December 8, 2009| 2 Comments »

SacBee is reporting that the Monarchs did not find a team buyer. The players will be dispersed to other teams. I liked one commenter’s point attached to this article, that the winning team (The women’s) was being killed and the losing Kings team (The men’s) was not.

Draft will disperse Monarchs players after bid for Bay Area move fails

By Debbie Arrington

darrington@sacbee.com

Published: Tuesday, Dec. 8, 2009 – 11:11 am

[Instead of moving as a team, Monarchs players will be dispersed Monday in New York, the WNBA announced.

Today, the WNBA scheduled a dispersal draft of Sacramento’s franchise, one of the original eight WNBA teams and the 2005 champions….]

http://www.sacbee.com/latest/story/2379917.html

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Thoughts on Scahill and Prince

Posted in 51 Percent, Children, ERA, Feminism, Politics, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 4, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Update – Ok, maybe nobody understands this post. READ THE “HERE” LINK! Barry is saying that 18% of all SBA loans between 2000-20008 went to the Alaska Indians(ANCs) and that THREE/QUARTERS OF ALL SBA LOANS in 2008, went there. I DON’T CARE that it went to ANC’s as such. After all, it fed their families, they found the loopholes and it produced jobs. I CARE about the way in which it was used – SECURITY!@!, a lot of it out of state and to non indian subcontractors!?! If all that SBA resource is being used to buy security it doesn’t get spent on OTHER business. In addition, I want to know if these contracts counted as defense money and how. don’t you? I want to know WHY the SBA was so accommodating! Don’t you?

In light of Jeremy Scahill’s recent media vomit, I thought it would be useful to link a recent post HERE, from Tom Barry, who runs the “Border Lines” blog on, primarily, border, immigration, trade illegal drugs and environmental degradation. I urge you to read it.

I wonder if Scahill’s angry statements, Prince’s upcoming Vanity Fair tantrum, and the uproar they are sure to cause, is a hopeful ( I know, pretend I didn’t say that.) sign, and are indicative of a new direction. Things can only get better after they are fluffed out in the sunlight. I don’t know if we fully understand yet, the depth to which we have sold ourselves to profit. Maybe we are beginning to.

I want to stress that Barry’s post primarily relates to border issues. As such, what has happened in Alaska may only be a very small piece of this mess. However, it sure does give a whole new meaning to whatever anyone thought about that state’s politics.

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How to Search for and Find Stuff on H. R. 3590.

Posted in 51 Percent, Children, ERA, Feminism, Health Care, Politics, tagged , , , , , , , on December 4, 2009| 2 Comments »

If you want to make your own evaluation of the health bill’s progress, go to Thomas at the Library of Congress. In fact, aside from information from pundits you trust, this is one of the best ways to avoid heart palpitations. That is because the amendments are numbered and entered before they are debated. That gives you a little time to read them for yourself and ponder a few questions. Here is how:

As we said, on November 21st the Senate agreed to debate H.R. 3590 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act”.  That debate began on December 2nd. Since  HR. 3590 was amended by S.Amdt.2786, and changed to the health care act, as of this morning, another 91 amendments have been proposed. Several have been voted on and approved.

They are numbered and listed in numerical order as they arrive to the Senate Floor. Most of them do not yet have titles, but are to be given them at the time of their debate. They all have text and can be found and read by doing a search at the Library of Congress. If you want to try, it’s really pretty easy after you get the hang of it, and it is public information to which everyone is entitled. Go HERE.

This is the search page for all bills.  Type in where it says “word/phrase”, the title: “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act”, and hit the orange search button below.

Right now this search will give you a list of around 60 possible bills, with one at the top listed exactly as entered. That is H.R.3590.AS. Clicking on that link will take you to the index of the bill, from which you can do several interesting things. Click the link that says: “Bill Summary & Status file”. This will give you an overview of all the places the bill’s activity is being recorded.

Click “Amendments”. This will give you a list of 92, or possibly more, later in the day, with the first one, S.AMDT.2786 that changed the bill from a homeowners affordablity bill, to a health care bill at the top. It you want to read more about these later, or get the text just click on one of the amendment numbers.

However, let’s do a back click to the previous page. All the current information about the bill that the Library of Congress has can be gathered from this location. The current text can be downloaded from here; also cosponsors, dates, and related bills.

If you want to know what happened yesterday, The Congressional Record (CR) does what it’s title suggests; It records for posterity all the debate and action that occurred. So click the link that says “Congressional Record with Amendments”. This will take you to an index of all activity that H.R.3590 has received since it was first introduced to the Senate.

As an example, scroll down to 12/2/09 and AMDT.2808. It says it was proposed by Durbin for Vitter. The number below; CRS12152 is the link to the overview of  the index of the actual debate and speech as recorded in text. Don’t be fooled by the title, “SERVICE MEMBERS HOME OWNERSHIP TAX ACT OF 2009”, remember, that was the bill’s title before it was gutted and the health bill inserted. The CR must maintain the chain of information. Click on the top link dated “Senate – December 02, 2009”. There is the index. The debate for S.AMDT.2808 is index listed by page. Clicking a page will give you a word for word text of the debate till the next page.

Back clicking to the Congressional Record index and checking all the references for S.AMDT.2808, you will see that this amendment was voted on and passed. So, it is now a part of bill H.R. 3590.

Similarly, if you want to see what was said by Senator McCain, yesterday, in regards to Social Security, check out December 3rd. On November 30th he had recommended that the Bill be sent to the Finance Committee. That motion was voted down yesterday.

Try it out, and make up your own mind about what is happening.

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